I am reminded of those prodigies who spent years of their lives calculating digits of the decimal expansion of - a task that is now a mere warm-up exercise for computer software. I cannot help wandering which of my labors will appear equally quaint and pathetic to some future reader who ransacks libraries for old volumes like this one.   \nBrian Hayes
The practice of first developing a clear and precise definition of a process without regard for efficiency, and then using it as a guide and a test in exploring equivalent processes possessing other characteristics, such as greater efficiency, is very common in mathematics. It is a very fruitful practice which should not be blighted by premature emphasis on efficiency in computer execution.          \nkenneth e. iverson
The life-efficiency and adaptability of the computer must be questioned. Its judicious use depends upon the availability of its human employers quite literally to keep their own heads, not merely to scrutinize the programming but to reserve for themselves the right of ultimate decision. No automatic system can be intelligently run byautomatonsor by people who dare not assert human intuition, human autonomy, human purpose.     \nLewis Mumford    \n— 1970  The Myth of the Machine.  
These days it seems like any idiot with a laptop computer can churn out a business book and make a few bucks. That's certainly what I'm hoping. It would be a real letdown if the trend changed before this masterpiece goes to print.   \nscott adams    \n— The Dilbert Principle (1995)
The term "informatics" was first defined by Saul Gorn of University of Pennsylvania in 1983 (Gorn, 1983) as computer science plus information science used in conjunction with the name of a discipline such as business administration or biology. It denotes an application of computer science and information science to the management and processing of data, information and knowledge in the named discipline.     \nsaul gorn    \n— Paul Griffiths (2006) Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management. p.129
Holland's and Kauffman's work, together with Dawkins' simulations of evolution and Varela's models of autopoietic systems, provide essential inspiration for the new discipline of artificial life, This approach, initiated by Chris Langton (1989, 1992), tries to develop technological systems (computer programs and autonomous robots) that exhibit lifelike properties, such as reproduction, sexuality, swarming, and co-evolution.     \njohn henry holland   \n— Francis Heylighen (1996) "Complex Adaptive Systems" on: Principia Cybernetica Web, Nov 12, 1996
Saul Gorn, an authority on machine oi automated language who has expanded his interests from the use of the computer foi information storage and retrieval to the broader topic of the "'information pollution" and an examination of the forces which contribute to it...   \nsaul gorn          \n— National Association of Educational Broadcasters (1968) Educational Broadcasting Review Vol 2. p. 32; Article "Teaching As A Private Process"
Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch.  \ntim berners-lee       \n— Interview by Kris Herbst for Internet World (June 1994)
When somebody has learned how to program a computer … You're joining a group of people who can do incredible things. They can make the computer do anything they can imagine.    \ntim berners-lee   \n— From An Insight, An Idea with Tim Berners-Lee at 27:27 (25 January 2013)
It is one thing to coolly design a portfolio strategy on a sheet of paper or computer monitor, and quite another to actually deploy it.  \nWilliam Bernstein \n— Chapter 4, The Perfect Portfolio, p. 115
It is unlawful to reproduce or distribute someone else's copyrighted work without that person's authorization. Indeed, courts have entered numerous permanent injunctions and awarded statutory damages and attorneys' fees regarding infringement of these and similar works. ... preserve any and all documents pertaining to this matter...including, but not limited to, logs, data entry sheets, applications - electronic or otherwise, registrations forms, billings statements or invoices, computer print-outs, disks, hard drives, etc. \n— Ava Paquette of law firm Moxon & Kobrin, legal letter to Wikileaks from Church of Scientology, after Wikileaks published its "Operating Thetan" documents — reported in Metz, Cade (April 8, 2008). "Scientology threatens Wikileaks with injunction". The Register (www.theregister.co.uk). Retrieved on 2009-03-04. 
computer programming is like the ability or skill to see what Picasso saw from all the different angles at once. If it is an art, the crucial element of art is to look at things from an angle that produces new insight or at least has that potential.   \nerik naggum   \n— Re: Guide to Lisp, v1.20 (Usenet article)
I usually have to be home by 10 o'clock and my mom takes my computer away at 10.30pm every night.    \njustin bieber    \n— Quoted in Stv entertainment "Justin Bieber's strict mother", May 2010
It is unlawful to reproduce or distribute someone else's copyrighted work without that person's authorization. Indeed, courts have entered numerous permanent injunctions and awarded statutory damages and attorneys' fees regarding infringement of these and similar works. ... preserve any and all documents pertaining to this matter...including, but not limited to, logs, data entry sheets, applications - electronic or otherwise, registrations forms, billings statements or invoices, computer print-outs, disks, hard drives, etc.  \n— Ava Paquette of law firm Moxon & Kobrin, legal letter to Wikileaks from Church of Scientology, after Wikileaks published its "Operating Thetan" documents — reported in Metz, Cade (April 8, 2008). "Scientology threatens Wikileaks with injunction". The Register (www.theregister.co.uk). Retrieved on 2009-03-04. 
I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.
alan kay    \n— YouTube video
“I have long been alarmed by people’s sheeplike acceptance of the term ‘computer technology’ — it sounds so objective and inexorable — when most computer technology is really a bunch of ideas turned into conventions and packages.”   \nted nelson          \n— Quoted in In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates by John Markoff, published January 10, 2009 in the New York Times, page BU4 of the New York edition.
With the emergence of nuclear-missile weaponry, cybernetics, electronics, and computer equipment, any subjective approach to military problems, hare-brained plans, and superficiality can cause irreparable damage.      \nmatvei zakharov  \n— Quoted in "Stalin's Generals" - Page 338 - by Harold Shukman - History - 2002
To listen to Mr. Engelbart that day almost five years ago was to realize that the computer industry, when it started, was not simply about becoming a chief executive or retiring on stock options at 35. It was to remember that real innovation — the stuff that made computers so much more than "crummy factors of production" — comes from mysterious places, wild people, dreamers and tinkerers, and to remember all the skepticism they had to endure.   \nellen ullman     \n— "The Orphans of Invention". The New York Times (San Francisco): p. A33. 22 May 2003. ISSN 03624331. 
Consciousness is much more of the implicate order than is matter . . . Yet at a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven , just as in the computer game the player and the screen are united by participation.    \ndavid bohm    \n— Statement of 1987, as quoted in Towards a Theory of Transpersonal Decision-Making in Human-Systems (2007) by Joseph Riggio, p. 66
Man is about to be an automaton; he is identifiable only in the computer. As a person of worth and creativity, as a being with an infinite potential, he retreats and battles the forces that make him inhuman. The dissent we witness is a reaffirmation of faith in man; it is protest against living under rules and prejudices and attitudes that produce the extremes of wealth and poverty and that make us dedicated to the destruction of people through arms, bombs, and gases, and that prepare us to think alike and be submissive objects for the regime of the computer.  \nwilliam o. douglas     \n— Points of Rebellion (1970), p. 32–33.
We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.    \nsteve jobs  \n— Interview in Macworld magazine (February 2004)
Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.  ~Doug Larson
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees.  That'll do them in.  ~Author Unknown
The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back.  ~Author Unknown
Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.  ~Author Unknown
To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.  ~Bill Vaughan, 1969 (Thanks, Garson O'Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!)
Treat your password like your toothbrush.  Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months.  ~Clifford Stoll
User, n.  The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."  ~Dave Barry
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.  ~Edsger W. Dijkstra
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.  ~Joseph Campbell
Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living. ~Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital, 1995
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
~David Dixon, 1998, winning entry of the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
Computers, huh?  I've heard it all boils down to just a bunch of ones and zeroes.... I don't know how that enables me to see naked women, but however it works, God bless you guys.  ~From the television show King of Queens, spoken by the character Doug Heffernan
After growing wildly for years, the field of computing appears to be reaching its infancy.  ~John Pierce
Hardware:  where the people in your company's software section will tell you the problem is.  Software:  where the people in your company's hardware section will tell you the problem is.  ~Dave Barry, Claw Your Way to the Top
But they are useless.  They can only give you answers.  ~Pablo Picasso, about computers
Computers have lots of memory but no imagination.  ~Author Unknown
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
~Suzie Wagner, 1998, honorable mention in the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
As network administrator I can take down the network with one keystroke.  It's just like being a doctor but without getting gooky stuff on my paws.  ~Scott Adams ("Dogbert")
If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.  ~Scott Adams
Database:  the information you lose when your memory crashes.  ~Dave Barry, Claw Your Way to the Top
A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.  ~Mitch Ratcliffe
Back up my hard drive?  How do I put it in reverse?  ~Author Unknown
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.  ~Andy Rooney
Don't anthropomorphize computers - they hate it.  ~Author Unknown
Hardware:  the parts of a computer that can be kicked.  ~Jeff Pesis
I haven't lost my mind; I have a tape back-up somewhere.  ~Author Unknown
I just wish my mouth had a backspace key.  ~Author Unknown
Spreadsheet:  a kind of program that lets you sit at your desk and ask all kinds of neat "what if?" questions and generate thousands of numbers instead of actually working.  ~Dave Barry, Claw Your Way to the Top
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.  ~One of Murphy's Laws of Technology
A picture is worth a thousand words but it takes 3,000 times the disk space.  ~Author Unknown
If it draws blood, it's hardware.  ~Author Unknown
In God we trust, all others we virus scan.  ~Author Unknown
It's not computer literacy that we should be working on, but sort of human-literacy.  Computers have to become human-literate.  ~Nicholas P. Negroponte
Rebooting is a wonder drug — it fixes almost everything. ~Garrett Hazel, "Help Desk Blues," 2002
A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind.  ~Joseph Weizenbaum
Jesus saves!  The rest of us better make backups.  ~Author Unknown
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.  ~John F. Kennedy
RAM disk is not an installation procedure.  ~Author Unknown
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its power cord.  ~Author Unknown
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec/sec. ~Marcus Dolengo
I had a life once. Now I have a computer. ~Author Unknown
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. ~Eric Porterfield
Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match.  But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role.  The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them.  In our industry, Bill Gates owns the table until someone proves otherwise.  ~David Moschella
Do files get embarrassed when they're unzipped?  ~Author Unknown
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that
~Margaret Segall, 1998, honorable mention in the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim.  ~Edsger W. Dijkstra
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.  ~Sydney J. Harris
There are 10 types of people in this world:  those who understand binary and those who don't.  ~Author Unknown
There are three kinds of death in this world.  There's heart death, there's brain death, and there's being off the network.  ~Guy Almes
Truth is, I wouldn't know a gigabyte from a snakebite.  ~Dolly Parton
Computers are like air conditioners.  They work fine until you start opening windows.  ~Author Unknown
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
~Peter Rothman, 1998, honorable mention in the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven.  I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.  ~Bill Gates
There are two major products that came out of Berkeley:  LSD and UNIX.  We do not believe this to be a coincidence.  ~Jeremy S. Anderson
My computer kept beating the pants off me at chess, until I discovered that it was no match against me at kickboxing.  ~Author Unknown
Stay the patient course
Of little worth is your ire
The network is down
~David Ansel, 1998, honorable mention in the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about.  It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work.  The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!  ~Richard P. Feynman
There is only one satisfying way to boot a computer.  ~J.H. Goldfuss
Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software. ~Author Unknown
All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men. ~Isaac Asimov
I regularly read Internet user groups filled with messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss. ~Dave Barry
A user and his leisure time are soon parted.  ~Author Unknown
Apathy Error:  Don't bother striking any key.  ~Author Unknown
At least my pencil never crashes!  ~Author Unknown
There is a chasm
of carbon and silicon
the software can't bridge
~Rahul Sonnad, 1998, honorable mention in the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
DOS computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide.  Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.  ~Author Unknown
Home is where you hang your @.  ~Author Unknown
To have no errors
Would be life without meaning
No struggle, no joy
~Brian M. Porter, 1998, honorable mention in the Haiku Error Messages 21st Challenge by Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau, sponsored by Salon.com
I wish life had an Undo function.  ~Author Unknown
In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would have taken many men many months to equal it.  ~Author Unknown
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time Windows crashes... oh, wait a minute, he already does.  ~Author Unknown
In the old days, people robbed stagecoaches and knocked off armored trucks.  Now they're knocking off servers.  ~Richard Power
Mac users swear by their computers.  PC users swear at their computers.  ~Author Unknown
I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: "Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end."  ~Douglas Adams
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.  ~Werner von Braun
Microsoft, where quality is job 1.1.  ~Author Unknown
Software is slowing faster than hardware is accelerating.  ~Martin Reiser, quoted by Nicklaus Wirth, 1995, which spawned "Grove giveth, and Gates taketh away," author unknown, referring to CEOs of Intel and Microsoft
Some people can hack it, others can't.  ~Author Unknown
The inside of a computer is as dumb as hell but it goes like mad!  ~Richard Feynman
Unix was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.  ~Doug Gwyn
Unix is simple.  It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity.  ~Dennis Ritchie
Unix never says "please."  ~Rob Pike
The Unix philosophy basically involves giving you just enough rope to hang yourself.  And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure.  ~Author Unknown
Unless in communicating with it one says exactly what one means, trouble is bound to result.  ~Alan Turing, about computers
What boots up must come down.  ~Author Unknown
Windows is just DOS in drag.  ~Author Unknown
Computers must be female.  No one but the creator understands their internal logic.  The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.  The message "Bad command or file name" is about as informative as, "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going to tell you."  Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for later retrieval.  As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.  ~Author Unknown
Computers must be male.  As soon as you commit to one you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.  In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.  Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the day.  ~Author Unknown