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It is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilisation that small groups of men can escape from their neighbours and from their governments, to go and live as they please in the wilderness...
Freeman Dyson, 1958
Denis is a Reader in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton and is a member of the Cyber Security research group. You can also still find useful information in the Web pages of his old research group, variously known as High Performance Computing, Parallel and Distributed Computing or Concurrent Computation.
Currently, Denis works 40% of his time at the university, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. His other job is at Captec Group, formerly Ash Wireless Electronics.A snapshot of his diary can be found here.
Denis’ office is on the third floor (room 3225) of the Zepler building, building 59. During the working day, you can enter the building through the main South entrance which overlooks Salisbury Road. Out of hours, dial 22703 from any campus phone—although there isn’t a convenient one—or call 023 8059 2703 from your mobile. Please do not attempt to tailgate or blag your way into the building out of hours.
Denis is a named researcher in our GCHQ / NCSC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research and is Co-Leader of Outreach Programmes in our recently granted NCSC gold award Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education.
His office phone number is +44 (0) 23 8059 2703.
His Email address is dan@ecs.soton.ac.uk.
Denis is secretary of our local branch of the University and College Union. He has also served as branch president, regional president, and on the UCU National Executive Committee; there he worked with Janet Farrar and others to restart the Stress and Bullying Working Group and to promote engagement with the TUC Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival. Nowadays, he does a lot of work at Southampton on university policy development, and in support of members involved with redundancies, capabilities, and grievance and disciplinary investigations. If you need support as a UCU member, please in the first instance email Claire, our local official, at ucu@soton.ac.uk.
If you are not a UCU member, you should join at https://join.ucu.org.uk now, before you get into difficulty.
You may also be able to contact Denis through Barbara Lam .
On a good day, if the technology is working correctly, you can find out exactly where he is by clicking on this link. Or you can uses the FindU service to search for APRS GPS reports from a 144.8MHz beacon transmitter (an Icom IC2AT with TinyTrak3+ which he often carries when out and about. The callsign you need is M0CYJ-7. The GPS doesn’t work well indoors…
In 2023–24, in the second semester, he is working with Klaus-Peter Zauner on the modules:
and During 2021, Josh Curry and he further developed two of the COMP3217 laboratories under a CyBOK contract with NCSC/University of Bristol for adoption at other accredited universities. Denis is also supervising a Pt IV Group Development Project in drone jamming.Denis served on the programme committee of the 26th and 27th CISSE.
Denis occasionally contributes to the Cyber Security Southampton blog and the ECS Wiki at https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/wiki/ (the latter only visible internally).
It seems Denis has an Erdős number of 3:
There is also a gender-balanced route (via a Microsoft employee) of Erdős number 4:
Back in 2013, I gave a talk at Fucapi in Manaus about the then-new "Snowden" disclosures of activities by our friends in the NSA. You can find the recordings here and here. A great deal has happened since. As well as a lot of nation-state "spying" by, for example, the People's Republic of China, destructive cyber-attacks have become worryingly frequent. I will discuss what has been happening, and what I think we can do to keep ourselves and our allies safe.
Passwords are a nightmare for all of us, yet we are making little progress with replacing them. From the very worst 1234 PINs to our best effort 32 byte random keys, they give us grief. What can we do to secure ourselves? To secure our non-geek loved ones? How secure are real passwords? Do hardware tokens help? How has Bitcoin made things worse? We'll hack our way through the password jungle, before Bitcoin kills all the trees.
A historical romp through some interesting UK and USA successes and failures in codebreaking and signals intelligence.
An unspecified local organisation has a very odd way of responding to Subject Access Requests The chosen encryption is not only weak, it leaks information about the recipient. With luck, there will also be some interesting news from CyberUK and BSides Vancouver which are running this week. And perhaps something about PayPal, the NHS, and telephone authentication.
Mikhail R. Gadelha, Lucas Cordeiro and Denis Nicole,
An Efficient Floating-Point Bit-Blasting API for Verifying C Programs. In Proceedings of the 13th International Workshop on Numerical Software Verification, NSV 2020, VSTTE 2020, Los Angeles, USA, LNCS 12549 pp. 178–195, 2020.
ISBN 978-3-030-63617-3
Gadelha, M., Menezes, R., Monteiro, F., Cordeiro, L., Nicole, D.,
ESBMC: Scalable and Precise Test-Case Generation based on the Floating-Point Theory (Competition Contribution). In 23rd International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE),
LNCS 12076, pp. 525–529, 2020.
ISBN 978-3-030-45233-9
Gadelha, M., Monteiro, F. R., Cordeiro, L., Nicole, D.,
ESBMC v6.0: Verifying C Programs using k-Induction and Invariant Inference.
in Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems 25 Years of TACAS: TOOLympics,
held as part of ETAPS 2019, Prague, Czech Republic, April 6–11, 2019, Proceedings, Part III
ed. Dirk Beyer, Marieke Huisman, Fabrice Kordon, Bernhard Steffen, LNCS 11429, pp. 209–213, 2019.
ISBN 978-3-030-17501-6
Mikhail R. Gadelha, Enrico Steffinlongo, Lucas C. Cordeiro, Bernd Fischer, Denis A. Nicole,
SMT-based refutation of spurious bug reports in the clang static analyzer,
in 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings,
IEEE Press, pp 11–14.
ISBN 978-1-7281-1764-5
Ramalho, M., Monteiro, F. R., Morse, J., Cordeiro, L., Fischer, B., & Nicole, D.,
ESBMC 5.0: An industrial-strength C model checker,
in Proceedings of the 33rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE2018),
Association for Computing Machinery, pp 888–891
ISBN 978-1-4503-5937-5
Mikhail Y.R. Gadelha, Felipe R. Monteiro, Lucas Cordeiro, Denis A Nicole
Towards Counterexample-Guided k-Induction for Fast Bug Detection.
in Proceedings of the 2018 26th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering,
Association for Computing Machinery pp. 765–769, 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-4503-5573-5
Gadelha, M. Y. R., Morse, J., Cordeiro, L. C., Nicole, D.
Using clang as a Frontend on a Formal Verification Tool.
In European LLVM Developers Meeting (EuroLLVM), 2018.
Mikhail R. Gadelha, Jeremy Morse, Lucas Cordeiro, and Denis Nicole
Using clang as a Frontend on a Formal Verification Tool
at FOSDEM'17, Brussels.
I am not at all sure I am formally a co-author of this one; the conference only lists my student Mikhail as the “presenter”.
Mikhail Y. R. Gadelha, Lucas C. Cordeiro, Denis A. Nicole,
Encoding Floating-Point Numbers Using the SMT Theory in ESBMC: An Empirical Evaluation over the SV-COMP Benchmarks,
in Formal Methods: Foundations and Applications, 20th Brazilian Symposium, SBMF 2017, ed. Simone Cavalheiro, José Fiadeiro,
Springer LNCS 10623 pp 91–106.
ISBN 978-3-319-70847-8
Morse, J., Ramalho, M., Cordeiro, L., Nicole, D. and Fischer, B.
ESBMC 1.24.1
At Intl. Conf. on Tools and Algorithms for the
Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS 2015), (won the Gold Medal in the
BitVectors and Sequentialized categories of the Fourth Intl. Competition on Software
Verification).
Jeremy Morse, Lucas Cordeiro, Denis Nicole, Bernd
Fischer.
Model Checking LTL Properties over C Programs with Bounded
Traces.
Software and Systems Modeling 14, pp. 65–81,
Springer-Verlag, 2015.
Jeremy Morse, Lucas Cordeiro, Denis Nicole, Bernd Fischer,
Applying
Symbolic Bounded Model Checking to the 2012 RERS Greybox Challenge.
International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer,
16, pp. 519–529 Springer-Verlag, 2014.
Morse, J., Ramalho, M., Cordeiro, L., Nicole, D. and Fischer, B.
ESBMC 1.22.
In Intl. Conf. on Tools and Algorithms for the
Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS), LNCS 8413, pp.
405–407, Springer-Verlag, 2014 (won the Gold Medal in the
SequentializedConcurrent category of the Third Intl. Competition on Software
Verification).
Morse, J., Cordeiro, L., Nicole, D. and Fischer, B.
Handling Unbounded
Loops with ESBMC 1.20.
In Intl. Conf. on Tools and Algorithms for the
Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS), LNCS 7795, pp.
619-622, Springer-Verlag, 2013 (won the Bronze Medal in the overall ranking of
the Second Intl. Competition on Software Verification).
Cordeiro, L., Morse, J., Nicole, D. and Fischer, B.
Context-Bounded Model
Checking with ESBMC 1.17 .
In Intl. Conf. on Tools and Algorithms for the
Construction and Analysis of Systems (TACAS), LNCS 7214, pp.
533-536, Springer-Verlag, 2012 (won the Bronze Medal in the overall ranking of
the First Intl. Competition on Software Verification).
Jeremy Morse, Lucas Cordeiro, Denis Nicole, Bernd
Fischer.
Context-Bounded Model Checking of LTL Properties for ANSI-C Software.
In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM2011), ed. G Barthe, A Pardo and G Schneider, LNCS 7041, pp. 302–317,
Springer-Verlag, 2011.
ISBN 978-3-642-24690-6
Fairman, Matthew J., Price,
Andrew R., Xue, Gang, Molinari, Marc, Nicole, Denis A., Lenton, Timothy M.,
Marsh, Robert, Takeda, Kenji and Cox, Simon J.
Earth system modelling with Windows Workflow Foundation.
Future Generation Computer Systems, 25, (5), 586-597,
2009.
Denis A. Nicole
UNICORE and GRIP: Experiences of Grid Middleware Development
In Hamid R. Arabnia and Jun Ni, Proceedings of The 2005 International Conference on Grid Computing and Applications, GCA 2005, pp. 11–17, CSREA Press 2005.
ISBN 1-932415-57-2
Leslie Valiant, Probably Approximately Correct, ISBN
978-0-4650-3271-6.
Review appeared in London Mathematical Society
Newsletter 440, pp 36–37, 2014.
Software Vulnerabilities,
at the
South
East Cyber Crime Workshop, 30th
January, 2014.
ESBMC,
Joint ESS/Cybersecurity seminar, 20th
November, 2013.
Abstract: I describe recent progress in developing our bounded model checker ESBMC for (potentially concurrent) C and C++ Programs. Topics include: verifying LTL specifications; obtaining (some) information about liveness properties; limit cycles in infinite programs; inductive proofs; what to do when a loop is unpredictable, or too big; performance and realism improvements from adopting the C11/C++11 memory model.
Living in the Panopticon,
Joint ESS/Cybersecurity
seminar, 23rd October, 2013.
Abstract: There has been a lot of recent interest in the data collection methods adopted by various security services. I will discuss the history of "crypto wars" that led us to the current situation and the hazards of a "hacking" approach to data collection, both technical and constitutional. I will also take a technical look at our current best guesses as to the security of widely deployed internet technologies.
The Dark Side of the Moon,
GCHQ Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence seminar, 25th June,
2013.
I gave the talk a second time at Fucapi,
Manaus, to an audience of about 300, on 9th October, 2013.
Abstract: The recent defection (an alternative reading is "whistle-blowing") by an NSA contractor has received widespread attention. While the speaker has never had access to secret information, he is old enough to have been reasonably close to a variety of "cold war" activities.
The seminar will draw attention to related now-public information and will hopefully entertain and illuminate. It probably won't do much to help you fill the vacancy at Booz Allen Hamilton on Hawaii, but there is plenty of similar work on offer here in the UK.
Stress: The most important Health and Safety Issue,
at
Southampton UCU General Meeting, 24th April 2013.
Fun with Chip&PIN,
at SoTech Barcamp Southampton, 22nd November 2010.
Issues in Distributed Computing,
DSSE seminar 15th November, 2010. This talk is not about classical distributed
computing; it is about parallel computing.
Combinatorial logic with loops,
DSSE seminar 4th November, 2009.
Robots that don't suck,
at Higher Education
Academy workshop on Robots in the Curriculum (Invited Presentation),
Southampton, 20th November 2008.
Not-so-smart cards and not such close proximity:
the cost of a cashless society,
DSSE seminar 9th May, 2007. Since this
talk, at least three things have changed:
Our (myself and Gennaro Parlato) student Mikhail Ramalho, funded through a
Brazilian government
studentship, presented his poster at an
internal workshop on 15th June, 2015:
Handling Loops in Bounded Model
Checking using k-Induction and Interval Analysis.
Our (myself and Steve Gunn) student Max Barraclough, funded through an iCASE
studentship with Imagination Technologies, presented his poster at an
internal workshop on 16th June, 2014:
Enabling High-Performance
Applications of Machine Learning on MIPS and PowerVR.
ESBMC: Model-checking C programs, at the GCHQ Cybersecurity Center of Excellence launch, 22nd November 2012.
Denis has a publication list on the University's rather broken institutional repository.
 |
The University Arms |
| 2003 London Exhibition | Local shops | Boat Stuff |
| Other useful links | Asian Mini Lathes |
Before your boss persuades you to go and present Dilbert et al, On the choice of colour for an SQL database, you should probably check the UK and USA official lists to see if you will be coming back...and what pills to take.
If you aspire to be a professional paper-pusher, you’d better learn how hard it needs to be pushed.
Currently, I am a Skills Instructor with Hampshire County.
Over time, I have also been associated with the 2nd Potters Bar (St Mary’s), 5th Cambridge (Perse School,) 29th Southampton (Immaculata) and 25th Southampton (Northam) Sea Scout troops in the United Kingdom and with Troops 646 (Tree of Life) and 25 (Church of the Redeemer) in Allegheney Trails Council, USA as well as the Cambridge University Scout and Guide Club, the Lochearnhead Scout Station and the Bentley Heath (née Gannocks) Guide campsite near Potters Bar, north of London.
I sometimes get out and about with
Continuing the theme of catching up with things I should have done in my teens or twenties:
We now have a share in a Westerly 21, Pandora, moored at Hamble.
Links:
The local free network is SOWN.
Lets eliminate those malloc/free bugs...
You can remove/change CMOS passwords with cmospwd15a.zip.
Microsoft Systems Journal has published some code for getting into ring zero on Windows 95/8. Here is part of Matt Pietrek’s article from MSJ May 1993.
Low level hard disk manipulation
Dmitry V Stefankov has produced a suite of tools for examining and manipulating IDE drives:If you need to manipulate the partition maps, there are several tools:
You can dump LILO (Linux boot) passwords with lilopwd.exe.
I try to stick to using industry-standard technology:
Linux ext2 file system drivers for:
File system drivers running under DOS:
See also Secondhand Test Equipment and other stuff below.
Almost everybody I know now goes to PCB-POOL or PCBTrain to have boards made. Why try to make your own?
The local Spirit Circuits in Waterlooville have an outstanding Go Naked deal.
I have not tried Circuit Technology myself, but they look like good value.
If you do want to give it a try, good web pages are at MEGA Electronics and Mike Harrison’s page. MEGA Electronics also do a good range of PCB materials and tools. Usually, however, getting into wet chemistry is just a distraction. I use Veroboard for lots of straightforward stuff; it’s fine for basic digital or audio using DIP chips. For RF or SMD, CPC sell some useful boards:
If a PIC isn’t quite big enough for you, a fairly standard industry choice is the 8051 architecture. Phillips do a quite reasonable flash-based one, and there are various tools:
At the end of May 1998, I purchased a Garmin GPS12, mainly because of the good net-based support. It’s a lot cheaper than the 12XL but lacks a 12V regulator and an aerial socket, both of which are easy to get around. You might find the following links useful:
The Radio Data Service gives station information on (analogue) VHF broadcasts.
I saw these at the exhibition; At the time, I was mainly looking for #0MT tooling for my father’s old lathe:
NB: Please don’t Email me about models; I don’t make models.
I really like the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales (Baron Igor Judge):
“I have sat among their learned men, for that honour I had, and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning among them was brought; …. that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old a prisoner of the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought.”That is a pass to which we ought not to come again.
in the Court of Appeal, between the British Chiropractic Association and Dr Singh.
But if we keep on trying
Though our purpose isn’t clear
We just may move the universe
We’ll learn to really care
Eventually the whole facade
Becomes more than a whim
By starting to build on the outside
We’re going to fill up the walls within
Melanie Safka, "The Good Guys"
Someone’s always playing corporation games
Who cares they’re always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible, write us off the page
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio
Don’t you remember
We built this city,
we built this city on rock and roll
Starship, "We Built This City"
When rats leave a sinking ship, where exactly do they think they’re going?
Douglas Gauck in ISBN978-1592236893.
To celebrate Summerhill
School passing its
Ofsted
inspection in November 2007:
No one is wise enough or good enough to mould the character of any child.
What is wrong with our sick, neurotic world is that we have been moulded,
and an adult generation that has seen two great wars and seems about to
launch a third should not be trusted to mould the character of a rat. A.
S. Neill
Did you see the CBBC/BBC4 production Summerhill in January 2008, dramatizing the school’s struggle against closure? Margaret the Slitheen—regressed to an egg by the Tardis—finally achieves redemption when Ofsted Inspector Myrtle, played by Annette Badland, defects from Mr Grenyer’s team to stay at Summerhill.
IN THE MATTER OF
AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS TRIBUNAL The Tribunal had convened to determine the
Appellant’s appeal in respect of three specific complaints in the
Notice of Complaint. Following the commencement of a hearing on 20th
March 2000 of the Independent Schools Tribunal the parties have
agreed that the Complaints 4 and 6 of the Notice of Complaint are
annulled and therefore invite the Tribunal to refrain from deciding
the issues arising from a Notice of Complaint served on Mrs Zoë
Readhead ("the Appellant") by the Secretary of State ("the
Respondent") in June 1999 and the Appeal do stand withdrawn.
|
The land, the land, ’twas God who made the land,
The land, the land, the ground on which we stand,
Why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand?
God made the land for the people.
Chorus from "The Land", from the
Liberator Songbook
Mrs Schofield’s GCSE
You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt’s death?
To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark - do you
know what this means? Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.
Carol Ann Duffy
was appointed Poet Laureate (the UK’s Royal poet) on
1st May 2009
22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax
Because the Badgers are moving the goalposts.
The Ferrets are bending the
rules.
The Weasels are taking the hindmost.
The Otters are downing tools.
The Hedgehogs are changing the game-plan
The Grass-snakes are spitting
tacks.
The Squirrels are playing the blame-game.
The Skunks are twisting the
facts.
The Pole-cats are upping the ante.
The Foxes are jumping the gun.
The
Voles are crashing the party.
The Stoats are dismantling the Sun.
The Rabbits are taking the biscuit.
The Hares are losing the plot.
The
Eagles are kicking the bucket.
The Rats are joining the dots.
The Herons are throwing a curveball.
The Shrews are fanning the flames.
The Field mice are sinking the 8-ball.
The Swans are passing the blame.
And the Pheasants are draining the oil from the tank-
but only the
Bustards have broken the bank.
Politics
How it makes of your face a stone
that aches to weep, of your heart a fist,
clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue
an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand
a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh
a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs
hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice
that can throw no six. How it takes the breath
away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin,
makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static,
of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this—
politics—to your education education education; shouts this—
Politics!—to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your
conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS.
Carol Ann Duffy’s
first poem (13th June 2009) as Poet Laureate
What is life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
William Henry Davies
| The Charge of the Light Brigade Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honour the charge they made, Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred. Alfred, Lord Tennyson |
The Last of the Light Brigade There were thirty million English who talked of England's might, There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade; They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade. They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long, That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song. They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door; And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four ! They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey; Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they; And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites." They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong, To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song; And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed, A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade. They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back; They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack; With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed, They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade. The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said, "You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead. An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell; For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell. "No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o' the fight? We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how? You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now." The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn. And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn." And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame, Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame. They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog; They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog; And they sent (you may call me a liar), when felon and beast were paid, A cheque, for enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade. O thirty million English that babble of England's might, Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night; Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made - " And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade! Rudyard Kipling |
Once I spoke of the sea to a brook,
and the brook thought me but an imaginative exaggerator;
And once I spoke of a brook to the sea,
and the sea thought me but a depreciative defamer.
Kahlil
Gibran,
All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Attributed to Edmund Burke, probably based on:
When bad men combine, the good must associate;
else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible
struggle.
in "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents"
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of the Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore,e,
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.
William Blake,
Songs of Experience
Your religion was written on tablets of stone by the iron finger of an angry God,
lest you might forget it.
The red-man could never remember nor comprehend it.
Chief Seathl translated by Dr Henry Smith,
Seattle Sunday Star, 29th October 1887.
Now, when I talked to God I knew he'd understand
He said, "Stick by my side
and I'll be your guiding hand
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might
not give the answer that you want me to"
Peter Green
Freedom, and not servitude is the cure of anarchy;
as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.
Edmund Burke, "On Conciliation with America"
If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!
Attributed to Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
Dom. Hélder Câmara. See
also
Spiral of Violence.
As a military man who has given half a century of active service I say in all
sincerity that the nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Their existence
only adds to our perils because of the illusions which they have generated. .
There are powerful voices around the world who still give credence to the old
Roman precept—if you desire peace, prepare for war. This is absolute nuclear
nonsense and I repeat—it is a disastrous misconception to believe that by
increasing the total uncertainty one increases ones own certainty.
Louis Mountbatten,
1979-05-11
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics
and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
Martin Niemöller, reported in Time magazine
1989-08-28
Stop this! Ultimate weapon! Can you still pretend to
believe in such a thing? There never has been one and there never will be. All
this means is that from the very start we’ll be going into space with one
thought. War! Don’t you see…we are on the edge of a
new dimension of discovery. It’s the great chance…to
leave our vices behind. War first of all. Not to go out there dragging our
hatreds and our frontiers with us. [QUATERMASS]
…
Simple, yes—but don’t you
see, it’s what they’d never allow for! That even a scrap of knowledge like that
should be in the possession of minds free to use it! [RONEY]
Nigel Kneale, "Quatermass and the Pit", 1960
But the plans were on display...
On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to
find them.
That’s the display department.
With a torch.
Ah,
well the lights had probably gone.
So had the
stairs.
But look, you found the notice, didn’t
you?
Yes, said Arthur,
yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a
disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.
Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy"
’This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you
feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?’
Tom Riddle
We learned more from a three minute
Record than we ever learned in school
Bruce Springsteen, "No Surrender"
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.
Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A Changin’"
I think
I think I am
Therefore I am
I think
Of course you are my bright little star
I’ve miles and miles of files pretty files of your forefather’s fruit
and now to suit
our great computer
you’re magnetic ink
I’m more than that
I know I am
At least, I think I must be
There you go man
Keep as cool as you can
Face piles of trials with smiles
It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave
And keep on thinkin’ free
Graeme Edge, "In the Beginning" from The Moody Blues, "On the
threshold of a dream"
 |
Than syr bedwere cryed a my lord Arthur what shal become of me now ye goo from
me And leue me here allone emonge myn enemyes Comfort thy self sayd the kyng and doo as wel as thou mayst for in me is no truste for to truste in For I wyl in to the vale of auylyon to hele me of my greuous wounde And yf thou here neuer more of me praye for my soule Yet somme men say in many partyes of Englond that kyng Arthur is not deed But had by the wylle of our lord Ihesu in to another place and men say that he shal come ageyn & he shal wynne the holy crosse. I wyl not say that it shal be so but rather I wyl say here in thys world he chaunged his lyf but many men say that there is wryton vpon his tombe this vers Hic iacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rex que futurus Syr Thomas Malory, "Le Morte Dartur", Book 21 Chs 5, 7 |
One of the most difficult tasks for any social system is figuring out what to do
with its young males. These are invariably the most lurchy, impressionable,
energetic, socially exigent, and politically inept members of any group. They
cause trouble for their elders and ruthlessly hassle each other. (See the Sharks
and Jets of West Side Story and the Bloods and the Crips of the West Coast
story.) They pose chronic danger to public order when they drive, drink, and
drug.
Lionel Tiger is Darwin Professor of Anthropology at
Rutgers University.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling, "If". This was, in 1995, voted the Nation’s favourite poem.
|
Prologue In the papers about old streets Things are tougher than we are, just Or age, simply? The crowd When you try to get near the sea That before I snuff it, the whole And that will be England gone, Most things are never meant. |
Going, going In the papers about old streets Things are tougher than we are, just Or age, simply? The crowd Of spectacled grins approve You try to get near the sea That before I snuff it, the whole And that will be England gone, Most things are never meant. |
Philip Larkin, 1972. Prologue appeared in the HMSO report Human Habitat: How do you want to live. Going Going is the ninth poem in his collection High Windows, 1974.
But if--which heaven forbid--we should refrain
As you would have us, how is Peace induced? [CALONICE]
By the two Goddesses, now can’t you see
All we have to do is idly sit indoors
With smooth roses powdered on our cheeks,
Our bodies burning naked through the folds
Of shining Amorgos’ silk, and meet the men
With our dear Venus-plats plucked trim and neat.
Their stirring love will rise up furiously,
They’ll beg our arms to open. That’s our time!
We’ll disregard their knocking, beat them off--
And they will soon be rabid for a Peace.
I’m sure of it.
…
SO, grasp the brim, you, Lampito, and all.
You, Calonice, repeat for the rest
Each word I say. Then you must all take oath
And pledge your arms to the same stern conditions--
To husband or lover I’ll not open arms [LYSISTRATA]
To husband or lover I’ll not open arms
Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.
Though love and denial may enlarge his charms.
O, O, my knees are failing me, Lysistrata!
But still at home, ignoring him, I’ll stay,
But still at home, ignoring him, I’ll stay,
Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.
Beautiful, clad in saffron silks all day.
If then he seizes me by dint of force,
If then he seizes me by dint of force,
I’ll give him reason for a long remorse.
I’ll give him reason for a long remorse.
I’ll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,
I’ll never lie and stare up at the ceiling,
Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.
Nor like a lion on all fours go kneeling.
If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.
If I keep faith, then bounteous cups be mine.
If not, to nauseous water change this wine.
If not, to nauseous water change this wine.
Do you all swear to this?
We do, we do. [MYRRHINE]
Aristophanes,
"Lysistrata", ed. Jack Lindsay
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
P. B. Shelley, "Ozymandias of Egypt", another of the Nation’s favourite poems.
Anyone who has read those cheap thrillers in which Oxbridge dons with links to MI5 or 6 nudge likely lads in the direction of British intelligence, and thought, ‘It can't really be like that’—is wrong. It is like that. I should not publish the name of the don at Clare who had advised and arranged my first interview, but I must assume this was the don of spy novels, sniffing out young talent for British intelligence. He had suggested a chat; and after the chat, in which he had warned me I must not expect spying to be all about sleeping with beautiful blonde women, suggested I go for another chat with a man from London who had installed himself temporarily in a room somewhere in Cambridge.
This chat too went fine. This man too warned me not to suppose spying was all about sleeping with beautiful blonde women, and suggested another chat. This chat was to be more formal: an appointment at another address, in Canton House Terrace, near Buckingham Palace in London.
I went down by train to Liverpool Street and took the Underground, somehow fearful I might be being watched. On reaching Carlton House Terrace I rang the bell outside an unmarked door and a plummy young lady let me in and brought me my train fare in cash, coins and all, on a silver tray.
Another interview ensued. in which it was explained that spying was not about sleeping with beautiful blonde women. I said I was glad of that, but my interviewer missed the irony.
They offered me a job, conditional on my passing the preliminary general
examinations for the civil service later that year, and upon a final
interview still to come. And they wanted me to go ahead in the ordinary
way with an application to join the Foreign Office.
Matthew Parris, "Chance Witness", 2002.
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.
Henry Reed, Lessons of the War, Part I. "Naming of Parts", yet another
of the "favourite poems".
The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the
way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown
establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined
by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the
million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a
rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of
purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have
commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an
hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like
baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and
forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon
our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not
built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our
business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon
us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each
one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they
are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them.
Henry David Thoreau, "Walden"
Justum perficito nihil timeto
(Act justly and fear nothing)
Motto of the Black Dyke Mills Band.
Nullius in verba
(Take nobody's word for it)
Motto of the Royal
Society, originally from Horace's Epistle.
If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.
Mark Twain, Notebook, 1894
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Mark Twain, Following the Equator
People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a
tremendous impact on history.
Dan Quayle
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are
talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic
If you give me a fish you have fed me for a day.
If you teach me to fish then you have fed me until the river is contaminated by
the shoreline seized for development.
But if you teach me to organize, then whatever the challenge, I can join
together with my peers and we will fashion our own solution.
Ricardo
Morale-Levins
太上，不知有之；其次，親而譽之；其次，畏之；其次，侮之。
信不足焉，有不信焉。
悠兮其貴言。功成事遂，百姓皆謂「我自然」。
The best rulers are scarcely known by their subjects;
The next best are loved and praised;
The next are feared;
The next despised:
They have no faith in their people,
And their people become unfaithful to them.
When the best rulers achieve their purpose
Their subjects claim the achievement as their own.
Lao Tze, "Tao Te Ching", translated by
Peter A. Merel.
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames roll’d on…he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call’d aloud…"Say, father,say
If yet my task is done!"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
"Speak, father!" once again her cried
"If I may yet be gone!"
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll’d on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair;
And shouted but one more aloud,
"My father, must I stay?"
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way,
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream’d above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound...
The boy-oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea.
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.
CASABIANCA by Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Young Giocante Casabianca, a 12-year old boy, was the son of Luce Julien Joseph
Casabianca. Casabianca was the commander of Admiral de Brueys’ flagship,
l’Orient at the Battle of the Nile. Casabianca and his son were on board the
flagship during the battle. Casabianca remained at his post during the battle,
even after the ship had caught fire and all the guns had been abandoned. The boy
refused to save himself and both he and his father died when the ship exploded
after the flames reached the powder.
The Liberal Party exists to build a Liberal Society in which every citizen shall
possess liberty, property and security, and none shall be enslaved by poverty,
ignorance or conformity. Its chief care is for the rights and opportunities of
the individual, and in all spheres it sets freedom first.
Preamble to the Constitution of the Liberal Party, ISBN 1 85187 021 0
(1985)
But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the
exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is
precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual,
therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the
support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce
may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the
annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither
intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends
only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its
produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in
this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which
was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it
was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of
the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have
never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few
words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
(1776)
Why are the cattle on a common so puny and stunted? Why is the common itself so
bare-worn, and cropped so differently from the adjoining enclosures? No
inequality, in respect of natural or acquired fertility will account for the
phenomenon. The difference depends on the difference of the way in which an
increase of stock in the two cases affects the circumstances of the author of
the increase. If a person puts more cattle into his own field, the amount of the
subsistence which they consume is all deducted from that which was at the
command, of his original stock; and if, before, there was no more than a
sufficiency of pasture, he reaps no benefit from the additional cattle, what is
gained in one way being lost in another. But if he puts more cattle on a common,
the food which they consume forms a deduction which is shared between all the
cattle, as well that of others as his own, in proportion to their number, and
only a part of it is taken from his own cattle. In an enclosed pasture, there a
point of saturation, if I may so call it (by which, I mean a barrier depending
on consideration of interest) beyond which no prudent man will add to his stock.
In a common, also, there is in like manner a point of saturation. But the
position of the point in the two cases is obviously different. Were a number of
adjoining pastures, already fully stocked, to be at once thrown open, and
converted into one vast common, the position of the point of saturation would
immediately be changed. The stock would be increased, and would be made to press
much more forcibly against the means of subsistence.
Two Lectures on the Checks to Population by William Forster Lloyd (1833)
reprinted in Population, evolution and birth control, edited by
Garrett
Hardin (1969)
岀る釘は打たれる
Deru kugi wa utareru
(The nail which sticks up gets hammered down)
Traditional
Japanese Kotowaza
Excessive vanity proves the undoing of many experts. The temptation to show off
is great. He has become a past master in his profession. He can laugh at luck
and defy the law of chance. His fortune is literally at his finger ends, yet he
must never admit his skill or grow chesty over his ability. It requires the
philosophy of the stoic to poses any great superiority and refrain from boasting
to friend or foe. He must be content to rank with the common herd.
S W Erdnase
We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our
boys and girls, that it is a patriotism above the narrow sentiments which
usually stops at one’s own country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in
dealing with others. Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which
recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which leads
our country into comradeship with ... the other nations of the world.
The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our own
borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of
life; so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect
against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our
frontiers towards our neighbours...
Robert
Baden-Powell, 1929
The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and
wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may
come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient
skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations
lest we lose them for ever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by
our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been
called to the noble profession of teaching.
Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the
weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for
without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for
progress’s sake must he discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often
require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence
and change, between tradition and innovation…because some changes will be for
the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as
errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly
so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move
forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability,
intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be
perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.
Dolores Umbridge
Seven Ways of Concealing Secrets
The cause of the obscurity in the writings of all wise men has been that the crowd derides and neglects the secrets of wisdom and knows nothing of the use of these exceedingly important matters. And, if by chance, any magnificent truth falls to its notice, it seizes upon it and abuses it to the manifold disadvantage of persons and of the community. A man is crazy who writes a secret unless he conceals it from the crowd and leaves it so that it can be understood only by effort of the studious and wise. Accordingly, the life of wise men is conducted after this principle, and secrets of wisdom are hidden by a variety of methods. some are hidden under characters and symbols, others in enigmatical and figurative expressions, as in the case where Aristotle says in his liber Secretorum, “O, Alexander, I wish to show you the greatest of secrets, and it behooves you to conceal this arcanum and to perfect the proposed work of this stone of art which is no stone, which is in every man, and in every place, and in every time, and which is called the goal of all philosophers.” such expressions are found in many books and sciences, and innumerable writings are obscured in this fashion, so that no one may understand them without his teacher. Others hide their secrets in a third manner by their method of writing, as by writing with consonants only like the Hebrews, Chaldeans, Syrians, and Arabians, and as the Greeks do, for there is much among them which is obscured in this way. And there is especially much among the Hebrews, for Aristotle says in the above mentioned book, “God gave then all wisdom long before they were philosophers, and all nations get their principles of philosophy from the Hebrews,” and Albumasar in his book Introductorii maloris, and other philosophers, and Josephus in the eighth book Antiquitatum, teach the same thing plainly enough. Fourthly, the obscuring is produced by intermixing various kinds of letters, for so Ethicus the Astronomer hides his wisdom by writing Hebrew, Greek, and Latin letters in the same word. Fifthly, authors hide their secrets by means of special letters, devised by their own ingenuity and will, and different from those which are anywhere in use. This is a most serious impediment, and was used by Artephius in his book de Secretis naturae. Sixthly, actual letters are not used but other geomantic figures which function as letters according to the arrangement of points and marks—and this method also Artephius used in his science. Seventhly, there is still a better way of obscuring which is comprehended in the ars notaria which is the art of noting and writing with whatever brevity we wish and with whatever rapidity we desire—and by this means many secrets are hidden in the books of the Latins.
I have judged it necessary to touch upon these ways of concealment in order that I may help you as much as I can. Perhaps I shall make use of certain of them because of the magnitude of our secrets.
Roger Bacon, Concerning the Marvelous Power of Art and of Nature and Concerning the Nullity of Magic, 1252
See also Tenney L. Davis, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 20 pp772–774 (1928).
Passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom is easy to most boys and girls.
It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the
teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour
of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive
acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to
accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that
position.
Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness, Ch 1, 1930
We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades
ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women who have
had years of education, to know nothing about the world, to have read
nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers.
What has happened to us is an amazing invention, computers and the internet
and TV, a revolution. This is not the first revolution we, the human race,
has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a
matter of a few decades, but took much longer, changed our minds and ways of
thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked
"What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" And just
as we never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with
the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so
that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it
is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging
and blugging etc.
Doris Lessing, On not winning the Nobel Prize,
Nobel lecture, 2007-12-07
For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He
writes—not that you won or lost—
But how you played the Game.
Grantland Rice,
Alumnus Football, 1908
| dan@ecs.soton.ac.uk |
