Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. Wouldn't you say, she asked, that killings like this are influenced by violent movies? No, I said, I wouldn't say that. But what about 'Basketball Diaries'? She asked. Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun? The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office, and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it. The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. Events like this, I said, if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; These two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory.
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The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.
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'Fox Urine: This horrifically produced product is marketed as a way to keep deer out of gardens, but experts say it doesn't work. On urine-collection 'farms,' foxes, coyotes, raccoons and other animals are crammed into tiny cages. They live on feces-encrusted wire cage floors so their urine can be collected in trays below. On one such 'farm,' PETA investigators found animals with open infected wounds and exposed bones. Most huddled together in fear, but others had gone 'cage-crazy' and circled endlessly, seeking a way to comfort themselves. Some chewed and mutilated their own flesh. Owners then killed them for their fur by using agonizing anal electrocution. Some sporting goods stores sell urine collected from deer crammed into tiny pens for use by hunters to mask their human odor and to lure bucks to the hunters' tree stands. Be a 'deer' - and ask managers of local gardening, department and sporting goods stores NOT to sell bottled urine.'
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You should use the preceding terms whenever you have to 'interface'¹ with computer experts. For example, if you're purchasing a new computer, you want to use as many of these terms as possible, so that store personnel will realize that they're dealing with a person who has a high level of technical expertise:
STORE PERSONNEL: May I help you? YOU: I'm looking for a 'hard drive' with plenty of 'RAM' in the 'megahertz.' STORE PERSONNEL: You want the computer store next door. This is a supermarket. YOU: Let me see your 'zucchini.'
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The salvation of the lost is not best accomplished by great popular campaigns, conducted by a small minority of specialists in public evangelism, but by the godly, honest witness of believers individually. It is pure irresponsibility to leave the evangelization of the lost to the 'experts,' as many are doing today. God would have every believer do his part to win the lost to Christ by prayer, personal witness and sincere godliness.
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If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice.
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Experts often possess more data than judgment.
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The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.
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In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell.
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Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it.
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ATTENTION This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment. Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is allowed for die experts only! So all the 'lefthanders' stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies. Otherwise you will be thrown out and kicked anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished the blinkenlights.
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It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and leads to its intellectual impoverishment.
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Statistics The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.
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Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
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'Words Of Profanity'
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but short tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we ve added years to life, not life to years.
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Where facts are few, experts are many.
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Experts often possess more data than judgment
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The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
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"Fox Urine: This horrifically produced product is marketed as a way to keep deer out of gardens, but experts say it doesn't work. On urine-collection 'farms,' foxes, coyotes, raccoons and other animals are crammed into tiny cages. They live on feces-encrusted wire cage floors so their urine can be collected in trays below. On one such 'farm,' PETA investigators found animals with open infected wounds and exposed bones. Most huddled together in fear, but others had gone 'cage-crazy' and circled endlessly, seeking a way to comfort themselves. Some chewed and mutilated their own flesh. Owners then killed them for their fur by using agonizing anal electrocution. Some sporting goods stores sell urine collected from deer crammed into tiny pens for use by hunters to mask their human odor and to lure bucks to the hunters' tree stands. Be a 'deer' - and ask managers of local gardening, department and sporting goods stores NOT to sell bottled urine."
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The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
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Experts say you can't concentrate on more than one task at a time.
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Someone said to me, 'If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?' My answer was then and still is, 'If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.'
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It was Public Art, defined as art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money.
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Delegating means letting others become the experts and hence the best.
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There are as many opinions as there are experts.
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The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.
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Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
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