Quack_Quotes

A reverse take on the famous Mythbuster disclaimer. Time a for a little humor, I guess.

It amazes to no end that people simply refuse to believe that they can make mistakes. It is an assumption that they are right all the time. But that is not true. Everybody makes mistakes at one time or the other. It is what we do once we realize we made a mistake that makes up our character. And we spend so much time denying it or hiding it or ignoring it. Think of all the work needed to make a lie believable. Well that lie is "I am right all the time." When it would have been probably faster to just deal with it . The "believe in yourself no matter what" school of thought has to take some blame. They simply deny the existence of doubt. But doubt is the core of a conscience. Without a conscience how do you keep doing good things? How do you know what are good actions and things? So we end up with per-packaged causes marketed to the people who refuse to doubt anything but still want to do something good. In other words we get told what is good instead of coming to...

Without respect, especially mutual respect, we can't expect true discipline. Often we mistake compliance with discipline. But compliance only looks like discipline and it is often abandoned at the first possible chance.  Discipline is what drive us internally to do the right things in life, the good things in life. Often not the easy things in life. Was "respect is a part of discipline, as a branch is a part of a tree".

We often get into trouble not by accident but by our own means. It is not that we don't know something is a problem. It's not that some things that are bad are a surprise to us. Quite often we convince ourselves that the rewards for doing something bad outweigh the consequences. We are willing to get into trouble because the payoff is worth the trouble. Not that there is just risk. There is no risk because we know for sure that we are going into a bad situation. It's just that we expect to walk away from it better than we when we walked into it. That's the kind of rationalization I am talking about. Not to say that all rationalization is bad.  You can go down that road but not too far. Why? Keep in mind it's still the road to Problem-town. We tend to forget that and end up where we started in the first place: in a whole heap of trouble. Maybe it also means that we have to keep solving problems to keep getting solutions.  We have enough problems as it is, creati...

Opinions are hard. They are supposed to be so. You have to put a lot of thought into it. If you don't, you don't even value your opinion. But it's not supposed to be hard. You must at least supposed to consider that you could be wrong. If your opinion is hard and fast, you may not be able to change them even if you find out you are wrong. Wars start like this.

This goes to the sense of the value of truth. Apparently, the truth is expensive. It costs a lot to get to it. People who don't spend their most valuable resource, time, on it, get what they can afford, the half-truth. Reporters costs money. Research costs money. Fact-checking costs money. But it costs nothing to lie. It only costs if you get caught. So pay later, maybe. Is it any surprise that in the business of news, we only get cost-conscious news?

As computers become more ubiquitous, they become more transparent. As companies try to convince that doing something on the computer is easy, they obscure the difficult work already in place or hidden from users views. In the end, we have contradictions like these. All of us send e-mail. At a push of a button, our friend gets to read what we said a few seconds ago, a million miles away. But like the brave and proud members of the postal service who our parents used to take for granted, we too have taken for granted all that is in place and working for the e-mail to reach our loved ones. Just because the action for you has become more trivial, the efforts to make that action work don't become as trivial, too. Users who are purely driven by their need and wallow in their ignorance of everything else, display ingratitude to the powers that made things be. That seems to be quite fashionable now. Especially when the lines promoted is to act like a million buck just because you feel li...

Some people choose to see no evil and hear no evil. What they do is that they don't see evil as evil. If they believe what they see is not evil, then to them they see no evil. Similarly, if what they don't believe what they are hearing is evil, then to them they hear no evil. From these kinds of people, one thing they'll don't do a lot of is speak no evil.

Life's sign posts point everywhere.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Too good not to have it's own post. Related to another post on information and truth . Has almost a double meaning. One is that we need to sift through a lot of information to get to the truth. In our 24-hour news channel news cycle world, the truth is getting harder by the day. At first it seems to be too much information. But look closely and we might find that it's really too much agenda. Popularity is one of them. Another way to look at the quote is that the real truth is purposely being buried under tons of information to prevent other from finding it. It could be worse. That a glimpse of the truth in a pile of information may lend credibility to the entire pile.

Information does not infer truth. The opposite of information is not misinformation. Misinformation is still information. Information is input. Our actions and words are the output. A truism for all programmers, "garbage in, garbage out", applies. Actually, the opposite of information is the absence of information. Information exists or not. As we are inundated by information, it is up to us to determine it's truth. Which given in today's information age is made harder by the sheer volume of it. Or perhaps in a better way, "The truth is buried in information."

When people get the same idea, they say that you've read their mind. Which is funny because if our mind is a book, we'd all like to skip to the ending. But if our mind is a book, the pages we have read are disappearing fast. We turn back looking for the pages we have read and they are not there or are now blank. 

When it comes to security, no news is good news.. but only if you're looking for bad news. Not looking for something and not finding it is a whole world away from just not finding something you're not looking for. That's like saying there you found no hole in the wall because you didn't look. Beware of selective exclusion . That is, listen for something that should have been said but wasn't. The statement sounds ok on it's own until you give it a little push. Then you might just find out is was just a cardboard cut out and not Tom Cruise. Another way to look at the the quote is this: No bad news is a good news when you are constantly looking for bad news. You failed to find something bad so that itself is good. But you still have to go out looking for it. Eternal Vigilance is the price of security . It is a thankless job and valued far less.

Being blunt often means pointing out the obvious. But in these sophisticated day and age, we make pointed observations, reaching uncomfortable conclusions in the quest to be blunt. Either way said, it hurts. Sometimes, the road to truth tapers.

Expected expectations are high.

We all notice the callousness of words from people who speak for a living: sportscasters, reality TV stars (and hosts) and of course, politicians. Getting attention is about being heard. And being heard (and repeated) is about getting listened to by the largest number of people possible, with the hopes that among them will be people who will take them seriously. Spam works in the same way.

Not my best but I was ticked off enough by past experiences of people refusing to accept any work or even responsibilities in meetings. Even when it was clear that it was to their own benefit. Their strict adherence to the rule "not inspired here" takes on a double entendre.

Look inward.

.. for only with humility can one ask, during a righteous venture, the question, 'Am I wrong?'

I have nothing against bureaucracy per se.In fact, bureaucracy in motion, when things happen within a bureaucracy, is sign that things are going well. It is when it is stalled, when things stop happening or working within a bureaucracy is where you should be careful. More often than not, it is stalled on purpose. Someone doesn't want things to work or to happen. They don't want thing to go on record or don't want to make the decision that will make the bureaucracy work again. The more blatant corruption is where someone wants something in return to make bureaucracy work again.. Bureaucracy is like a machine in a box that you put something into it, you get something out. Just like a vending machine. If it doesn't give what its supposed to, it called broken. So don't blame bureaucracy. Look for the broken parts, the people stopping it from doing its job.

Quite often our goals are hazy at best. Some people think that living in a hazy world is the norm. But we have wants, even if they are vague. Peering into the fog to get a clearer picture is worth the effort. Or else you'd be looking for that second football post forever. Or better still " Know your goals even though you may not see them. "

Nothing is more vilified than blame constructed of  facts. Often the people at fault attack the source of the fact or the logic of the construction because they cannot find fault with the facts. The more arrogant simply dismiss the facts without acknowledging either way in public but only to themselves.

So go ahead and take that risk, possibly making a fool of yourself. Apologize or take on the chin, it's your choice. At least you know how it feels to be an idiot for a while.  Some people choose to feel like that all the time.

Let there be light (Photo credit: Priyantha Bandara ) We can get confused about faith and certainty. Blind faith makes us believe that something is certain. No doubt about it. When what it really is .. is that we can be certainly wrong. The refusal to even reconsider what we believe can lead us to the extremes. Rather than reinforcing our belief, we seek to extend a tower higher up, not even looking at it's foundation. Inspired by  this NYT article

The structure here sets up a general statement or belief for a question or questioning and provides a factual statement (related or not) to set up the question. This is tool is used more as a general tool to produce a reaction which the speaker can then use to gauge the audience later. This statement itself is deeper than the usual ones I bring out. Think about it. The scientific method is partly based on testing a hypothesis and observing and recording the results. But if our senses can be fooled (and the numerous visual trickery images on the net is a testament to this), what does it say for our observations? Is our science limited to our senses? Is it limited to what our equipment translates what we cannot sense into something we can? Even then, do we lose some data in the process. How does this relate to the concept of a personal reality? If a person is never explained basic scientific concepts and observes them in action, do they come out with the same conclusions?

Hollow point bullet (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Some people tell other to stop wasting time coming up with solutions that don't address real problems. I call that being prepared. Those people don't realize that "solutions looking for a problem" exists everywhere. Anything is a potential solution to something. The quote above just puts it with a little umph at the end. You see, a bullet on it's own does no harm. But used in the right way, with the right tools, it may just be the solution you are looking for... like shooting practice. For everything else, try this site .

By accepting the inevitability of death, we can save the time we spend trying to avoid it and spend that towards living. It's not a call to reckless living but rather a more responsible one. Think about it. Those who waste their time with trivial and destructive pursuits are not at all concerned with death, perhaps even denying it. Those who care less about the world and their brothers and sisters believe that death is for others, perhaps not for them. Those who only think of themselves sincerely believe that they will live forever.

All the experience in the world is useless if we don't learn anything from it. In fact, it is difficult not to learn from experience. It shapes our perspectives and affect out actions. But learning from experience is about looking back and taking a lesson from it. It's not called a moral for nothing.

Where is destiny in this? It's what we make and what we make of what we are given.

Turn it around and into something productive, positive and conciliatory.