warning
Graphic content
here. Not for the weak of stomach.
Just letting you know.
Skip it if you want. You won’t hurt my feelings.
Bloggerizing of these quotes indicates neither agreement
nor disagreement on the part of the blogger.
“”
There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that about this time
emissaries representing the building of New York’s Red Brick (Presbyterian) Church
visited Carnegie seeking support for their new church building. Carnegie was unenthusiastic
about the project, so he sought to discourage them by saying that he would give
$1 million for the project if they could find a single donor who would match
it. It seemed an impossible task. However, the committee experienced good
fortune and found such a donor. They returned to Carnegie to announce their
success. The chagrined Carnegie sat down to write a check and then paused to
ask, “May I ask who is the matching donor?” The committee chair smiled and
said, “Of course! It is Mrs. Carnegie.”
—Everett C. Goodwin
*
[In Wanxian region, local cadres] unlawfully set up private
courts, jails, and labor camps. The methods of torture included hanging people
up, beating them, forcing them to kneel on burning charcoal, piercing their
mouths, clipping off their fingers, stitching their lips, pushing needles into
the nipples, force-feeding them feces, stuffing dried beans down their throats,
and so on. They also punished ordinary peasants by making them wear tall hats
and marching them in front
of the local populace.
—A report on how to mobilize the masses and rely
on the poor peasants to reveal the problems in the commune, as well as
suggestions for future work, by the Wanxian Region Party Committee [Sichuan
province], 1961
To distribute resources evenly will only ruin the Great Leap
Forward. When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to
let half the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.
—Mao Zedong
Date: July 2, 1960. Location: Kangjia village in Hannasigou.
Culprit’s name: Zhao Bannai. Victim’s relation to the culprit: Daughter. Number
of victims: 1. Manner of crime: Exhumed the victim’s corpse and consumed the flesh.
Reason: To survive.
Date: January 12, 1960. Location: Qiaojiaping in Hanzhai
commune. Culprit’s name: Ma Ba’nai. Culprit’s status: Poor peasant. Number of
culprits involved: 1. Victim’s name: Ma Naimai. Relation to the culprit:
Daughter. Number of victims: 1. Manner of crime: After the victim died of
illness, the culprit cooked up her body and consumed the flesh. Reason: To
survive. Result: Died.
—A study of
cases of cannibalism in Linxia municipality, by the Ningxia branch of the Government
Solicitude Group
[Gansu province], March 3, 1961
*
In early 1968 HES did the rounds of a number of large
customers for IBM equipment, for example, Time/Life and the New York Times. All
these customers based their business on the printed word. But HES was too far
out for them. Writing was not something you did at a computer screen. They had
seen programs that set type, and maybe some programs for managing advertisements, but the concept of sitting in
front of a computer and writing or navigating text was foreign to them. “The
best I ever got was from people like Time-Life and the New York Times who said
this is terrific technology, but we’re not going to get journalists typing on
computer keyboards for the foreseeable future.”
In late 1968 van Dam finally met Doug Engelbart and attended
a demonstration of NLS at the Fall Joint Computer Conference. This presentation
was a landmark in the history of computing, and the audience, comprising several
thousand engineers and scientists, witnessed
innovations such as the use of hypertext, the computer ‘mouse’ and screen, and
telecollaboration on shared files via videoconferencing for the first time. The
unveiling of NLS is now known affectionately and with great respect as the
Mother of All Demos.
—Belinda Barnet (emphasis added; talk about a big bang)
*
The fact that my grandmother belonged to an extremely wealthy family was clear from her maiden name, Goldberg. The
reason that this was clearly a rich family’s name had to do with a law passed
under Austrian domination. The law banned Jews from using their patronym (as in
the case of a character in Pan
Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, Jankiel, whose patronym was
Ben Isaac [son of Isaac]) and required them to use last names instead. Last names were literally bought from the
Starosta, a sort of city hall, and some were more expensive than others. The
most expensive were the ones that contained the word “gold,” like Goldberg, but also Goldberger or Goldmann. After the most expensive
came a wide range of last names without any meaning at all, like Huppert or
Korn. These meaningless names were also fairly expensive, because in the long list of last names that had some sort of meaning, even if one
could pay more for a flattering name (like Kluger, from klug [wise]),
there were many less dignified names, like Hosenduft, which literally means
“trouser smell.” Such a name could easily give someone the wrong idea.
—Jerzy Kluger
“”
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