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" I came of technical age with UNIX, where I learned with power-greedy pleasure that you could kill a system right out from under yourself with a single command. "
Ellen Ullman
Right
Pleasure
Out
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" I'm in no way saying that women can't take a tough code review. I'm saying that no one should have to take one in a boy-puerile atmosphere. "
Ellen Ullman
Way
Tough
Take
" Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators. "
Ellen Ullman
Digital
Values
Software
" I think that focusing all experiences through the lens of the Internet is an example of not being able to see history through the eyes of others, to be so enamored of one's present time that one cannot see that the world was once elsewise and was not about you. "
Ellen Ullman
History
Think
Time
" I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress,' computers are problematic, giving and taking away. "
Ellen Ullman
Progress
Giving
Computers
" I don't like the idea that Facebook controls how people express themselves and changes it periodically according to whatever algorithms they use to figure out what they should do or the whim of some programmer or some CEO. That bothers me a great deal. "
Ellen Ullman
People
Great
Facebook
" People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true. "
Ellen Ullman
Computers
True
Computer
" I don't consider myself a Jewish writer. "
Ellen Ullman
Jewish
Writer
Consider
" When you lose your Visa card, you get a new card with a new number, and any new charges with the old number are blocked. Why can't we do the same with Social Security numbers? "
Ellen Ullman
New
You
Why
" The computer's there to serve the human being, not vice versa. "
Ellen Ullman
Human
Vice
Being
" I feel the best villains are the ones you have feelings for. "
Ellen Ullman
Feelings
Feel
You
" I think many people have wonderful stories inside them and the talent to tell those stories. But the writing life, with its isolation and uncertain outcomes, keeps most from the task. "
Ellen Ullman
Writing
Life
People
" People imagine that programming is logical, a process like fixing a clock. Nothing could be further from the truth. "
Ellen Ullman
Process
Truth
Clock
" When I hear the word 'disruption,' in my mind, I think of all these people in the middle who were earning a living. We will sweep away all that money they were earning, and we will move that to the people at the top. "
Ellen Ullman
Mind
Top
People
" It's possible to let technology absorb what we know and then re-express it in intricate mechanisms - parts and circuit boards and software objects - mechanisms we can use but do not understand in crucial ways. This not-knowing is fine while everything works as we expected. "
Ellen Ullman
Know
Understand
Technology
" Our Constitution is designed to change very slowly. It's a feature, not a bug. "
Ellen Ullman
Change
Our
Slowly
" I hate the new word processors that want to tell you, as you're typing, that you made a mistake. I have to turn off all that crap. It's like, shut up - I'm thinking now. I will worry about that sort of error later. I'm a human being. I can still read this, even though it's wrong. You stupid machine, the fact that you can't is irrelevant to me. "
Ellen Ullman
You
Thinking
Stupid
" Writing is a very isolating occupation. "
Ellen Ullman
Writing
Very
Occupation
" With code, what it means is what it does. It doesn't express, not really. It's a very bounded conversation. And writing is not bounded. That's what's hard about it. "
Ellen Ullman
Hard
Conversation
Code
" UNIX always presumes you know what you're doing. You're the human being, after all, and it is a mere operating system. "
Ellen Ullman
Always
Doing
You
" The biggest problem is that people have stopped being critical about the role of the computer in their lives. These machines went from being feared as Big Brother surrogates to being thought of as metaphors for liberty and individual freedom. "
Ellen Ullman
Thought
Big
Brother
" I won't use Twitter. Twitter posts are thought-farts. I don't care about unconsidered thoughts of the moment. "
Ellen Ullman
Twitter
Thoughts
Moment
" I'm a dark thoughts writer. "
Ellen Ullman
Dark
Writer
Thoughts
" I like the little semi-competencies of human beings, I realize. Governance, after all, is a messy business, a world of demi-solutions and compromise, where ideals are tarnished regularly. "
Ellen Ullman
Business
Compromise
World
" Abhorring error is not necessarily positive. "
Ellen Ullman
Necessarily
Error
Positive
" I think technical people now should learn literature, because literature teaches you a great deal about how - the depths and variety of human imagination. "
Ellen Ullman
Imagination
You
Great
" We don't have to live up to our computer. "
Ellen Ullman
Up
Our
Live
" Through the miracle of natural genetic recombination, each child, with the sole exception of an identical twin, is conceived as a unique being. Even the atmosphere of the womb works its subtle changes, and by the time we emerge into the light, we are our own persons. "
Ellen Ullman
Own
Light
Changes
" There is always one more bug to fix. "
Ellen Ullman
Bug
Fix
Always
" Before the advent of the Web, if you wanted to sustain a belief in far-fetched ideas, you had to go out into the desert, or live on a compound in the mountains, or move from one badly furnished room to another in a series of safe houses. "
Ellen Ullman
Ideas
Desert
Live
" Our relationship to the computer is much like our relationship to the car: rich, complex, socially messy. "
Ellen Ullman
Relationship
Rich
Messy