* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits in the first place... * netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress

The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this. ~ Bruno Latour

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. -- Kim Hubbard

My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on the alter of human limitations. I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the earth really does revolve about the sun. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"

Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition: 182. Whenever you're being asked if you are god, the right answer is YES

Throughput: What you feel like doing with your foot and your computer screen after you see the message "General Failure Error Reading Drive C:".

"The key thing about all the world’s big problems is that they have to be dealt with collectively. If we don’t get collectively smarter, we’re doomed." ~ Doug Engelbart, 2006

First rule of change is controversy. You can't get away from it for the simple reason all issues are controversial. Change means movement, and movement means friction, and friction means heat, and heat means controversy. -- Saul Alinsky

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards. ~ Bertrand Russell

The composition of a common world would be the definition of politics. ~ Bruno Latour

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself. ~ Michele de Montaigne

1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty 1929 The high sign of refreshment 1929 The pause that refreshes 1930 It had to be good to get where it is 1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing 1935 The pause that brings friends together 1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed 1938 The best friend thirst ever had 1939 Thirst stops here 1942 It's the real thing 1947 Have a Coke 1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING 1963 Things go better with Coke 1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand 1979 Have a Coke and a smile 1982 Coke is it! -- Coca-Cola slogans

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. -- George Carlin

Paper Architecture Hang a large sheet or several large sheets of paper. Inscribe the sheets are with full-scale architectural features, such as doors, windows, or stairs, or with objects such as furniture, lamps, books, etc. Use these drawings to imagine, create, or map an environment. The drawings may create or map new features in an existing environment. They may mirror, double or reconstruct existing features in situ or elsewhere. To create relatively permanent features with the drawings, apply them directly to a wall. 1968-1972 San Francisco, California ~ Ken Friedman

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong. -- H. L. Mencken

Paper Architecture Hang a large sheet or several large sheets of paper. Inscribe the sheets are with full-scale architectural features, such as doors, windows, or stairs, or with objects such as furniture, lamps, books, etc. Use these drawings to imagine, create, or map an environment. The drawings may create or map new features in an existing environment. They may mirror, double or reconstruct existing features in situ or elsewhere. To create relatively permanent features with the drawings, apply them directly to a wall. 1968-1972 San Francisco, California ~ Ken Friedman

... I don't know why but, suddenly, I want to discuss declining I.Q. LEVELS with a blue ribbon SENATE SUB-COMMITTEE!

To be in love is to be worldly, to be in connection with significant otherness and signifying ohers, on many scales, in layers of locals and globals, in ramifying webs. ~ Donna J. Haraway

We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them. -- Carl Jung

Professional men, they have no cares; whatever happens, they get theirs. -- Ogden Nash