Quotation of the Day
“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Oscar Wilde
Category: Quotation
Quotation of the Day: On Economist’s vs. Engineer’s algorithms
An economist’s algorithm, at its best, values being simple, being reasonably easy to analyze, and having clear mathematical properties that show why it’s optimal (or least-bad) for the task that it’s trying to solve, and ideally proves bounds on how much damage someone can do by trying to exploit it. An engineer’s algorithm, on the…
Quotation of the day: On technological progress
You’re mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better. And actually it will, I think, by itself degrade actually. If you look at great civilizations like ancient Egypt and they’re able to make the…
Quotations of the Day: On change and familiarity
In politics: He who desires to attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different…
Quotation of the Day: On the value of a schedule
“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” W. Somerset Maugham
Quotations of the Day: ISPOR Edition
As heard at ISPOR 2023 in Boston: On high US drug prices: “My hope as a European is that US never gets its health system in order.” And his Yoda-like pronouncement: “Affordability is important; but value is critical” Michael Drummond HT: Peter Neumann. See also Dr. Neumann’s ISPOR recap thread
Quotation of the Day: On contradictions
Si un hombre nunca se contradice, será porque nunca dice nada. Miguel de Unamuno
Quotation of the Day: On Indecision
“More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity. It will steal you blind.” — Cicero
Quotation of the Day: The cost of low numeracy
A recent report stated that the cost of adult low numeracy ‘can be counted in lost earnings — the £25 billion…would be added to our collective pay packets if numeracy skills could be levelled up’. That is about £1700 per person per annum.,, A large-scale study of adults with colorectal cancer in the UK and…
Quotations of the Day
‘Seek Simplicity . . . and Distrust It’ Alfred North Whitehead And a second… There is no such thing as perfection, only the relentless, thirsty matching of an organism to its environment. Siddhartha Mukherjee in The Gene: An Intimate History