"Plan to throw one away. You will anyway."
-- Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner,
and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops,
not just because you fear she might be crazy. If she tells her tale on
camera, you might listen. Watching strangers on television , even
responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs
collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community. Never
have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little.
-- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television
in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional".
It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and
by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate
the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the
case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations
which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are
like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they
require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
-- Alfred North Whitehead
