Quotations

Amara’s Law

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” — Roy Amara, president of the Institute for the Future, 1978 (“A modern maxim says:

Futility Closet - An idler's miscellany of compendious amusements

The screenplay for the 1962 war film The Longest Day was composed by an international team of writers to reflect the various nationalities that appear in the film. James Jones, who handled the America

Conjunction

We often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about two, because ‘two’ is ‘one and one’. We forget that we have still to make a study of ‘and’. — Arthur Eddington, The Nature

“History Talks Too Little About Animals”

Commas and Periods with Quotation Marks

In publications that follow Chicago style, commas and periods are placed before a closing quotation mark, “like this,” rather than after, “like this”. This convention has persisted even though it’s no

Forget What Did: August 2019

Posted by John Finnemore at 12:55 pm 93 comments Posted by John Finnemore at 7:09 pm 17 comments Labels: John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme Posted by John Finnemore at 6:56 pm 22 comme

Have Phaser, Will Travel

Andorians, "Star Trek" series (and movies, toys and novels), superheroes, "Number 96", and Jack Russell terriers...

Forget What Did: August 2009

Right, I'm on holiday for a bit. A very small amount of walking in Italy, followed by a large amount of lazing around in Italy, which I will pretend has been justified by the walking, but which, in fa