Basic Mission Code

Famous quotes containing the words basic, mission and/or code:

    What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.
    Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)

    ... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.
    Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)

    Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll
    Of black artillery; he comes, though late;
    In code corroborating Calvin’s creed
    And cynic tyrannies of honest kings;
    He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed,
    Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds
    The grimy slur on the Republic’s faith implied,
    Which holds that Man is naturally good,
    And—more—is Nature’s Roman, never to be
    scourged.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)