Saturday, June 9, 2012

QOTD: Gigo

API copyrights are dead: "Beware of the ‘Black Swan’ fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you – with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the ‘Gigo Law,’ i.e., ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’

Inductive logic is much more difficult – but can produce new truths.

— Lazarus Long"
UPDATE: And another:
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. — Lazarus Long
I need to go back and refresh my Heinlein... UPDATED AGAIN: OK, Just one more:
Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. — Lazarus Long
I could have sworn I had posted this one before but I can't find it now...