User talk:YORD-the-unknown

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Alan Kay Quote
Regarding the "inventing the future" quote I am *not* accusing Alan Kay of plagiarism (why so touchy?), only noting that Dennis Gabor likely thought of it first. (He wrote a whole book on the subject, considerably pre-dating Kay's rise to prominence. Do you dispute this?!) It is quite possible that Kay thought of it independently. It is also quite common for quotes to become attached to the people who popularized them, not the people who originated them. Robert F. Kennedy, in his 1968 political campaign speeches, often quoted (with attribution) George Bernard Shaw's aphorism, "some men see things as they are and ask, why? I dream of things that never were and ask, why not?" After his assassination I saw memorial posters printed up with this aphorism attributed directly to RFK, and I have seen this mis-attribution innocently repeated. For ordinary conversation it would actually be quite tiresome to footnote short, pithy, phrases -- for Kay to say in speeches, "as Dennis Gabor first said, the best way to predict the future is to invent it" even if he did get it from Gabor. 137.82.188.68 01:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Follow-up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:137.82.188.68 YORD-the-unknown 05:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe you are incorrect; Wikipedia does not prohibit the interjection of opinion (otherwise there could be no film reviews on Wikipedia, and there are many!); it aims to prohibit the interjection of unsourced controversial opinion -- especially critical or potentially libellous opinion -- which this is certainly not. The "source" you demand is the de facto appearance of Gabor's book in 1963/64.  Perhaps you might also demand a "source" for the statement that Hemmingway took the title "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from John Donne's poem (I could in fact provide a source from a Hemmingway biography, but why would this be any more convincing than the thing itself?), but I would regard this as either ignorance or disingenuousness on your part not especially deserving an answer.  Again, I am not attempting to traduce Kay, only provide a reference to the interested reader to a whole book which explores the very idea expressed in his quote.  If you are opposed to such a reference then I suggest you are not well-suited to understand the interconnected nature of useful knowledge which one would like to exhibit in an encyclopedia.  137.82.188.68 00:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I remain somewhat puzzled by your objection to a cross-reference to Dennis Gabor; there is little difference between Gabor's and Kay's formulation, and Gabor certainly pre-dates Kay. What seems to me of more interest is that Kay attempted to live the quote in his work in computer science.  137.82.188.68 22:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Modular programming
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