Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Over and over again financial experts and wonkish talking heads endeavor to explain these mysterious 'toxic' financial instruments to us lay folk. Over and over they ignobly fail because we all know that no one understands credit default obligations and derivatives except perhaps Mr. Buffett and the computers who created them.
Well my wife always says to me and I think it's true it's very difficult for us to understand the Elizabethan understanding and enjoyment and perception of form as it is to say... it would be for them to understand computers or going to the moon or something.
People don't understand computers. Computers are magical boxes that do things. People believe what computers tell them.
Eventually I believe current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time.
Computers are scary. They're nightmares to fix lose our stuff and on occasion they crash producing the blue screen of death. Steve Jobs knew this. He knew that computers were bulky and hernia-inducing and Darth Vader black. He understood the value of declarative design.
Computers have become more friendly understandable and lots of years and thought have been put into developing software to convince people that they want and need a computer.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
The guy who knows about computers is the last person you want to have creating documentation for people who don't understand computers.
I understand that computers which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing however it may appear on the surface.
Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit compassion love and understanding.
Art must unquestionably have a social value that is as a potential means of communication it must be addressed and in comprehensible terms to the understanding of mankind.
Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people don't understand the language that you're singing in they still know good music when they hear it.
But picketing - picketing for or against something and handing out literature - these are conspicuously formal actions. They have to be understood as indirect communication.
The other thing about FEMA my understanding is that it was supposed to move into the Department of Homeland Security... and be what it was but also having a lot of lateral communication with all those others involved in that issue of homeland security.
The Internet has changed everything. We expect to know everything instantly. If you don't understand digital communication you're at a disadvantage.
In this great age of communication there a lot of people you can't actually understand. I know everyone tweets and twits and texts and all that but actually we've all got voices and it is awfully nice to hear them and if you can understand what people are saying.