Mark > Mark's Quotes

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov

“my brain had begun to endure its familiar siege: panic and dislocation, and a sense that my thought processes were being engulfed by a toxic and unnameable tide that obliterated any enjoyable response to the living world.”
― William Styron , Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

“The PET was the first totally assembled, totally integrated computer with all the necessary components for software distribution and development.”
― Brian Bagnall, Commodore: A Company on the Edge

“What altruism demands is the payment of a debt—an unchosen moral debt you owe to others.”
― Peter Schwartz, In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice is Unjust and Destructive

“Commodore did not have a reputation for fun and games in 1980—they were CBM, the business machine company.”
― Brian Bagnall, Commodore: A Company on the Edge

“The few Commodore employees who supported the VIC project gained power within the company beyond their official title.”
― Brian Bagnall, Commodore: A Company on the Edge

“Pain is pain, however it begins. And however you got here, one thing is for sure: your self-loathing is not your fault.”
― Anneli Rufus, Unworthy: How to Stop Hating Yourself

“I-I am going to be a storm-a flame-
I need to fight whole armies alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms;
I feel too strong to war with mortals-
BRING ME GIANTS!”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

“Never apologize for being nerdy, because unnerdy people never apologize for being assholes.”
― John Barrowman

“If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own.”
― Wes Nisker

“Whatever people think of me is none of my business.”
― RuPaul

“I don’t want to fight for the people, I don’t want to fight against the people, I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone—to live.”
― Ayn Rand, We the Living

“Ninety percent of the ADHD experience is saying two things on loop: “I’m sorry I got distracted” and “I’m sorry I forgot.”
― Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain

“We Can’t Remember What We Don’t Understand The process of encoding information into long-term storage requires our brains to compare new information with what we already know and then figure out where to file it. For this to happen, we need to rely on our working memory to hold all of this information long enough for it to happen. If the new information is easy for us to understand and related to a familiar subject, the encoding process can be quick and easy. If, on the other hand, we have no clue what someone is talking about—possibly because we missed or didn’t encode the foundational knowledge well enough—we may not have enough time for this process to take place. Before our brains are able to encode it, new information comes in and bumps it out of our working memory.”
― Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain

“Because I had a “hook to hang” the lesson on—which, in this case, was the information I googled—I could chunk multiple pieces of data into one working memory “slot.” And that, in turn, meant my working memory could hold on to more information”
― Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain

“Sticky notes aren’t great assistants. Sticky notes do, however, make fantastic assistants to your assistant. Think of sticky notes like short-term memory. They’re great for holding on to important information for a little bit of time, but if you want that information to stick around (hehe) it helps to encode the information into long-term storage (e.g., your calendar).”
― Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain

“Our brains are more likely to wander when we use passive study techniques, such as reading.”
― Jessica McCabe, How to ADHD: An Insider's Guide to Working with Your Brain

“A very simple but particularly useful technique for finding the cause of a problem is simply to explain it to someone else. The other person should look over your shoulder at the screen, and nod his or her head constantly (like a rubber duck bobbing up and down in a bathtub). They do not need to say a word; the simple act of explaining, step by step, what the code is supposed to do often causes the problem to leap off the screen and announce itself.[7] [7] Why "rubber ducking"? While an undergraduate at Imperial College in London, Dave did a lot of work with a research assistant named Greg Pugh, one of the best developers Dave has known. For several months Greg carried around a small yellow rubber duck, which he'd place on his terminal while coding. It was a while before Dave had the courage to ask....”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer