Herding Cats

Quote of the Day

If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the questions, and only five minutes finding the answers - attributed to Albert Einstein. When we hear a proposed solution to an observed problem... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Forgetfulness in the learner's souls, because they will not use their memories ... they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. – Winston Churchill The management of software development is fraught with risk: technical risk, market risk, requirements risk, and... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest,... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it." The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Skills that engender competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that domain one's own or anyone else's - Justin Kruger and David Dunning, in "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The estimator’s charter is not to state what developers should do, but rather to provide a reasonable projection of what they will do. – T. DeMarco, Controlling Software Projects, Prentice Hall PTR, 1982. This quote is from the paper "Quantifying... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Although we often hear that data speaks for themselves, their voices can be soft and sly - Frederick Mosteller, Stephen E. Fienberg, and Robert E. K. Bourke, Beginning Statistics with S=Data Analyusism Reading Massachusetts, 1983, pp. 234. Read more →

Quote of the Day

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. - Martin Luther King Read more →

Quote of the Day

Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the Speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter, and substance - Ben Johnson, London 1614, first printed in... Read more →

Quote of the Day

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled - Richard P. Feynman, What do You Care What Other People Think? Read more →

Quote of the Day

This axiom often attributed to Albert Einstein about the definition of insanity. As it turns out, insanity might be crediting this quote to Einstein over and over again. He never said it. While the tongue-in-cheek definition may or may not... Read more →

Quote of the Day

The English Language ... becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts - Geroge Orwell, "Politics and the English Language Read more →

Quote of the Day

“Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown—the first instinct is to eliminate those distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The first idea which explains that the unknown is in fact the known does so... Read more →

Quote of the Day

Practices don't follow rules Rules follow emerging practices Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster 10 Years Later, Wayne Hale, Former NASA Space Shuttle Flight Director. Read more →

Quote of the Day

If we understand what Capabilities are needed to produce business value or fulfill a mission, we can then identify what technical or operational requirements are needed to deliver those capabilities — Glen B. Alleman This is a closing quote from... Read more →

Quote(s) of the Day

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” — Charlie Munger “We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your... Read more →

Quote of the Day

I want to know God's thoughts. The rest is mere details - Albert Einstein Read more →

Quote of the Day

Eyes on the Prize Our mind works by error-correction, but we don't want to know about our errors, we only have eyes for the goal. As Chairman Iacocca has said: we like to read about success but what we have... Read more →

Quote of the Day

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. - Alan Turing Read more →