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I have a suggestion for Microsoft — no fancy programming required. Just let us users hang out a "Do Not Disturb" sign. Then leave us alone. We're dreaming.
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"The Boss in the Machine". The New York Times (San Francisco): p. A15. 19 February 2005. ISSN 03624331. 

 

Ellen Ullman

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I got a 'do not disturb' sign on my hotel door. It says 'do not disturb.' Its time to go with 'don't disturb.' Its been 'do not disturb' for too long. We need to embrace the contraction. 'Don't disturb,' 'Do Not' psyches you out. "'Do,' alright I need to disturb this guy... 'Not,' SHIT! I need to read faster!" I like to wear 'do not disturb' signs around my neck so that little kids can't tell me knock knock jokes. Say, "How you doin', nephew." "Knock Knock?" "Read the sign, punk!"

 

Mitch Hedberg

 

I would say that there are certain glittering generalities that can be made about every sign that will hold true about everybody who's a member of that sign. For instance, if you had been a Virgo, you would have understood how I hate to be late. I broke up a group I was in once called The Big Three because one of the guys was chronically late and I couldn't take it. I feel when you're supposed to be some place on time, you're there on time. You don't hang people up. It doesn't matter if you're the President of the United States. That's not what you are here for, to hang people up. When I know somebody's sign, and I usually know everybody's sign whether they tell me or not — after getting into this for several years — it helps me to deal with them. Usually I'd rather let people deal with me. That's a total ego hang up, but that's where it's at.

 

Cass Elliot

 

To stop using the word "free" now would be a mistake; we need more, not less, talk about freedom.
If those using the term "open source" draw more users into our community, that is a contribution, but the rest of us will have to work even harder to bring the issue of freedom to those users' attention. We have to say, "It's free software and it gives you freedom!"--more and louder than ever before.

 

Richard M. Stallman

 

I remember we adjourned for lunch and a friendly Afrikaner warder asked me the question, "Mandela, what do you think is going to happen to you in this case?" I said to him, "Agh, they are going to hang us." Now, I was really expecting some word of encouragement from him. And I thought he was going to say, "Agh man, that can never happen." But he became serious and then he said, "I think you are right, they are going to hang you."

 

Nelson Mandela

 

In today's computer science curricula [...] almost all their time is devoted to formal classification of syntactic language types, defeatist unsolvability theories, folklore about systems programming, and generally trivial fragments of "optimization of logic design"–the latter often in situations where the art of heuristic programming has far outreached the special-case "theories" so grimly taught and tested–and invocations about programming style almost sure to be outmoded before the student graduates.

 

Marvin Minsky