Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Billionaire plans world's biggest plane for orbital launches
The band is getting back together: Seven years after winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, software billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace guru Burt Rutan are teaming up with SpaceX and other top-flight rocketeers to create an air-launched orbital delivery system. They say the venture will require the construction of the largest aircraft ever flown.
Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
The Seattle native, who made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder, said he's long dreamed of following up on SpaceShipOne's success with another revolutionary space effort. "You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill, and this is a dream I'm very excited about," he told journalists and VIPs at the headquarters of Vulcan Inc., which serves as the umbrella company for many of Allen's ventures.
Rutan, who retired from Scaled Composites in April at the age of 67, will serve as a board member for Stratolaunch. He said Allen was the "perfect team member and customer" when they worked on SpaceShipOne. "I'm looking forward to doing that again," Rutan said.
The new venture is significant for the revival of the Allen-Rutan partnership, with the addition of California-based SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as new suppliers. It's like putting Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen on the same music stage.
Other players include Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, who will serve as Stratolaunch's CEO and president; and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who is on the board. Griffin said the Stratolaunch air-launch system could make spaceflight more routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground-based launches. However, getting the company off the ground will require a large investment as well as "the courage to fly through failure to get to success," Griffin said.
Allen agreed that his latest venture won't come cheap. He said he'll spend "at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShipOne." Allen's investment in SpaceShipOne was estimated at $25 to $30 million, which suggests he's prepared to put at least $250 million to $300 million into Stratolaunch.
Mothership plus rocket
The Stratolaunch system would super-size the arrangement used for the SpaceShipOne launches: Scaled Composites has been tapped to build a carrier airplane that weighs more than 1.2 million pounds, with a wingspan of more than 380 feet. That tonnage rivals the weight of the Antonov An-225, which is recognized as the world's heaviest aircraft. Stratolaunch's dual-fuselage plane would be powered by six 747 engines, and would require a 12,000-foot runway for landing.
Wentz said the venture already has a contract to acquire two Boeing 747s. The engines as well as other subsystems would be used on the Stratolaunch super-carrier. However, Scaled Composites President Doug Shane told me that the 747's metal skin wouldn't go onto the plane. Instead, the new plane's wings and fuselage structure would be fabricated from advanced carbon composites.
Rutan joked that the plane was "relatively close to building, as soon as we can get a building big enough."
The plane would be capable of flying up to 1,300 nautical miles to reach its launch point. SpaceX would provide a shortened version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the next phase of Stratolaunch's route to orbit. Wentz described it as a "Falcon 4 or 5." The multistage booster would be attached to the plane using a mating and integration system developed by Dynetics, and released during the mothership's flight at high altitude. After release, the 490,000-pound rocket would light up to send commercial and government payloads weighing up to 13,500 pounds into low Earth orbit.
Griffin said the Stratolaunch system would initially serve "a thriving commercial satellite market, small to medium" — the type of market previously served by the now-retired Delta 2 rocket.
Wentz said the rocket to be developed by SpaceX would not compete with SpaceX's own Falcon 9, which can lift 23,050 pounds to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. SpaceX's vice president for government sales, Adam Harris, concurred: "This is actually a complementary capability ... There's room in that [payload] class for something new," he told me.
Allen said the Stratolaunch system won't take on human passengers until the system's safety and reliability are fully demonstrated. But if and when it does, "we could be very competitive" with the $60 million-a-seat fee that the Russians will be charging NASA over the next few years, he said. Rutan suggested that people could make up a significant share of the payloads in the longer term. "I don't think there's any limit to the number of payloads in that category," he said.
Stratolaunch's briefing materials said more than 100 people have already been assigned to the effort in California and Florida as well as in Alabama, where the company is headquartered. Flight tests are projected to begin in 2016. The plane will be tested at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, but the base for launch operations has not yet been selected.
Re-entering the space race
Allen and his partners say air-launched systems can send payloads into space at lower cost, with greater safety, more flexibility and faster turnaround time than ground-launched systems. That would be because the carrier airplane effectively gives the rocket a head start on its ascent to orbit, and can launch from a variety of midflight locations. But the launch industry is becoming more competitive, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and smaller rocket companies such as Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace.
Someday, Allen and Rutan may find themselves in competition with Virgin Galactic, which has incorporated SpaceShipOne technology into the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane and is expected to start commercial service in the next year or two. Today, however, Virgin Galactic issued a statement welcoming the new venture.
"It takes me back to the exciting conversations the three of us had in 2004 when we first started talking about commercializing SpaceShipOne technology," Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, said in the statement. "We've come a long way since then; WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are built and flying, and we have nearly 500 private individuals and science researchers signed up and ready to fly. The potential of the industry we are leading is immense but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies. Burt and Paul's record in that respect is unmatched. I hope that in due course, in partnership with Stratolaunch and others, we will be able to repeat the pattern that has worked so spectacularly well in the suborbital sphere, for orbital spaceflight.”
The commercial space race may have changed over the past seven years, but Allen clearly wants to get back on the track. At the end of his autobiography, "Idea Man," he dropped a broad hint about the plans announced today. "I'm just now considering a new initiative with that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship," he wrote. "Someone, after all, is going to have to get behind SpaceShipThree."
But does Allen expect to ride the Stratolaunch into space someday? During the news conference, the 58-year-old billionaire said he'd probably wait until a good number of flights have been flown. "I'm actually a really conservative guy in some aspects," he confessed.
Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
The Seattle native, who made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder, said he's long dreamed of following up on SpaceShipOne's success with another revolutionary space effort. "You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill, and this is a dream I'm very excited about," he told journalists and VIPs at the headquarters of Vulcan Inc., which serves as the umbrella company for many of Allen's ventures.
Rutan, who retired from Scaled Composites in April at the age of 67, will serve as a board member for Stratolaunch. He said Allen was the "perfect team member and customer" when they worked on SpaceShipOne. "I'm looking forward to doing that again," Rutan said.
The new venture is significant for the revival of the Allen-Rutan partnership, with the addition of California-based SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as new suppliers. It's like putting Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen on the same music stage.
Other players include Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, who will serve as Stratolaunch's CEO and president; and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who is on the board. Griffin said the Stratolaunch air-launch system could make spaceflight more routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground-based launches. However, getting the company off the ground will require a large investment as well as "the courage to fly through failure to get to success," Griffin said.
Allen agreed that his latest venture won't come cheap. He said he'll spend "at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShipOne." Allen's investment in SpaceShipOne was estimated at $25 to $30 million, which suggests he's prepared to put at least $250 million to $300 million into Stratolaunch.
Mothership plus rocket
The Stratolaunch system would super-size the arrangement used for the SpaceShipOne launches: Scaled Composites has been tapped to build a carrier airplane that weighs more than 1.2 million pounds, with a wingspan of more than 380 feet. That tonnage rivals the weight of the Antonov An-225, which is recognized as the world's heaviest aircraft. Stratolaunch's dual-fuselage plane would be powered by six 747 engines, and would require a 12,000-foot runway for landing.
Wentz said the venture already has a contract to acquire two Boeing 747s. The engines as well as other subsystems would be used on the Stratolaunch super-carrier. However, Scaled Composites President Doug Shane told me that the 747's metal skin wouldn't go onto the plane. Instead, the new plane's wings and fuselage structure would be fabricated from advanced carbon composites.
Rutan joked that the plane was "relatively close to building, as soon as we can get a building big enough."
The plane would be capable of flying up to 1,300 nautical miles to reach its launch point. SpaceX would provide a shortened version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the next phase of Stratolaunch's route to orbit. Wentz described it as a "Falcon 4 or 5." The multistage booster would be attached to the plane using a mating and integration system developed by Dynetics, and released during the mothership's flight at high altitude. After release, the 490,000-pound rocket would light up to send commercial and government payloads weighing up to 13,500 pounds into low Earth orbit.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, right, shakes hands with former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan looks on, following a Seattle news conference to announce the creation of Stratolaunch Systems.
Wentz said the rocket to be developed by SpaceX would not compete with SpaceX's own Falcon 9, which can lift 23,050 pounds to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. SpaceX's vice president for government sales, Adam Harris, concurred: "This is actually a complementary capability ... There's room in that [payload] class for something new," he told me.
Allen said the Stratolaunch system won't take on human passengers until the system's safety and reliability are fully demonstrated. But if and when it does, "we could be very competitive" with the $60 million-a-seat fee that the Russians will be charging NASA over the next few years, he said. Rutan suggested that people could make up a significant share of the payloads in the longer term. "I don't think there's any limit to the number of payloads in that category," he said.
Stratolaunch's briefing materials said more than 100 people have already been assigned to the effort in California and Florida as well as in Alabama, where the company is headquartered. Flight tests are projected to begin in 2016. The plane will be tested at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, but the base for launch operations has not yet been selected.
Re-entering the space race
Allen and his partners say air-launched systems can send payloads into space at lower cost, with greater safety, more flexibility and faster turnaround time than ground-launched systems. That would be because the carrier airplane effectively gives the rocket a head start on its ascent to orbit, and can launch from a variety of midflight locations. But the launch industry is becoming more competitive, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and smaller rocket companies such as Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace.
Someday, Allen and Rutan may find themselves in competition with Virgin Galactic, which has incorporated SpaceShipOne technology into the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane and is expected to start commercial service in the next year or two. Today, however, Virgin Galactic issued a statement welcoming the new venture.
"It takes me back to the exciting conversations the three of us had in 2004 when we first started talking about commercializing SpaceShipOne technology," Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, said in the statement. "We've come a long way since then; WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are built and flying, and we have nearly 500 private individuals and science researchers signed up and ready to fly. The potential of the industry we are leading is immense but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies. Burt and Paul's record in that respect is unmatched. I hope that in due course, in partnership with Stratolaunch and others, we will be able to repeat the pattern that has worked so spectacularly well in the suborbital sphere, for orbital spaceflight.”
The commercial space race may have changed over the past seven years, but Allen clearly wants to get back on the track. At the end of his autobiography, "Idea Man," he dropped a broad hint about the plans announced today. "I'm just now considering a new initiative with that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship," he wrote. "Someone, after all, is going to have to get behind SpaceShipThree."
But does Allen expect to ride the Stratolaunch into space someday? During the news conference, the 58-year-old billionaire said he'd probably wait until a good number of flights have been flown. "I'm actually a really conservative guy in some aspects," he confessed.
SEXY TECH QUOTE
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
-Albert Einstein
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -Albert Einstein
Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
-Albert Einstein
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
-Aldous Huxley
"The perfect computer has been developed. You just feed in your problems and they never come out again."
-AL Goodman
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
-B. F. Skinner Contingencies of Reinforcement, 1969
It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful they are.-Clive James
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
-Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
-Isaac Newton
Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked.
-Jeff Pesis
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
-John F. Kennedy
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
-Karl Marx
"Beware of computer programmers that carry screwdrivers."
-Leonard Brandwein
All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness.
-Mark Kennedy
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
-NASA in 1965
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-Pablo Picasso
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer."
-Paul Ehrlich
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
-Rich Cook
Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork.
-Sam Ewing
“Technology has the shelf life of a banana.”
-Scott McNealy
Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.
-Steve Wozniak
The most important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them
-Sir William Bragg
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
-Thomas Alva Edison
Anyone who puts a small gloss on a fundamental technology, calls it proprietary, and then tries to keep others from building on it, is a thief.
-Tim O'Reilly
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
-Winston Churchill
All of the biggest technological inventions created by man - the airplane, the automobile, the computer - says little about his intelligence, but speaks volumes about his laziness. ~Mark Kennedy
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Modern technology
Owes ecology
An apology.
~Alan M. Eddison
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. ~Albert Einstein
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. ~Richard P. Feynman
If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger. ~Frank Lloyd Wright
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation...tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation. ~Jean Arp
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. ~Aldous Huxley
Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. ~Max Frisch
Do you realize if it weren't for Edison we'd be watching TV by candlelight? ~Al Boliska
Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences. ~Lewis Mumford
God never made his work for man to mend.
~John Dryden
It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome. ~T.S. Eliot, about radio
Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971
Don't get smart alecksy
With the galaxy
Leave the atom alone.
~E.Y. Harburg, "Leave the Atom Alone," 1957
The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the U.S. is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology. ~E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 1973
I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours. ~John F. Kennedy
The most important and urgent problems of the technology of today are no longer the satisfactions of the primary needs or of archetypal wishes, but the reparation of the evils and damages by the technology of yesterday. ~Dennis Gabor, Innovations: Scientific, Technological and Social, 1970
This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it. ~Jonas Salk
Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. ~J.K. Rowling
As far as I'm concerned, progress peaked with frozen pizza. ~From the movie Die Hard 2, spoken by the character John McClane regarding technological advances, screenplay by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson, based on the novel 58 Minutes by Walter Wager
Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Modern technology
Owes ecology
An apology.
~Alan M. Eddison
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. ~Albert Einstein
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams, 1923
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. ~Richard P. Feynman
If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger. ~Frank Lloyd Wright
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation...tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation. ~Jean Arp
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. ~Aldous Huxley
Technology... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. ~Max Frisch
Do you realize if it weren't for Edison we'd be watching TV by candlelight? ~Al Boliska
Western society has accepted as unquestionable a technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect to their human consequences. ~Lewis Mumford
God never made his work for man to mend.
~John Dryden
It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome. ~T.S. Eliot, about radio
Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow, New York Times, 15 March 1971
Don't get smart alecksy
With the galaxy
Leave the atom alone.
~E.Y. Harburg, "Leave the Atom Alone," 1957
The drive toward complex technical achievement offers a clue to why the U.S. is good at space gadgetry and bad at slum problems. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology. ~E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 1973
I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours. ~John F. Kennedy
The most important and urgent problems of the technology of today are no longer the satisfactions of the primary needs or of archetypal wishes, but the reparation of the evils and damages by the technology of yesterday. ~Dennis Gabor, Innovations: Scientific, Technological and Social, 1970
This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it. ~Jonas Salk
Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. ~J.K. Rowling
As far as I'm concerned, progress peaked with frozen pizza. ~From the movie Die Hard 2, spoken by the character John McClane regarding technological advances, screenplay by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson, based on the novel 58 Minutes by Walter Wager
| |
I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind! ~Author Unknown
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people. ~Karl Marx
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988
When a machine begins to run without human aid, it is time to scrap it - whether it be a factory or a government. ~Alexander Chase, Perspectives, 1966
We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
Man is a slow, sloppy and brilliant thinker; the machine is fast, accurate and stupid. ~William M. Kelly
I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse. ~Brian Eno, Wired, January 1999
Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply an endorsement of western industrial civilization. ~Anonymous email sig line
Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor. ~Ellen Goodman, "The Human Factor," The Washington Post, January 1987
I think I should not go far wrong if I asserted that the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs. ~E.F. Schumacher
Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things and there never is. ~Robert M. Pirsig
It is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times. ~Pearl S. Buck
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. ~B.F. Skinner, Contingencies of Reinforcement, 1969
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them. ~Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939
What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions. ~Arnold Glasow
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons. ~R. Buckminster Fuller
The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men. ~Havelock Ellis
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. ~Warren G. Bennis
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. ~John Stuart Mill
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ~Arthur C. Clarke
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers. ~Walter Lippmann
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. ~Carl Sagan
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. ~Eric Hoffer
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. ~Carl Sagan
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. ~Alfred North Whitehead
Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines. ~Erich Fromm
Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower. ~Alan C. Kay
Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools. ~Henry David Thoreau
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. ~Alice Kahn
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ~Sydney J. Harris
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people. ~Karl Marx
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988
When a machine begins to run without human aid, it is time to scrap it - whether it be a factory or a government. ~Alexander Chase, Perspectives, 1966
We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us. ~John Kenneth Galbraith
Man is a slow, sloppy and brilliant thinker; the machine is fast, accurate and stupid. ~William M. Kelly
I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse. ~Brian Eno, Wired, January 1999
Use of advanced messaging technology does not imply an endorsement of western industrial civilization. ~Anonymous email sig line
Once upon a time we were just plain people. But that was before we began having relationships with mechanical systems. Get involved with a machine and sooner or later you are reduced to a factor. ~Ellen Goodman, "The Human Factor," The Washington Post, January 1987
I think I should not go far wrong if I asserted that the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs. ~E.F. Schumacher
Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things and there never is. ~Robert M. Pirsig
It is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times. ~Pearl S. Buck
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. ~B.F. Skinner, Contingencies of Reinforcement, 1969
The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them. ~Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939
What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions. ~Arnold Glasow
Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons. ~R. Buckminster Fuller
The greatest task before civilization at present is to make machines what they ought to be, the slaves, instead of the masters of men. ~Havelock Ellis
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. ~Warren G. Bennis
It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. ~John Stuart Mill
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ~Arthur C. Clarke
You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steam-roller will not plant flowers. ~Walter Lippmann
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. ~Carl Sagan
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. ~Eric Hoffer
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces. ~Carl Sagan
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. ~Alfred North Whitehead
Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines. ~Erich Fromm
Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower. ~Alan C. Kay
Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools. ~Henry David Thoreau
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three. ~Alice Kahn
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. ~Sydney J. Harris
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
XXX domains now trending
(Mashable)-- Is it just me or is the ICANN plan to corral online porn going terribly wrong? We already have reports that universities are snapping up XXX domains in an effort to get ahead of porn pranksters who want to besmirch a few good online names with smut.
I guess this turn of events was obvious to anyone with half a brain.
Legitimate porn sites have little interest in the triple X domains, which went on sale earlier this week, for their businesses because they see them as potential censorship and, more importantly, they thrive on people accidentally stumbling on their URLs.
In the early days of the web this was common because porn purveyors snapped up known names and brands -- none of which had to feature an obvious porn domain label. That's how "Whitehouse.com" ended up, for a time, as a porn site.
.XXX was designed to improve the situation. No more accidentally typing in, well, something you didn't intend. With a designated porn domain, it's unlikely anyone would end up in the wrong place.
Better yet, corporations and homes could easily block all .XXX domains. That's the plan, but if pornographers stay away and legitimate people, companies, businesses and universities race to snap up any and all XXX domain names that could be construed as theirs, then this triple XXX domain could be an embarrassing failure for the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
Think I'm exaggerating? The AP reports that 80,000 XXX domains were sold in presale and many companies like Pepsi and Nike lined up to purchase adult domains. The University of Kansas reportedly just paid $3,000 for a variety of XXX URLs.
It's unlikely anyone will ever type in www.KUgirls.xxx, but that's not the point. The university just wanted to be safe. I understand the impulse. Even as I'm writing this, I'm wondering if I, too, should try to protect my good name by buying the LanceUlanoff.xxx domain.
I know where to go. GoDaddy.com is registering them for $99 a year, making these domains considerably more expensive than standard domains (which you can buy at various sites at anywhere from $1.99 or $9.99 -- yearly maintenance fees are then more expensive).
According to the website, if I wanted to launch an adult website under that URL, I actually have to become an "Internet Community Member" and then confirm my status of "the sponsored adult entertainment community". My guess is that this is how the ICANN polices the URLs, to ensure that someone isn't registering someone else's brand as a porn site.
I have no plans to do so, which conveniently means I do not have to become a part of the "Community." GoDaddy tells me this too, and is -- fortunately, I guess -- only too happy to help me park my URL for the same exorbitant fee.
Atop GoDaddy's XXX domain registration page is this: "Let's be adult about it. Create an adult Web presence or protect your brand." This is followed by an explanation of why you'd want to register an XXX domain. Note what it starts with:
"Secure your brand. Protect your reputation."
"Perhaps you'd like to create an adult entertainment website. Or maybe you're here to keep your brand from being registered as a .XXX by someone else. Whatever your reasons for wanting a .XXX domain, you've come to the right place. To check the availability of your domain, type the name you want into the search box above. "
GoDaddy has built its brand with coy references to sex (check out any of its Super Bowl ads), but it's not being coy here. The message is clear: If you don't want someone launching a porn XXX domain with your name or brand, you'd better let GoDaddy take your money and register it for you.
While I see the parallels with the early days of the web, this situation is different in one fundamental way: Those snapping up the domains for protection will never use them. No one outside the porn industry wants to run a live XXX domain website. These businesses and universities are simply buying them in what GoDaddy actually calls "Defensive Registrations" to hide them from view forever (and they'll pay GoDaddy yearly fees to do so).
Instead of creating a solution, the ICANN's apparently misguided efforts have spawned a new anxiety: "Your Brand Name in Porn." The fear is so strong that it's got all these people buying up domains just so the wrong people can't get them. As I see it, this could be quite a windfall for GoDaddy. The company should send the ICANN a thank-you note.
I guess this turn of events was obvious to anyone with half a brain.
Legitimate porn sites have little interest in the triple X domains, which went on sale earlier this week, for their businesses because they see them as potential censorship and, more importantly, they thrive on people accidentally stumbling on their URLs.
In the early days of the web this was common because porn purveyors snapped up known names and brands -- none of which had to feature an obvious porn domain label. That's how "Whitehouse.com" ended up, for a time, as a porn site.
.XXX was designed to improve the situation. No more accidentally typing in, well, something you didn't intend. With a designated porn domain, it's unlikely anyone would end up in the wrong place.
Better yet, corporations and homes could easily block all .XXX domains. That's the plan, but if pornographers stay away and legitimate people, companies, businesses and universities race to snap up any and all XXX domain names that could be construed as theirs, then this triple XXX domain could be an embarrassing failure for the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
Think I'm exaggerating? The AP reports that 80,000 XXX domains were sold in presale and many companies like Pepsi and Nike lined up to purchase adult domains. The University of Kansas reportedly just paid $3,000 for a variety of XXX URLs.
It's unlikely anyone will ever type in www.KUgirls.xxx, but that's not the point. The university just wanted to be safe. I understand the impulse. Even as I'm writing this, I'm wondering if I, too, should try to protect my good name by buying the LanceUlanoff.xxx domain.
I know where to go. GoDaddy.com is registering them for $99 a year, making these domains considerably more expensive than standard domains (which you can buy at various sites at anywhere from $1.99 or $9.99 -- yearly maintenance fees are then more expensive).
According to the website, if I wanted to launch an adult website under that URL, I actually have to become an "Internet Community Member" and then confirm my status of "the sponsored adult entertainment community". My guess is that this is how the ICANN polices the URLs, to ensure that someone isn't registering someone else's brand as a porn site.
I have no plans to do so, which conveniently means I do not have to become a part of the "Community." GoDaddy tells me this too, and is -- fortunately, I guess -- only too happy to help me park my URL for the same exorbitant fee.
Atop GoDaddy's XXX domain registration page is this: "Let's be adult about it. Create an adult Web presence or protect your brand." This is followed by an explanation of why you'd want to register an XXX domain. Note what it starts with:
"Secure your brand. Protect your reputation."
"Perhaps you'd like to create an adult entertainment website. Or maybe you're here to keep your brand from being registered as a .XXX by someone else. Whatever your reasons for wanting a .XXX domain, you've come to the right place. To check the availability of your domain, type the name you want into the search box above. "
GoDaddy has built its brand with coy references to sex (check out any of its Super Bowl ads), but it's not being coy here. The message is clear: If you don't want someone launching a porn XXX domain with your name or brand, you'd better let GoDaddy take your money and register it for you.
While I see the parallels with the early days of the web, this situation is different in one fundamental way: Those snapping up the domains for protection will never use them. No one outside the porn industry wants to run a live XXX domain website. These businesses and universities are simply buying them in what GoDaddy actually calls "Defensive Registrations" to hide them from view forever (and they'll pay GoDaddy yearly fees to do so).
Instead of creating a solution, the ICANN's apparently misguided efforts have spawned a new anxiety: "Your Brand Name in Porn." The fear is so strong that it's got all these people buying up domains just so the wrong people can't get them. As I see it, this could be quite a windfall for GoDaddy. The company should send the ICANN a thank-you note.
Laugh at funny Santa Claus Jokes!
Why does Santa always go down the chimney?
Because it soots him!
(that's one of Santa's favourite jokes! *HO! Ho! ho!*)
Where does Santa stay when he's on holidays?
At a Ho-ho-tel!
What does Mrs. Claus sing to Santy on his birthday?
"Freeze a jolly good fellow!"
What does Santa put on his toast?
"Jingle Jam"
What do you get if you cross Father Christmas with a duck?
A Christmas Quacker!
An honest politician, a kind lawyer and Santa Claus were walking down the street and saw a $20 bill. Which one picked it up??
Santa! The other two don't exist!
What do you do if Santa Claus gets stuck in your chimney?
Pour Santa flush on him!
What does Santa say to the toys on Christmas Eve?
Okay everyone, sack time!
What do the elves call it when Père Noël claps his hands at the end of a play?
Santapplause!
Why does Santa like to work in his garden?
Because he likes to hoe, hoe, hoe!
What do you call a kitty on the beach on Christmas morning?
Sandy Claws!
Who delivers presents to dentist offices?
Santa Jaws!
Who delivers Christmas presents to elephants?
Elephanta Claus!
What do you get if Santa comes down the chimney while the fire is still burning?
Crisp Kringle!
Why does St. Nicholas have a white beard?
So he can hide at the North Pole!
What do you call Santa when he has no money?
Saint "Nickel"-less!
What smells most in a chimney?
Santa's nose!
What does Kris Kringle like to get when he goes to the donut shop?
A jolly roll!
What do you call someone who doesn't believe in Father Christmas?
A rebel without a Claus!
What is invisible but smells like milk and cookies?
Kris Kringle burps!
What did Santa get when he crossed a woodpecker with kleenex?
Rapping paper!
What does Santa like to have for breakfast?
Mistle-"toast"!
Why does Santa take presents to children around the world?
Because the presents won't take themselves!
What does Santa use when he goes fishing?
His north pole!
How do we know Santa is such a good race car driver?
Because he's always in the pole position!
What is twenty feet tall, has sharp teeth and goes Ho Ho Ho?
Tyranno-santa Rex!
What's red & white and red & white and red & white?
Santa rolling down a hill!
What did Santa say to Mrs. Claus when he looked out the window?
Looks like "rain", "Dear"!
What's red and green and flies?
An airsick Santa Claus!
How does Père Noël take pictures?
With his North "Pole"-aroid!
Why does Santa's sleigh get such good mileage?
Because it has long-distance runners on each side!
What goes Ho, Ho, Swoosh! Ho, Ho, Swoosh?
Santa caught in a revolving door!
What kind of motorcycle does Santy ride?
A "Holly" Davidson!
Where does Father Christmas go to vote?
The North Poll!
What's red and white and falls down the chimney?
Santa Klutz!
What do you call Saint Nick after he has come down the chimney?
Cinder Claus!
What nationality is Santa Claus?
North Polish!
Why does Santa owe everything to the elves?
Because he is an elf-made man!
What goes oh, oh, oh?
Santa Claus walking backwards!
How many chimneys does Saint Nick go down?
Stacks!
What does Santa get if he gets stuck in a chimney?
Claustrophobic!
What would you call Father Christmas if he became a detective?
Santa Clues!
Who delivers Christmas presents to pets?
Why, Santa Paws of course!
Because it soots him!
(that's one of Santa's favourite jokes! *HO! Ho! ho!*)
Where does Santa stay when he's on holidays?
At a Ho-ho-tel!
What does Mrs. Claus sing to Santy on his birthday?
"Freeze a jolly good fellow!"
What does Santa put on his toast?
"Jingle Jam"
What do you get if you cross Father Christmas with a duck?
A Christmas Quacker!
An honest politician, a kind lawyer and Santa Claus were walking down the street and saw a $20 bill. Which one picked it up??
Santa! The other two don't exist!
What do you do if Santa Claus gets stuck in your chimney?
Pour Santa flush on him!
What does Santa say to the toys on Christmas Eve?
Okay everyone, sack time!
What do the elves call it when Père Noël claps his hands at the end of a play?
Santapplause!
Why does Santa like to work in his garden?
Because he likes to hoe, hoe, hoe!
What do you call a kitty on the beach on Christmas morning?
Sandy Claws!
Who delivers presents to dentist offices?
Santa Jaws!
Who delivers Christmas presents to elephants?
Elephanta Claus!
What do you get if Santa comes down the chimney while the fire is still burning?
Crisp Kringle!
Why does St. Nicholas have a white beard?
So he can hide at the North Pole!
What do you call Santa when he has no money?
Saint "Nickel"-less!
What smells most in a chimney?
Santa's nose!
What does Kris Kringle like to get when he goes to the donut shop?
A jolly roll!
What do you call someone who doesn't believe in Father Christmas?
A rebel without a Claus!
What is invisible but smells like milk and cookies?
Kris Kringle burps!
What did Santa get when he crossed a woodpecker with kleenex?
Rapping paper!
What does Santa like to have for breakfast?
Mistle-"toast"!
Why does Santa take presents to children around the world?
Because the presents won't take themselves!
What does Santa use when he goes fishing?
His north pole!
How do we know Santa is such a good race car driver?
Because he's always in the pole position!
What is twenty feet tall, has sharp teeth and goes Ho Ho Ho?
Tyranno-santa Rex!
What's red & white and red & white and red & white?
Santa rolling down a hill!
What did Santa say to Mrs. Claus when he looked out the window?
Looks like "rain", "Dear"!
What's red and green and flies?
An airsick Santa Claus!
How does Père Noël take pictures?
With his North "Pole"-aroid!
Why does Santa's sleigh get such good mileage?
Because it has long-distance runners on each side!
What goes Ho, Ho, Swoosh! Ho, Ho, Swoosh?
Santa caught in a revolving door!
What kind of motorcycle does Santy ride?
A "Holly" Davidson!
Where does Father Christmas go to vote?
The North Poll!
What's red and white and falls down the chimney?
Santa Klutz!
What do you call Saint Nick after he has come down the chimney?
Cinder Claus!
What nationality is Santa Claus?
North Polish!
Why does Santa owe everything to the elves?
Because he is an elf-made man!
What goes oh, oh, oh?
Santa Claus walking backwards!
How many chimneys does Saint Nick go down?
Stacks!
What does Santa get if he gets stuck in a chimney?
Claustrophobic!
What would you call Father Christmas if he became a detective?
Santa Clues!
Who delivers Christmas presents to pets?
Why, Santa Paws of course!
Thursday, 8 December 2011
WHO IS YOUR BEST JOKER?
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Groucho Marx
A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.
Erma Bombeck
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw
A James Cagney love scene is one where he lets the other guy live.
Bob Hope
A lot of baby boomers are baby bongers.
Kevin Nealon
A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.
Yogi Berra
A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas."
Claude Pepper
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
Lana Turner
A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.
Jerry Seinfeld
A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice.
Bill Cosby
All men are equal before fish.
Herbert Hoover
All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.
Casey Stengel
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Bill Cosby
Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.
Hedy Lamarr
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
Groucho Marx
As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.
Buddy Hackett
As I get older, I just prefer to knit.
Tracey Ullman
Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White
Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
P. J. O'Rourke
Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.
Jim Carrey
Groucho Marx
A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.
Erma Bombeck
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw
A James Cagney love scene is one where he lets the other guy live.
Bob Hope
A lot of baby boomers are baby bongers.
Kevin Nealon
A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.
Yogi Berra
A stockbroker urged me to buy a stock that would triple its value every year. I told him, "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas."
Claude Pepper
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
Lana Turner
A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it.
Jerry Seinfeld
A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice.
Bill Cosby
All men are equal before fish.
Herbert Hoover
All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.
Casey Stengel
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Bill Cosby
Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.
Hedy Lamarr
Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
Groucho Marx
As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.
Buddy Hackett
As I get older, I just prefer to knit.
Tracey Ullman
Be obscure clearly.
E. B. White
Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
P. J. O'Rourke
Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.
Jim Carrey
101 WAYS TO BEGIN 2012
- The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. – Nolan Bushnell
- My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job. – Ted Turner
- Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. – Norman Schwarzkopf
- The golden rule for every business man is this: “Put yourself in your customer’s place. – Orison Swett Marden
- I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them! – C.J. Walker
- The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. – Debbi Fields
- Life is too complicated not to be orderly. – Martha Stewart
- The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can’t do. – Dennis Waitley
- Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming. – Richard Branson
- Leadership is doing what is right when no one is watching. – George Van Valkenburg
- There is no royal, flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it. For if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard. – C.J. Walker
- Business is more exciting than any game. – Lord Beaverbrook
- Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. – Albert Einstein
- We are currently not planning on conquering the world. – Sergey Brin
- If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained, and otherwise dubiously brained individuals quitting their day jobs and hanging out their own shingles. Nobody would be left to round out the workforce and execute the business plan. – Bill Rancic
- It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by — Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics. – Ren Mulford Jr.
- For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy. – Bill O’ Reilly
- A man should never neglect his family for business. – Walt Disney
- The only limits are, as always, those of vision. – James Broughton
- To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goeth
- I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big. – Donald Trump
- Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling. – Anita Roddick
- To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully. – Tryon Edwards
- Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – Bill Gates
- Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel
- The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. – Henry Ford
- The good or ill of a man lies within his own will. – Epictetus
- I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making. – B.C. Forbes
- The cynic says, “One man can’t do anything”. I say, “Only one man can do anything.” - John W. Gardner
- I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. – Oprah Winfrey
- If there is such a thing as good leadership, it is to give a good example. – Ingvar Kamprad
- Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations. – Steve Jobs
- You’ve got to say, I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it. It’s called perseverance. – Lee Iacocca
- The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it. – Laurence Sterne
- Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were. – David Rockefeller
- Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman. – George Soros
- Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. – Dwight Eisenhower
- If you did not look after today’s business then you might as well forget about tomorrow. – Isaac Mophatlane
- The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas of enthusiasm. – Thomas J. Watson
- Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games. – Babe Ruth
- Being able to touch so many people through my businesses and make money while doing it, is a huge blessing. – Magic Johnson
- Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. – James Thurber
- The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. – Carlos Castaneda
- The great leaders are like the best conductors – they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players. – Blaine Lee
- To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. – George Kneller
- To the degree we’re not living our dreams; our comfort zone has more control of us than we have over ourselves. – Peter McWilliams
- The enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. – John F. Kennedy
- Long-range planning works best in the short term. – Doug Evelyn
- The NBA is never just a business. It’s always business. It’s always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal. – Mark Cuban
- You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. – Joseph E. Levine
- A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts. – Richard Branson
- The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. – Peter F. Drucker
- No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others.. or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist. – Calvin Coolidge
- Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition – in having put forth the best within you. – Henry J. Kaiser
- Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. – Vince Lombardi
- In all realms of life it takes courage to stretch your limits, express your power, and fulfill your potential. It’s no different in the financial realm. – Suze Orman
- The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. – Confucius
- The first one gets the oyster the second gets the shell. – Andrew Carnegie
- Hire character. Train skill. – Peter Schutz
- The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. – Bill Gates
- Look well to this day. Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. – Francis Gray
- Surviving a failure gives you more self-confidence. Failures are great learning tools.. but they must be kept to a minimum. – Jeffrey Immelt
- Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches. – Napoleon Hill
- It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. – Charles Darwin
- Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity. – Charles Dickens
- I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages. – Robert Bosch
- People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps. – Mary Kay Ash
- In business, I’ve discovered that my purpose is to do my best to my utmost ability every day. That’s my standard. I learned early in my life that I had high standards. – Donald Trump
- In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. – Harold Geneen
- To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. – Thomas Watson, Sr.
- The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers. – John Egan
- There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities. – Michael Dell
- I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. – Alan Greenspan
- You must be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi
- Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. – Bob Parsons
- You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins. – Jim Stovall
- The only way around is through. – Robert Frost
- You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong. – Warren Buffett
- The noblest search is the search for excellence – Lyndon B. Johnson
- The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to neither make money nor find much fun in life. – Charles M. Schwab
- You must remain focused on your journey to greatness. – Les Brown
- Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. – Theodore Roosevelt
- Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier. – Charles F. Kettering
- Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right! – Henry Ford
- You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills. – Jim Rohn
- Who likes not his business, his business likes not him. – William Hazlitt
- The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many. – John Naisbitt
- The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. – Henry Ford
- It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference. – Michael Dell
- If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours. – Ray Kroc
- Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating. – Denis Waitley
- Management is nothing more than motivating other people. – Le Iacocca
- Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
- The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question. – Peter Drucker
- Why did I want to win? Because I didn’t want to lose! – Max Schmelling
- To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business. – J. Paul Getty
- To win without risk is to triumph without glory. – Pierre Corneille
- To succeed… You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you. – Tony Dorsett
- Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business. – Zig Ziglar
- I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement. – Donald Trump
- Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes. – Bill Gates
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