Esteban

“In the mid-1990s, a new employee of Sun Microsystems in California kept disappearing from their database. Every time his details were entered, the system seemed to eat him whole; he would disappear without a trace. No one in HR could work out why poor Steve Null was database kryptonite. The staff in HR were entering the surname as “Null,” but they were blissfully unaware that, in a database, NULL represents a lack of data, so Steve became a non-entry. To computers, his name was Steve Zero or Steve McDoesNotExist. Apparently, it took a while to work out what was going on, as HR would happily reenter his details each time the issue was raised, never stopping to consider why the database was routinely removing him.”
― Matt Parker, Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

“Living, as we do, at the bottom of an ocean of air, it is easy not to look up. To see only our immediate environment in two-dimensional terms. It is probably no accident that the first ones to question this view, to see something others missed, were a father and son who watched the weather go by from mountain peaks near the top of the world. Vilhelm and Jacob Bjerknes were Norwegian meteorologists who, during the First World War, organised a network of weather stations across their country. By releasing instrumented balloons and comparing observations, they became aware that the air was not homogenous, that it moved across the face of Earth in deep waves. They identified distinct chunks of air, independent volumes with definite properties. And, with the War still much on their minds, it seemed natural to them to describe the turbulent boundaries between these moving masses as ‘fronts’. The discovery that local air did not suddenly become cool or warm, moist or dry, but was completely replaced by a new and different volume, was vital. It gave rise to modern meteorology.”
― Lyall Watson, Heaven's Breath: A Natural History of the Wind

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring