A Quote by Bill Engvall
No sooner my kids leave their friends than they start texting them. And it's all in code in a language I totally don't understand.
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But actually a code is a language for translating one thing into another. And mathematics is the language of science. My big thesis is that although the world looks messy and chaotic, if you translate it into the world of numbers and shapes, patterns emerge and you start to understand why things are the way they are.
The poem is a form of texting... it's the original text. It's a perfecting of a feeling in language - it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.
We feel certain that the extraterrestrial message is a mathematical code of some kind. Probably a number code. Mathematics is the one language we might conceivably have in common with other forms of intelligent life in the universe. As I understand it, there is no reality more independent of our perception and more true to itself than mathematical reality.
There's a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess. [...] The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It's harder to read code than to write it.
I find it personally distracting when kids are constantly texting, but they can be texting something that is just benign and just fine.
Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code.
You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.
As soon as I gave birth, it was as if you understand them. They become people, not kids. You start to identify with them. You see yourself in them.
Who would know but ten years ago that kids would be texting each other all the time, that that would be one of their main forms of communication. And so many times, these kids know more about the technology than their parents. And so many times, we're putting kids in very adult situations and expecting them to behave like they're 40 years old.
Trying to read our DNA is like trying to understand software code - with only 90% of the code riddled with errors. It's very difficult in that case to understand and predict what that software code is going to do.
I'm not one of those "omg texting kids rite bad" alarmists. I just think there's an interesting nexus where the Internet itself hastened language change when it comes to Internet terms.
My goal's always to connect and relate to my audience. I want them to leave my show feeling like they got to know me better - not only that, but like we could be friends. I want people to leave going, 'Oh my gosh, I could totally hang out with her!'
I start a lot of things and purposely leave them unfinished. When I have a bunch of really long emails, and I need time to think about the response, I'll actually start replying, leave them as drafts, and move onto something else mid-sentence.
You learn you have to accept the way things are, and the sooner you accept them, the sooner you become at peace with them, and then the things start to get better.
I'm a big reader. My kids love reading, and I think it's important, not just for development but for bonding. You start reading to kids before they can even understand what you're saying to them, so I look at it as a fundamental tool for connection.
We're finding [texting] 11 times more powerful than email [for communicating with kids].
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