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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 new Electronic and Software Systems research group. With a bit of luck, the name will change soon; perhaps the main unifying feature is a shared interest in Model Checking. 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.
A snapshot of his diary can be found here.
Denis' office is on the fourth floor (room 4041) of the new Mountbatten building, building 53. You will find his secretary Jo Axtell's office (room 4036) near the north-east corner; you have to ask her for access. If her office is locked (she works part-time), go back to the telephone opposite room 4028 and dial 22703. If you cannot even get into the building, dial 22703 from any campus phone—although there isn't a convenient one—or call 02380592703 from your mobile.
His office phone number is +44 (0) 23 8059 2703. Faxes should be sent to +44 (0) 23 8059 3045. His secretary, Jo Axtell, can be contacted on +44 (0) 23 8059 4506.
His Email address is dan@ecs.soton.ac.uk.
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…
This academic year, in the first semester, he is teaching the second year module
In the second semester, he will teach the first year modules
the third year modules
the fourth year moduleDenis has a publication list.
Denis occasionally contributes to his blog at http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/dan/ or to the ECS Wiki at https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/wiki/ (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:
 |
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.
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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
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
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,
"Sand and Foam"
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.
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"
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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.
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.
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.
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
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 |
