(3089/898) The eyes have it

661) Eyes are classically studied as input devices. The study of eyes as output devices is virtually unknown. Yet, if you are standing 20 feet away from another person, you can tell if that person is looking right in your eyes or just over your shoulder - a difference of a tiny fraction of a degree. How? It surely isn't trigonometry, wherein you are computing the angle of the other person's pupil and then computing whether it's in line with your own gaze. No. That would require unthinkable measurement and computation. There is some kind of message passing, maybe a twinkle of the eye, which we just don't understand.

Nicholas Negroponte
"Sensor Deprived" in
Wired (10/94)

662) [Bill] Clinton uses the language of seduction. He talks with the moist urgent sincerity of the junk-bond dealer who sits down next to you at the bar in the Atlanta airport. He is driven to ingratiate himself and find common ground. [...] [Newt] Gingrich uses the language of didacticism. He talks like your uncle, the amateur pedant who drinks one glass of wine too many at Thanksgiving dinner and insists on spending an hour dwelling on the finer points of "The Federalist Papers." He doesn't feel the need to be loved in the way Mr. Clinton does, and blurts out half-naked ideas more often. He talks so much because he loves playing the professor to a nation of captive students, recommending a raft of new books every week and expounding on his offbeat cultural theories.

Maureen Dowd
"Silence Is Olden" in
New York Times Magazine (2/26/95)

663) GODWIN'S LAW OF NAZI ANALOGIES: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

GORDON'S RESTATEMENT OF NEWMAN'S COROLLARY TO GODWIN'S LAW: Libertarianism (pro, con, and internal faction fights) is the primordial net.news discussion topic. Any time the debate shifts somewhere else, it must eventually return to this fuel source.

MORGAN'S COROLLARY TO GODWIN'S LAW: As soon as such a comparison occurs, someone will start a Nazi-discussion thread on alt.censorship.

SIRCAR'S COROLLARY: If the Usenet discussion touches on homosexuality or Heinlein, Nazis or Hitler are mentioned within three days.

VAN DER LEUN'S COROLLARY: As global connectivity improves, the probablity of actual Nazis being on the Net approaches one.

MILLER'S PARADOX: As a network evolves, the number of Nazi comparisons not forestalled by citation to Godwin's Law converges to zero.

STOLL'S RESTATEMENT OF GODWIN'S LAW: Once a discussion reaches a comparison to Nazis or Hitler its usefulness is over.

Mike Godwin
"Meme, Counter-Meme" in
Wired (10/94)

[Note: cf. #817 Spafford, #846-848 Spafford, and #934-935 unknown.]

664) All action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently - like the effect of fog or moonlight - gives to things exaggerated dimensions and an unnatural appearance.

Karl von Clausewitz
quoted by James Der Derian in
"Cyber Deterrence" in
Wired (9/94)

Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began).

As of today, there are 692 days remaining in the administration of the worst American President ever.