The Lone Sysadmin

“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”

– God to Bender, “Godfellas” episode of Futurama.

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

– Miriam Beard

(I liked this one so much I’m totally stealing it from my friend Maitri’s post… thanks Maitri!)

“Granting patent protection to advances that would occur in the ordinary course without real innovation retards progress and may … deprive prior inventions of their value or utility.” - Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“It’s like leaving a book in a pail of water for five years, then trying to get it out in one piece.”

- my friend Kevin Kettner, speaking with me about how some organizations ignore their IT infrastructure so completely that when they finally need to do something with it they find they have to redo it all.

Also see “tip of the iceberg” and “yak shaving.”

“Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh.” - Al Swearengen, “Deadwood“

“You don’t learn very much when you yourself are talking.” - Eric Schmidt

“The disadvantage of spending all of one’s time and resources on analyzing conditions is that you will never get to the original cause, the source of the problem. You may get a temporary answer for how an accident happened, but as long as the original cause is not discovered, you will never be able to totally prevent it happening again.”

- Gehlek Rimpoche in “Good Life, Good Death”

“Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.” - Baruch Spinoza