http://kallahar.com/quotes.php
Its currently dead (at time of writing Server 500 Error).
Below are my favourites.
Freedom is something you have to take for yourself. Cory Doctorow - Little Brother "Of the 92 naturally occuring elements, 25 are essential to life." "The government itself is taking away the rights the terrorists are trying to deny us." - Howard Dean "In most cases, I have found that getting to know someone online, over time, gives you a better perspective on how that person sees themselves." - TimTheFoolMan on Slashdot "Worring about things that are unlikely is a waste of prescious life." - Penn, from Penn & Teller's Bullshit "The marketplace is going to take advantage of the fact that we're afraid, and look for ways to sell us products that make us *feel* safer." - From Penn & Teller's Bullshit "Creative people create for the joy of it." - Marshall Brain - Manna "I have a red sign on my door. It says 'If this sign is blue, you're going too fast.'" - Slashdot sig The pioneers of a warless world are the young men who refuse military service. - Albert Einstein "The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don't have to understand anything, no physics, no biology," he added. "I wanted to understand." - James Watson, a discoverer of DNA "You laugh at us because we are all different; we laugh at you because you are all the same." - unknown, hacker's sig "Irresponsibility: No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood." "Blasphemy laws are the first sign of tyranny." - Unknown "Nothing offends religious people more than having their beliefs identified as precisely what they are -- superstition. Although religion and superstition both involve the embrace of unsubstantiated supernatural phenomena, for some reason the mere comparison of the two is considered intolerant, not to mention rude and insulting. So whereas the superstitious may be mocked, the religious must be respected. A rabbit’s foot worn around the neck is foolish but a crucifix is pious; salt over the shoulder is useless but water upon the forehead is salvific." Evolution: Observation -> Hypothesis -> Testing -> Debate Creationism: Fiction -> Asserting -> Insisting -> Twisting Facts -> Torturing - Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" on Showtime "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire Theists think all gods but theirs are false. Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one. "Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer." - Anonymous "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - - Stephen Roberts "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato Socrates was concerned less with knowing the right answers than with the strenuous attempt to discover those answers. - The Passion of the Western Mind The life not tested by criticism is not worth living. - Socrates If people believe in their society, they don't break its rules. - Patriot Games by Tom Clancy The web has the potential allow the people unprecidented access to their elected leaders. email's can be sent to politicians, companies, local leaders, anyone at all and at any time of day. - "Protesting in a Cyberdemocracy" Our best defense is knowledge. - Tuvoc, Star Trek Voyager When I was young, I accepted it without question. - Tuvoc, Star Trek Voyager Failure isn't falling down ... it's staying down. - Jack & Jill by James Patterson Seventy percent of Americans get nearly one hundred percent of their information from television and the movies. - Jack & Jill by James Patterson Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke The probability of success is difficult to estimate, but if we never search, the chance of success is zero. - Phillip Morrison Running away makes a circle. - Laura Thompson When you give your children wisdom, you do not tell them what to know, or what is true, but rather how to get to their own truth. - Conversations with God Knowledge is the only hope this planet has for survival. - Dick Solomon - 3rd Rock From the Sun The creation of a maximum security society does not come overnight. - Discovery Channel - Big Brother There are things that the governments of the world cover up, these operations are always denied and are usually successful at being covered up. There are a few people among us who devote their lives to exposing the vile corruptness and incessant disinformation spewed by our loving government. Those people use minor clues to draw conclusions which are sometime right, sometimes wrong. But you can be assured that every story they report, every conspiracy they concoct is based in reality. All we ask is that you read what we say, and think about what you view as truth and what as lie. Just think about what you see -- the government is not always right, especially the military. - Unknown Source Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. - Animal Farm by George Orwell All you will ever be you are now becoming. - Guest on Oprah - Nov.2.1999 Hold your thumb out at arms length. In the patch of sky covered by your thumb the Keck Observatory can see over 250,000 galaxies. - Discovery Channel - Discovery News The Desert Gecko licks it's eyelidless eyes to keep them clean. - Discovery Channel - Wild Treasures of the East Bertrand thought it ironic that the human tendency towards self-destruction was the only thing that kept the visitors at bay. - Forbidden Summit by Payne Harrison In the end, the rating system is only as effective as the parents who use it. ... To make the system work, parents will have to read the TV listings or watch the programs with their children. But if more parents had been willing to do that, th ere probably would have been no demand for the V-Chip in the first place. - A Delicate Balance by Paul C. Light We've got a situation where most human beings on the planet have their nervous systems augmented -- to the extent that I can sit in this hotel room and watch something happening in Tokyo as it happens, by virtue of these systems that my species has created. - William Gibson, Interview Thre are those who would tell us that we can't afford to establish a permanent presence on the Moon. They are the descendants of Isabella's advisors, who thought Europe could not afford to open up the Atlantic. Moonfall by Jack McDevitt Everyone has a different vision of a perfect world. - Unknown You can make what you want to out of prison. Some people sit around and do dope all day. Others immerse themselves in a routine of work and exercise. I studied technology and music. Regardless, prisons are no longer a place of rehabilitation. They serve only to punish and conditions are only going to worsen. The effect is that angry, uneducated, and unproductive inmates are being released back into society. - Phrack Magazine Issue 52-5 Whatever happened to getting off on a technicality? I'm sorry to say those days are gone, left only to the movies. The courts generally dismiss many arguments as "harmless error" or "the government acted in good faith". The most alarming trend, and surely the root of the prosecutions success, are the liberally worded conspiracy laws. Quite simply, if two or more people plan to do something illegal, then one of them does something in furtherance of the objective (even something legal), then it's a crime. Yes, it's true. In America it's illegal to simply talk about committing a crime. Paging Mr. Orwell. Hello? - Phrack Magazine Issue 52-5 "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein "It bugs him that he can buy a handgun, a right he enthusiastically supports, but not a lawn dart toy banned by the government because it could hurt children." - Article about Jesse Ventura "Those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it." - Unknown "The fact is is that the universe is going to stop expanding and it is going to collapse in on itself. We've got to do something before it's too late." "How much time do we have left?" "Sixty trillion years, seventy at the most." - Character on a Star Trek DS9 episode. "When they took the fourth amendment, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I was quiet because I was innocent. When they took the second amendment, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun. Now they've taken the first amendment, and I can say nothing about it." - Unknown - Thinking about the future "Today there are over 5 billion humans on the planet, and more are on the way. Each person has the potential to create and share with the world an idea or invention that will change the course of history. "However, this will not happen unless we encourage our children, who are the people of the next millenium, to think expansively and offer their thoughts to others." - Isaac Asimov On March 18, 1996, Time published an article titled "I'VE BEEN SPAMMED!" The story concerned a list-linking incident involving the President of the United States, two well-known hacking magazines, and a senior editor at Time. Apparently, a member of Time's staff was list-linked to approximately 1,800 lists. Reportedly, the mail amounted to some 16MB. It was reported that House Leader Newt Gingrich had also been linked to the lists. Gingrich, like nearly all members of Congress, had an auto-answer script on his e-mail address. These trap e-mail addresses contained in incoming messages and send automated responses. (Congressional members usually send a somewhat generic response, such as "I will get back to you as soon as possible and appreciate you r support.") Thus, Gingrich's auto-responder received and replied to each and every message. This only increased the number of messages he would receive, because for each time he responded to a mailing list message, his response would be appended to the o utgoing messages of the mailing list. In effect, the Speaker of the House was e-mail bombing himself. - http://www.damocles.com/~kronvold/Hacker/docs/v0000009.htm (dead) You know there are four hundred billion stars out there just in our galaxy alone. And if only one in a million of those had planets. And if only one in a million of those had life. And if only one of a million of those had intelligent life, there would still be literally millions of civilizations out there. - Ellie Arroway, Contact The Earth is brighter than the sun in the radio spectrum. - Dan Werthimer, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory Adult flies live entirely on sugar. - The Learning Channel Great men do not seek power, they have power thrust upon them - Kahless, first emperor of the Klingon Empire With the 64 bit address lines the Merced will be able to use one million terrabytes of address space, enough to run the Enterprise Holodeck. It takes the sun and its family of planets 226 million years to circle the center of its home galaxy. - Mark Reid, Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer The sun is one of about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, one of billions of ordinary galaxies in the universe. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with curving arms of stars pinwheeling out from a center. The solar system is about half way out o n one of these arms and is about 26,000 light years away from the center. A light year is about 6 trillion miles. - MSNBC Space News The Earth rotates on its axis at about 1,100 miles an hour, a motion that creates day and night. The Earth orbits the sun at about 67,000 miles an hour, a motion that takes one year. The sun circles the Milky Way at a speed of about 486,000 miles per hour. And the Milky Way, along with every other galaxy, is moving away from each other, as the universe expands at a constantly accelerating rate. - MSNBC Space News From the age of 11, the chance of death doubles every 8 years. - PBS Special, Stealing Time: The New Science of Aging If it isn't supposed to plug in there, why does it fit? One of our greatest freedoms is the freedom from fear. - The Seige The first rule of government contracting - why build one when you can build two at twice the price? - Contact Mourning the loss of a friend and teacher was both fitting and honorable, but to dwell unnecessarily on that loss was to give the past too much power over the present. - Luke Skywalker (Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn) At one end of the beer can was the heart of the Hubble - its 94-inch reflective mirror. Although smaller than Mount Palomar's 200-inch reflector, it was a great deal more precise. To illustrate its precision: if the Hubble's 94-inch mirror were enlarged to a disk three thousand miles in diameter, its largest imperfection would be four inches high. - Storming Intrepid by Payne Harrison |
You know there are four hundred billion stars out there just in our galaxy alone. And if only one in a million of those had planets. And if only one in a million of those had life. And if only one of a million of those had intelligent life, there would still be literally millions of civilizations out there.
ReplyDelete- Ellie Arroway, Contact
The number of civilisations proposed here is actually 0.000,000,4 of a single civilisation (one in four million chance of one instance of intelliget life in our galaxy). 0.4 planets with life, and 400,000 systems with at least one planet.
The idea is appropriately inspiring, even if the numbers are misleading, though.
Then again, we could just be unlucky bastards and alone in the universe. :P
ReplyDeleteThat would be a very sad story indeed.