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41 " Great triumphs of engineering genius—the locomotive, the truss bridge, the steel rail— ... are rather invention than engineering proper. "
― Arthur Mellen Wellington
42 " He informed Byrdie that his social engineering ambitions betrayed all the delusions of grandeur that you might expect from the son of a poet. "
― Nell Zink , Mislaid
43 " In the absence of expert [senior military] advice, we have seen each successive administration fail in the business of strategy - yielding a United States twice as rich as the Soviet Union but much less strong. Only the manner of the failure has changed. In the 1960s, under Robert S. McNamara, we witnessed the wholesale substitution of civilian mathematical analysis for military expertise. The new breed of the " systems analysts" introduced new standards of intellectual discipline and greatly improved bookkeeping methods, but also a trained incapacity to understand the most important aspects of military power, which happens to be nonmeasurable. Because morale is nonmeasurable it was ignored, in large and small ways, with disastrous effects. We have seen how the pursuit of business-type efficiency in the placement of each soldier destroys the cohesion that makes fighting units effective; we may recall how the Pueblo was left virtually disarmed when it encountered the North Koreans (strong armament was judged as not " cost effective" for ships of that kind). Because tactics, the operational art of war, and strategy itself are not reducible to precise numbers, money was allocated to forces and single weapons according to " firepower" scores, computer simulations, and mathematical studies - all of which maximize efficiency - but often at the expense of combat effectiveness.An even greater defect of the McNamara approach to military decisions was its businesslike " linear" logic, which is right for commerce or engineering but almost always fails in the realm of strategy. Because its essence is the clash of antagonistic and outmaneuvering wills, strategy usually proceeds by paradox rather than conventional " linear" logic. That much is clear even from the most shopworn of Latin tags: si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war), whose business equivalent would be orders of " if you want sales, add to your purchasing staff," or some other, equally absurd advice. Where paradox rules, straightforward linear logic is self-defeating, sometimes quite literally. Let a general choose the best path for his advance, the shortest and best-roaded, and it then becomes the worst path of all paths, because the enemy will await him there in greatest strength...Linear logic is all very well in commerce and engineering, where there is lively opposition, to be sure, but no open-ended scope for maneuver; a competitor beaten in the marketplace will not bomb our factory instead, and the river duly bridged will not deliberately carve out a new course. But such reactions are merely normal in strategy. Military men are not trained in paradoxical thinking, but they do no have to be. Unlike the business-school expert, who searches for optimal solutions in the abstract and then presents them will all the authority of charts and computer printouts, even the most ordinary military mind can recall the existence of a maneuvering antagonists now and then, and will therefore seek robust solutions rather than " best" solutions - those, in other words, which are not optimal but can remain adequate even when the enemy reacts to outmaneuver the first approach. "
44 " I’m having my lunch when I hear a familiar hoarse shout, ‘Oy Tony!’ I whip round, damaging my neck further, to see Michael Gambon in the lunch queue. …Gambon tells me the story of Olivier auditioning him at the Old Vic in 1962. His audition speech was from Richard III. ‘See, Tone, I was thick as two short planks then and I didn’t know he’d had a rather notable success in the part. I was just shitting myself about meeting the Great Man. He sussed how green I was and started farting around.’As reported by Gambon, their conversation went like this:Olivier: ‘What are you going to do for me?’Gambon: ‘Richard the Third.’Olivier: ‘Is that so. Which part?’Gambon: ‘Richard the Third.’Olivier: ‘Yes, but which part?’Gambon: ‘Richard the Third.’Olivier: ‘Yes, I understand that, but which part?’Gambon: ‘Richard the Third.’Olivier: ‘But which character? Catesby? Ratcliffe? Buckingham’s a good part …’Gambon: ‘Oh I see, beg your pardon, no, Richard the Third.’Olivier: ‘What, the King? Richard?’Gambon: ‘ — the Third, yeah.’Olivier: “You’ve got a fucking cheek, haven’t you?’Gambon: ‘Beg your pardon?’Olivier: ‘Never mind, which part are you going to do?’Gambon: ‘Richard the Third.’Olivier: ‘Don’t start that again. Which speech?’Gambon: ‘Oh I see, beg your pardon, “Was every woman in this humour woo’d.”‘Olivier: ‘Right. Whenever you’re ready.’Gambon: ‘ “Was ever woman in this humour woo’d –” ‘Olivier: ‘Wait. Stop. You’re too close. Go further away. I need to see the whole shape, get the full perspective.’Gambon: ‘Oh I see, beg your pardon …’ Gambon continues, ‘So I go over to the far end of the room, Tone, thinking that I’ve already made an almighty tit of myself, so how do I save the day? Well I see this pillar and I decide to swing round it and start the speech with a sort of dramatic punch. But as I do this my ring catches on a screw and half my sodding hand gets left behind. I think to myself, “Now I mustn’t let this throw me since he’s already got me down as a bit of an arsehole”, so I plough on … “Was ever woman in this humour woo’d –”‘Olivier: ‘Wait. Stop. What’s the blood?’Gambon: ‘Nothing, nothing, just a little gash, I do beg your pardon …’A nurse had to be called and he suffered the indignity of being given first aid with the greatest actor in the world passing the bandages. At last it was done.Gambon: ‘Shall I start again?’Olivier: ‘No. I think I’ve got a fair idea how you’re going to do it. You’d better get along now. We’ll let you know.’Gambon went back to the engineering factory in Islington where he was working. At four that afternoon he was bent over his lathe, working as best as he could with a heavily bandaged hand, when he was called to the phone. It was the Old Vic.‘It’s not easy talking on the phone, Tone. One, there’s the noise of the machinery. Two, I have to keep my voice down ’cause I’m cockney at work and posh with theatre people. But they offer me a job, spear-carrying, starting immediately. I go back to my work-bench, heart beating in my chest, pack my tool-case, start to go. The foreman comes up, says, “Oy, where you off to?” “I’ve got bad news,” I say, “I’ve got to go.” He says, “Why are you taking your tool box?” I say, “I can’t tell you, it’s very bad news, might need it.” And I never went back there, Tone. Home on the bus, heart still thumping away. A whole new world ahead. We tend to forget what it felt like in the beginning. "
― Antony Sher , Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook
45 " I love the quietness of the library, the gateway to knowledge, to the French language and medieval history and hydraulic engineering and fairy tales, learning in a very primitive form: books, something that's quickly giving way to modern technology. "
― Mary Kubica , Pretty Baby
46 " Math is my Passion. Engineering is my Profession. "
47 " There is something in human pride that can stand big troubles, but we need the supernatural grace and power of God to stand by us in the little things. The tiniest detail in which we obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. When we do our duty, not for duty’s sake, but because we believe that God is engineering our circumstances in that way, then at the very point of our obedience the whole superb grace of God is ours. "
― Oswald Chambers ,
48 " individuals are concerned notwith the moral issue of realizing these standards, but withthe amoral issue of engineering a convincing impression thatthese standards are being realized. Our activity, then, islargely concerned with moral matters, but as performers wedo not have a moral concern in these moral matters. Asperformers we are merchants of morality. Our day is givenover to intimate contact with the goods we display and ourminds are filled with intimate understandings of them; but itmay well be that the more attention we give to these goods,th e more d is ta n t we feel from them and from those who arebelieving enough to buy them. To use a different imagery,the very obligation and profitablility of appearing always ina steady moral light, of being a socialized character, forcesus to be the sort of person who is practiced in the ways ofthe stage. "
― Erving Goffman
49 " ...there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love *running*. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you've got, being patient and forgiving and... undemanding...maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other. "
― Christopher McDougall , Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
50 " Vigil couldn't quite put his finger on it, but his gut kept telling him that there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding. "
51 " The engineering is secondary to the vision. "
52 " Reality isn’t the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we’re engineered for it. It’s a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can’t tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. Nothing it was designed to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function. "
― Theodore Sturgeon , More Than Human
53 " Philosophy in its old form could exist only in the absence of engineering, but with engineering in existence and daily more active and far reaching, the old verbalistic philosophy and metaphysics have lost their reason to exist. They were no more able to understand the " production" of the universe and life than they are now able to understand or grapple with " production" as a means to provide a happier existence for humanity. They failed because their venerated method of " speculation" can not produce, and its place must be taken by mathematical thinking. Mathematical reasoning is displacing metaphysical reasoning. Engineering is driving verbalistic philosophy out of existence and humanity gains decidedly thereby. Only a few parasites and " speculators" will mourn the disappearance of their old companion " speculation." The world of producers -the predominating majority of human beings- will welcome a philosophy of ordered thought and production. "
54 " The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it's Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same. "
55 " Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people. "
56 " Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expectations of technology. They know that the perfect system is the stuff of science fiction, not of engineering fact, and so everything must be treated with respect. "
57 " Teachers need to be more inspirational. But it's also up to engineering to make itself more interesting. "
58 " Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail. "
59 " I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, because without a failure criterion against which to measure the calculated result, it is a meaningless number. "
60 " Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst. "
