Is it really absolutely necessary for all of them to get together physically, especially when it’s so easy to do virtually? A great deal of research has been done on the science of human connection and concludes that yes, it is necessary; it’s not just our observations that fuel this step.

— David Komlos and David Benjamin, Cracking Complexity

“All my methods are rational,” said Captain Ahab. “Only my ends are insane.”

— Martin Gardner, The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener

The renowned information theorist Claude Shannon, whose discoveries paved the way for modern technology, had a simple definition for “information”: that which surprises you. If you’re not surprised, then you already knew it at some level, so why take note of it?

— Tiago Forte, Building a Second Brain

Where conservative nostalgists discount the present in favor of a radically different past, the tech industry finds the present lacking when compared to the incredible, candy-colored future that is right around the corner.

— Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Thinking

When an engineer with years of familiarity in a problem space begins designing a product, it’s easy to imagine a utopian end-state for the work. However, it’s important to differentiate aspirational goals of the product from minimum success criteria (or Minimum Viable Product). Projects can lose credibility and fail by promising too much

— Betsy Beyer, Chris Jones, Jennifer Petoff, and Niall Richard Murphy, Site Reliability Engineering