Over boeken, literaire reflecties en het web van literatuur, door Niek de Greef. Werner Herzog, Paul Theroux, V.S. Naipaul en meer. Nederlandse en Engelstalige boeken.
Rereading Tom Peters’ Little BIG Things.
GREAT how he has chosen the first little BIG thing to be The Loo!
A shiny toilet tells everything.
(Also notice the Discipline that these pages breathe.)
(And yeah, go fix your voicemail message (#2 little BIG Thing).)
All Families Are Psychotic is a journey through the chaotic events of a family get together.
I love these books from Douglas Coupland where the story brings you semi-random from one idiotic hilarious episode into the other. Btw why does Douglas Coupland remind me of Grady Booch? Both seem a bit scruffy outliers in their worlds – is how I would describe it in an instant answer without much further thought. It the same thing that attracts me in Haruki Murakami’s novels – the semi randomness of the events that lead the protagonists(s) through the story. The story is the way.
I believe my family is psychotic, but this Drummond family excels at it. What starts off as a family event around daughter Sarah’s jump into space – she’s an astronaut, develops into a wild road movie, with lots of collateral damage. So take Coupland’s title with a touch of salt, but it’s a great rollercoaster read.
While you are at it also read Coupland’s Player One which has a similar cadence.
I your more have time to shred also read Murakami trilogy 1q84.
While reading Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near, I stumbled upon a quote attributed to computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra that made me pause, not because of what it said, but because of how it was used.
Kurzweil cites Dijkstra as saying: “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”
It’s a clever aphorism that sounds exactly like something Dijkstra would say. There’s just one problem: the attribution is disputed, and the original source remains elusive.
I dove into the Dijkstra archive at the University of Texas, which contains his extensive collection of EWD manuscripts. Despite searching through his papers, I couldn’t find this exact quote. Wikiquote also lists the attribution as disputed.
Could Dijkstra have said it? Absolutely. Despite being a world-renowned computer scientist, he famously avoided using computers for his work, reportedly owning one only to read email and browse the web. For him, computer science truly was about ideas, not machines.
But the lack of a verifiable source matters—especially in a book making grand claims about the future.
Kurzweil places this quote in a chapter discussing exponential growth, Moore’s Law, and paradigm shifts. But the connection feels forced. The Dijkstra quote speaks to the philosophical nature of computer science as a discipline. It doesn’t illuminate anything about exponential technological progress or the coming singularity.
This seemingly minor misplacement reveals a larger issue with The Singularity Is Near: the blending of rigorous scientific facts with personal predictions that lack the same level of substantiation.
The contrast between Dijkstra and Kurzweil is instructive:
Edsger Dijkstra: An unconventional theoretical scientist known for mathematical rigor and precision. Every statement in his EWD manuscripts was carefully reasoned and documented.
Ray Kurzweil: An unconventional futuristic engineer and inventor. His predictions are bold, optimistic, and often based on extrapolating current trends.
You might expect Dijkstra to be dry and academic, while Kurzweil would be the more engaging personality. But here’s the surprise: the biggest difference between their work isn’t their subject matter or their ambition—it’s humor.
Dijkstra’s writings are filled with wit, self-awareness, and intellectual playfulness. He could be cutting in his criticism, but always with a touch of humor that acknowledged the absurdity of certain positions. This humor wasn’t just stylistic. It was a sign of intellectual honesty and humility.
Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near, despite its grand vision and fascinating ideas, takes itself entirely seriously. Every prediction is presented with confidence. Every trend will continue. Every obstacle will be overcome. There’s little room for doubt, irony, or the acknowledgment that futurism is, by nature, speculative.
This lack of humor—and the self-awareness it represents—makes Kurzweil’s predictions less credible, not more. When you can’t laugh at yourself or acknowledge the limits of your knowledge, you risk becoming a prophet rather than a scientist.
Dijkstra understood that computer science required both rigor and humility. He documented his sources, admitted when he was speculating, and never confused his hopes with inevitability.
Kurzweil’s work would be stronger if it borrowed more from Dijkstra’s approach: not just his ideas, but his intellectual honesty.
The misattribution (or at least unverified attribution) of the Dijkstra quote is a small detail, but it’s emblematic. It suggests a book that prioritizes narrative momentum over scholarly precision. That’s not necessarily wrong for a work of futurism, but readers should understand what they’re getting: a compelling vision more than a rigorous prediction.
When reading about the future of technology, it’s worth asking: Is this backed by verifiable evidence, or is this someone’s optimistic extrapolation? Are the sources documented? Is there room for doubt?
Dijkstra would have insisted on all three.
Further Reading:
Related posts:
I recently visited Belgium, the area of Ieper. The remains of the First World War there are impressive.
I got interested and purchased The First World War by John Keegan, which was according to the mass on google the essential guide to the First World War. My notes of this reading.
The incredible back story to this War. Starting with the long envisioned Schieffenplan, which had been cooking in Germany long before the war started. All the parties seems to be preparing their armies for a war. At a certain point the war became unavoidable.
How easily the war could have been prevented by some basic diplomatic actions.
Both sides hold on to very basic offensive tactic of frontal offence. Leading to many death. Both sides undertook these initiatives, which hundred thousand deaths or more in a week. This happened at all frontiers.
Besides the most well-known frontier in the West, mainly in Belgium and Norther France, the War was fought Africa in the German colonies, in the Middle East (Turkey being the ally of Germany in this war, in the Caucasus, Greece, Serbia, and at sea.
Germany was very successful with their submarines.
The war led or coincided with the downfall of the three large power centres in Europe: the tzar in Russia, the Austro-Hungarian emperor and the last emperor of Germany.
After the war Europe was fragmented in many new nation states due to the downfall of Germany and Austria-Hungary. This instabilities caused by this outcomes are still felt.
Keegan ends with the remark that is difficult to understand why a prosperous continent risked their achievements and values in ended up in such a bloody conflict.
A war that should never have happened. Not only was it meaningless. It was preventable.