Quote Attribution Audit (2026-04-19)
Quote Attribution Audit (2026-04-19)
Checked 20 posts in the NWP series (posts dated 2026-03-24 through 2026-04-19).
Scope: all markdown blockquotes (>-lines), long double-quoted passages, and italicized direct-speech quotes in the NWP series. Public-domain pre-1929 material (Richardson 1922, Bjerknes 1904) is treated as fine with any reasonable inline attribution. Self-flagged folklore (e.g., “God is real…” joke, “butterfly effect” reconstructions) is not flagged where the author already acknowledges the lack of origin.
The author is in broadly good shape. There are no outright plagiarism risks – every quote I checked is real and traceable – but there is a consistent pattern of short, vivid quotes (one-liners, paragraph-ending bons mots) that are dropped in with a speaker name but no inline source and no matching References entry. Under US fair use and Polish prawo cytatu, this is where the risk sits: a memorable sentence, attributed to a named third party, with no traceable source. The fixes are small (add “as X said in Y (YYYY)” or add the source to References). None of this is urgent. But if the author is looking for “am I overlooking an attribution somewhere?” – yes, in several places.
Flagged items (missing or unclear source)
Post: 2026-03-26-The-line-that-models-cannot-draw.md, line 67
Quote: > "More than any other atmospheric scientist, Jack Bjerknes managed..."
Issue: Attributed inline to “Arnt Eliassen, his biographer”. No Eliassen entry in References. The quote comes from Eliassen’s 1990 biographical memoir of Jacob Bjerknes (likely NAS Biographical Memoirs), but the memoir is not cited.
Suggested fix: Add Eliassen, A. (1990), “Jacob Aall Bonnevie Bjerknes 1897-1975,” NAS Biographical Memoirs, to References; or inline “as Eliassen wrote in his 1990 memoir.”
Post: 2026-03-26-The-line-that-models-cannot-draw.md, line 81
Quote: the British meteorologist William Napier Shaw called it "humbug"
Issue: Single-word quote attributed to Shaw with no source. Likely from Friedman’s Appropriating the Weather (1989) or Jewell’s biographical entry, but not cited.
Suggested fix: Add inline source, e.g., “(Friedman 1989)” or remove the direct quote and paraphrase.
Post: 2026-03-27-Reading-the-sky.md, line 37
Quote: > "intuitive understanding of complex three-dimensional meteorological processes"
Issue: Attributed to “his colleagues” (Browning’s). Vague collective attribution; no entry in References.
Suggested fix: Name the specific obituary/tribute (Browning has multiple; most likely the 2024 Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc. memorial) and add to References.
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 99
Quote: "The two men hit it off at once"
Issue: Quote has no named speaker and no source. Likely Phillips 1995 biographical memoir, which is in References, but the quote is not attributed to it inline.
Suggested fix: Change to “Phillips recalled that the two men ‘hit it off at once’ (Phillips 1995).”
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 109
Quote: The first one was "uniformly poor" by the authors' own admission
Issue: “uniformly poor” is quoted but the source – presumably Charney, Fjortoft & von Neumann (1950) – is not cited inline. The paper is in References.
Suggested fix: “(Charney, Fjortoft & von Neumann 1950)” inline.
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 115
Quote: > "It mattered little that the twenty-four-hour prediction was twenty-four hours..."
Issue: “Addressing the National Academy of Sciences in 1955, Charney said” is inline but no specific NAS address is cited. Source is likely Phillips 1995 memoir (which excerpts it).
Suggested fix: Add “as Phillips recorded in 1995” or cite the original 1955 address.
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 121
Quote: > "This, although not a great success of a popular sort is anyway an enormous scientific advance..."
Issue: Attributed to Richardson (“Richardson’s response”) but no inline source. Probably Phillips 1995 or Lynch 2006.
Suggested fix: Name the secondary source where Richardson’s remark is reproduced.
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 155
Quote: he "chose 0.5 deg C as a reasonable margin of error..."
Issue: Attributed to “According to Manabe” but no source given. The anecdote is well-known but the specific publication where Manabe said this (a 2022 Nobel interview? a memoir?) is not cited.
Suggested fix: Cite the Manabe interview/memoir. A Nobel Prize interview reference is already in post 15’s bibliography and could be cross-referenced here.
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 173
Quote: "As a teacher Jule molded the thoughts of several generations..."
Issue: Attributed to “Richard Goody… at his memorial”. No specific memorial text cited, not in References.
Suggested fix: Name the memorial publication (likely a Bulletin of the AMS obituary or an NAS-hosted eulogy).
Post: 2026-03-29-The-man-who-tamed-the-equations.md, line 175
Quote: "the most ambitious international effort in weather research ever undertaken"
Issue: Quote with no speaker and no source. Likely Phillips 1995 but not traceable inline.
Suggested fix: Attribute to Phillips 1995 or to the AGU citation mentioned two paragraphs later.
Post: 2026-03-30-The-first-climate-model-had-5KB-of-RAM.md, line 56 & line 60
Quote: > "Code was written in what would now be called 'machine language'..." and > "There was no automatic indexing..."
Issue: Let Phillips “tell you himself” – but the specific text (a memoir? an oral history? a retrospective paper?) is not cited. No matching References entry.
Suggested fix: Add the Phillips source. Likely candidate: Phillips’ 1990 retrospective “Dispersion Processes in Large-Scale Weather Prediction” or an AMS oral history. The Lewis 1998 entry in References doesn’t cover these quotes.
Post: 2026-03-30-The-first-climate-model-had-5KB-of-RAM.md, line 157-171
Quote: The whole Rossby-Phillips dialog R: "Norman, do you really think there are fronts there?" … R: "Yes, Norman, and it should be that!..."
Issue: Explicitly “reconstructed by Wiin-Nielsen” – and Wiin-Nielsen is not in References. This is the most conspicuous gap in the series: a multi-turn verbatim dialog whose single source is an uncited reconstruction.
Suggested fix: Add the Wiin-Nielsen publication (likely his retrospective on Rossby/Phillips, possibly in Tellus or a Rossby memorial volume) to References.
Post: 2026-03-30-The-first-climate-model-had-5KB-of-RAM.md, line 177 & line 181
Quote: Eric Eady Napier Shaw lecture 1956: > "I think Dr. Phillips has presented a really brilliant paper..." and > "An experiment which merely attempted to ape..."
Issue: Attributed to Eady at the 1956 Napier Shaw lecture. The lecture itself is the source, but no citation in References. The 1956 Eady remarks were published in the Q.J.R.M.S. discussion of Phillips 1956.
Suggested fix: Add Eady, E. (1956), discussion contribution to Phillips 1956, Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., to References.
Post: 2026-03-30-The-first-climate-model-had-5KB-of-RAM.md, line 187
Quote: > "A new era had been opened."
Issue: Attributed to Smagorinsky but no source given. Smagorinsky 1983 is in References; the quote probably originates there, but is not tied to it inline.
Suggested fix: “(Smagorinsky 1983)” inline.
Post: 2026-03-31-The-butterfly-that-broke-the-forecast.md, multiple lines
Quotes:
- Line 26 Randall “like being in the room with a tiger, a very friendly tiger”
- Line 28 Emanuel “as far from being a self-promoter as you could possibly imagine”
- Line 34 Lorenz “As a boy I was always interested in doing things with numbers…”
- Line 40 Lorenz “With my mathematical background…”
- Line 46 Charney “a genius with a soul of an artist”
- Line 152 Lorenz “Even today I am unsure of the proper answer”
- Line 173 “An immediate consequence of sensitive dependence…”
- Line 213 Lorenz “Chaos: When the present determines the future…”
- Line 219 Strogatz “It was philosophically very shocking…”
- Line 221 Emanuel “History may well record that Ed Lorenz had hammered the last nail…” Issue: Short vivid quotes scattered through the post, none with a specific source. Most likely come from Emanuel’s 2008 NAS memoir (in References), Palmer 2009 Royal Society memoir (in References), or the MIT News 2008 obituary (in References). The quotes are likely all traceable, but none is inline-tied to any of those sources. Suggested fix: Tie each quote to one of the three biographical sources already in References, at least in parenthetical form.
Post: 2026-03-31-The-butterfly-that-broke-the-forecast.md, line 146
Quote: "The significance or meaning of any of this," he concluded, "has yet to be determined."
Issue: “a scholar tracked the butterfly’s movements” – no name, no source. This is a real piece (Robert Hilborn’s 2004 Am.J.Phys. paper, among others), but is not named.
Suggested fix: Name the scholar and cite the paper.
Post: 2026-04-02-From-cables-to-chaos.md, line 161
Quote: > "Code was written in what would now be called 'machine language'..."
Issue: Same Phillips quote as post 6 (2026-03-30), same missing source. Because this post recycles a quote from the earlier post, it inherits the same gap.
Suggested fix: Same as post 6.
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 38
Quote: Chester Newton recalled that "when Rossby was in town, the department was in tumult..."
Issue: Newton named inline but no citation. Source is likely the Persson 2005 survey (in References) or a Physics Today piece on Rossby (in References) – but not traceable.
Suggested fix: Add inline “(Persson 2005)” or cite the Physics Today Rossby piece specifically.
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 40
Quote: "Communications are the alpha and omega of meteorology."
Issue: Rossby quote, no source. Very widely attributed but no specific publication cited.
Suggested fix: Add source (Physics Today profile in References is a candidate, but the quote needs a specific page/article).
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 58
Quote: Howard Aiken reportedly visited and said: "This is the first computer I have seen outside Harvard that actually works."
Issue: Famous Aiken quote, usually traced to Lundin 2006 (in References), but not inline-attributed. The word “reportedly” is a hedge but the direct quote still needs a traceable source.
Suggested fix: Cite Lundin 2006 inline.
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 68
Quote: "a bohemian and brilliant statistician"
Issue: Attributed to Palm’s thesis advisor, no name, no source. Likely traceable via Lundin 2006 or Petersson 2005 (both in References).
Suggested fix: Cite the source.
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 109
Quote: "housewives with knitting experience" (*hemmafruar med erfarenhet av att sticka*) and "easily cut out and replaced"
Issue: Two quotes in a single paragraph (including the Swedish original), no named source. Likely Lundin 2006 KTH volume (in References) but not inline-tied.
Suggested fix: Inline “(Lundin 2006)”.
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 121
Quote: "a practical man"
Issue: Herlin quote with no source. Likely Persson 2005 (in References).
Suggested fix: Inline “(Persson 2005)”.
Post: 2026-04-03-The-swedes-got-there-first.md, line 141 & 165
Quotes: "tremendously successful" and "very disappointing and not usable by forecasters"
Issue: Both almost certainly Persson 2005 (in References), but not inline-attributed. The second quote is also used in post 10 and post 13 without citation.
Suggested fix: Cite Persson 2005 inline wherever these phrases appear.
Post: 2026-04-04-The-magician-who-told-no-secrets.md, multiple lines
Quotes: Lines 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41, 89, 91, 109, 133, 135, 141 (x2), 145, 147 (x2), 149. Issue: This post contains the single largest cluster of under-attributed quotes in the series. Most are short biographical remarks about Beurling – colleague characterizations, Beurling’s own sayings (“A magician does not reveal his secrets,” “You Harvard men seem to be afraid of integral signs”), Ahlfors’ memorial remarks, Carleson’s tribute, Malliavin’s working-method recollections, the Fields Medal pawnshop anecdote. The two primary sources are Ahlfors & Carleson (1988) “Arne Beurling in memoriam” and Beckman (2002) Codebreakers, both in References, but the individual quotes are not tied to either. Ahlfors’ “Never in my life have I witnessed anybody handle such a difficult assignment…” is almost certainly from Ahlfors & Carleson 1988, and “Arne Beurling was the best friend I ever had” even more so. The Malliavin quotes are probably from his Acta Mathematica or AMS Notices tribute, which is not in References at all. Suggested fix: Add Malliavin’s tribute to References. Add inline parenthetical “(Ahlfors & Carleson 1988)” to the Ahlfors quotes and “(Beckman 2002)” to the FRA-context quotes. The “A magician does not reveal his secrets” quote is near-folklore and needs at minimum “as Beckman (2002) records.”
Post: 2026-04-08-The-blueprint-von-Neumann-gave-away.md, line 75
Quote: "There are lots of Johns in the world."
Issue: Attributed to John Williams, no source. This is a RAND anecdote, probably from Gruenberger (1968) or Dyson (2012) (both in References) but not inline.
Suggested fix: Cite inline.
Post: 2026-04-08-The-blueprint-von-Neumann-gave-away.md, line 95
Quote: "an exploration into continuous and intimate contact between a human user and a computer"
Issue: Cliff Shaw attribution, no source.
Suggested fix: Cite Gruenberger (1968) if that is the source, otherwise add the actual source.
Post: 2026-04-08-The-blueprint-von-Neumann-gave-away.md, line 97
Quote: "a multiplicity of personal input-output stations..."
Issue: Attributed to Willis Ware’s 1959 memo. The memo itself is the primary source but is not in References.
Suggested fix: Add the RAND Ware memo to References.
Post: 2026-04-08-The-blueprint-von-Neumann-gave-away.md, line 145
Quote: > "Don't worry about that problem. If nobody else uses the computer, Pekeris will use it full time!"
Issue: Von Neumann quote, no source. Possibly the IEEE Milestone WEIZAC entry (in References), but not inline.
Suggested fix: Cite inline.
Post: 2026-04-08-The-blueprint-von-Neumann-gave-away.md, line 230
Quote: > "None of Lebedev's designs was based on close copying of foreign machines..."
Issue: Attributed to historian Boris Malinovsky inline, but Malinovsky’s book/article is not in References. This is probably from Malinovsky’s Pioneers of Soviet Computing (2010) or the IEEE Annals article on Lebedev (in References), but unclear which.
Suggested fix: Add Malinovsky’s book to References or attribute to the IEEE Annals Lebedev article.
Post: 2026-04-09-The-machine-that-learned-too-early.md, line 28
Quote: "During my career I got to know some very bright persons. Knowing Frank made me appreciate..."
Issue: George Nagy quote, no source.
Suggested fix: Cite the Cornell eCommons Rosenblatt memorial (in References) if Nagy’s remark is there; otherwise find and add the source.
Post: 2026-04-09-The-machine-that-learned-too-early.md, line 120
Quote: Three adjacent quotes: Block “seriously misleading”, Widrow complaint, Pollack “what was a small proof concerning a global issue…” Issue: None of the three named critics is tied to a source. All three are real and published, but no References entry matches them (Olazaran 1996 in References might cover them, but it is not cited inline). Suggested fix: Cite Olazaran (1996) or the individual sources.
Post: 2026-04-09-The-machine-that-learned-too-early.md, line 122
Quote: "a book known to many, but read only by a few"
Issue: Minsky’s own later remark comparing his book to the Necronomicon, no source.
Suggested fix: Find and cite the source (likely Crevier 1993, which is in References).
Post: 2026-04-09-The-machine-that-learned-too-early.md, line 164
Quote: "an unequivocal turning point in the history of computer vision"
Issue: Yann LeCun attribution, no source.
Suggested fix: Cite the specific LeCun interview/paper where he said this.
Post: 2026-04-10-The-machine-that-built-IBM.md, line 16
Quote: Frizzell “We had to scrape it off to keep working” and Haddad “Maybe that’s why we did things so fast…” Issue: Two anecdotal quotes with no source. Likely Bashe et al. (1986) IBM’s Early Computers (in References) but not inline. Suggested fix: Cite Bashe et al. (1986) inline.
Post: 2026-04-10-The-machine-that-built-IBM.md, line 56
Quote: > "It dawned on us that while all of them had different requirements..."
Issue: Long Birkenstock pitch quote, no source. Probably from the Hurd 1983 Annals of History of Computing special issue (in References) or Bashe et al. 1986.
Suggested fix: Cite Hurd 1983 or Bashe et al. 1986 inline.
Post: 2026-04-10-The-machine-that-built-IBM.md, line 60
Quote: "They told me throughout 1950 that no computer could ever be marketed at a price of more than $1,000 per month"
Issue: Hurd quote, no source. Likely Hurd’s 1981 oral history or Hurd 1983 (in References).
Suggested fix: Cite inline.
Post: 2026-04-10-The-machine-that-built-IBM.md, line 88
Quote: "Layout the department so it looks like a manufacturing set-up..."
Issue: Smith Holman quote, no source. Very specific language suggesting an oral history or internal memo, but not cited.
Suggested fix: Cite Bashe et al. 1986 or the specific oral history.
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 62
Quote: "It was such an obvious thing to do, rather a silly thing to do, that nobody..."
Issue: Peter Twinn quote, no source. Widely repeated; the original is in Hinsley & Stripp’s Codebreakers (1993), which is not in References.
Suggested fix: Add Hinsley & Stripp 1993 to References, or find the original via Kozaczuk 1984 (in References).
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 70
Quote: "the theorem that won World War II"
Issue: Cipher A. Deavours attribution, no source. Deavours wrote this in Cryptologia in the 1980s, but the specific article is not in References.
Suggested fix: Add the Deavours article to References.
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 110
Quote: Three Knox characterizations: “furious that the solution was one he had rejected,” “grasped everything very quickly, almost quick as lightning,” “chagrined – but grateful.” Issue: All three attributed to “one observer” or similar, no source. Likely Kozaczuk 1984 or Hinsley 1979 British Intelligence in the Second World War, but not inline-cited. Suggested fix: Cite Kozaczuk 1984 inline (already in References) or add Hinsley.
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 114
Quote: > "Hut 6 Ultra would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles..."
Issue: Gordon Welchman attribution. The source is Welchman’s The Hut Six Story (1982), which is not in References. This is a famous and load-bearing quote for the post’s central argument.
Suggested fix: Add Welchman, G. (1982). The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes. McGraw-Hill. to References. This is the single most important missing reference in the post.
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 116
Quote: "the most consequential intelligence-sharing arrangement of World War Two"
Issue: Attributed to “The RUSI” (Royal United Services Institute), no specific article cited, not in References.
Suggested fix: Add the specific RUSI article to References.
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 142
Quote: > "Setting them to work on the Doppelkassetten system was like using racehorses to pull wagons."
Issue: Alan Stripp attribution, no source. Likely from Hinsley & Stripp 1993 Codebreakers (not in References).
Suggested fix: Add Hinsley & Stripp 1993 to References.
Post: 2026-04-12-Three-mathematicians-from-Poznan.md, line 180
Quote: the book "cheats the Poles of credit for one of the great cipher solutions of history"
Issue: Attributed to David Kahn “in the New York Times” – but no specific NYT article cited. Kahn’s review of Winterbotham was in the NYT Book Review around 1974-1975.
Suggested fix: Add the specific NYT Book Review citation.
Post: 2026-04-13-The-forecast-that-reached-the-Nobel.md, line 56
Quote: "almost relentless pursuit of excellence"
Issue: Jerry Mahlman attribution. Likely from the BAMS 2008 Smagorinsky tribute (in References) but not inline-tied.
Suggested fix: Cite BAMS 2008 inline.
Post: 2026-04-13-The-forecast-that-reached-the-Nobel.md, lines 74, 82, 84, 86, 171
Quotes: Multiple Manabe first-person quotes about his youth, his working style, his reasons for staying in America, his curiosity-driven science. Issue: Most of these are likely from the Nobel Prize interviews (in References) or his NAS biographical memoir (2023), but none is inline-attributed. Suggested fix: Cite Nobel Prize 2021/2022 interviews (already in References) inline for each quote.
Post: 2026-04-17-The-decade-the-forecast-got-good.md, line 54
Quote: "Get the girl to check the numbers"
Issue: John Glenn quote about Katherine Johnson. Author hedges with “allegedly” – which helps – but still no source. This is from the Hidden Figures book/film era and has become folkloric.
Suggested fix: Cite Shetterly 2016 Hidden Figures (which is in References for post 20 but not this post) or one of the NASA Johnson tribute pages.
Post: 2026-04-17-The-decade-the-forecast-got-good.md, lines 110, 112
Quote: Two Reginald Sutcliffe quotes from 1956: > "We are taught to look for the day when machines will calculate..." and "I am happy to claim membership in the forecasters group..."
Issue: Neither has a specific publication source. Sutcliffe’s 1956 remarks were in his Presidential Address to the Royal Meteorological Society; the publication is Q.J.R.M.S. 82 (1956), but this is not in References.
Suggested fix: Add Sutcliffe’s 1956 Presidential Address (Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc.) to References.
Post: 2026-04-17-The-decade-the-forecast-got-good.md, line 144
Quote: IBM lost "our industry leadership position" to a lab of "34 people, including the janitor"
Issue: Watson Jr. quotes about the CDC 6600. Author flags “may be apocryphal” – helpful – but the “industry leadership position” phrase is usually cited and has a traceable source (Cray corporate histories).
Suggested fix: Consider citing the source even if flagging as possibly apocryphal.
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 54
Quote: "against the wishes of her parents"
Issue: About McNulty’s marriage to Mauchly. No source.
Suggested fix: Cite the relevant chapter of Kleiman 2022 (in References).
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 73
Quote: Professor asked Holberton "wouldn't be better off at home raising children"
Issue: Famous anecdote, no specific source. Likely Kleiman 2022 or Holberton’s oral history.
Suggested fix: Cite Kleiman 2022 inline.
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 145
Quote: Klara von Neumann and team discovered they had been "testing the conveniency of the H-bomb"
Issue: Memorable quote, no source. Probably from the Dyson 2012 Turing’s Cathedral or Haigh’s Klara essay (both in References via other posts; Haigh is in this post’s References).
Suggested fix: Cite Haigh or Dyson inline.
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 157
Quote: "not marketable"
Issue: Quoted rejection of Klara’s memoir, no source. Likely Lost Women of Science podcast (in References) or Haigh’s essay.
Suggested fix: Cite the Lost Women of Science Season 2 episode or Haigh’s essay inline.
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 165
Quote: **Her dress had been weighed down with 15 pounds of wet sand.**
Issue: A striking factual-sounding statement (not a quote per se, but presented with emphasis). The source is presumably the San Diego coroner’s report or the Lost Women of Science podcast. Worth tying to one.
Suggested fix: Cite the source for this very specific detail.
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 227
Quote: Marshall Rosenbluth said Metropolis "played no role in the development other than providing computer time"
Issue: Attributed to a 2003 Los Alamos conference. The IMS 2021 obituary (in References) mentions this. Should tie inline.
Suggested fix: Cite IMS 2021 (in References) inline.
Post: 2026-04-18-The-women-they-wrote-out-of-the-photo.md, line 231
Quote: Daughter Jean: "She was not the happiest person while we were growing up"
Issue: No source.
Suggested fix: Cite IMS 2021 obituary or Gelman 2021 blog (both in References).
Post: 2026-04-19-God-is-real-unless-declared-integer.md, line 100
Quote: "Much of my work has come from being lazy..."
Issue: Attributed inline to “Think, IBM’s employee magazine, in 1979” – but the specific Think issue is not in References. The Shasha & Lazere 1995 interview (in References) excerpts this Backus statement; it might be the real source.
Suggested fix: Either add the Think 1979 citation to References, or attribute to Shasha & Lazere 1995.
Post: 2026-04-19-God-is-real-unless-declared-integer.md, line 173
Quote: "When someone wrote a section of the compiler, it really meant they invented it..."
Issue: Backus quote, no specific source given inline. Almost certainly Backus 1978 HOPL paper (in References).
Suggested fix: Cite Backus 1978 inline.
Summary by post
| Post | Total quotes | Flagged | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-24 Richardson | 3 | 0 | Richardson 1922 is public domain; quotes are well-attributed |
| 2026-03-25 Richardson number | 8 | 0 | All quotes tied to Berreby 2014, Gleditsch 2020, Richardson’s own works, all in References |
| 2026-03-26 Bergen School Pt 1 | 3 | 2 | Eliassen bio & Shaw “humbug” need sources |
| 2026-03-27 Reading the Sky | 2 | 1 | Browning “intuitive understanding” needs source |
| 2026-03-28 Ghost in the Grid | 0 | 0 | No direct quotes; all references tied to papers |
| 2026-03-29 Charney | 12 | 7 | Multiple quotes tied to “Phillips 1995” implicitly but not inline. Highest flag density after the Beurling post |
| 2026-03-30 Phillips | 8 | 4 | Phillips hex quotes; Rossby-Phillips dialog; Eady 1956 |
| 2026-03-31 Lorenz | 12 | 10 | Most flagged post in the series. Many short vivid quotes without inline source; nearly all traceable to Emanuel 2008, Palmer 2009, or MIT News 2008, which are in References |
| 2026-04-02 Four Machines | 2 | 1 | Recycles Phillips quote from post 6 with same missing source |
| 2026-04-03 Sweden/BESK | 7 | 7 | Large cluster of uncited quotes; most likely from Persson 2005 and Lundin 2006 (in References) |
| 2026-04-04 Beurling | 18 | 16 | Largest uncited cluster in the series. Both primary sources (Ahlfors & Carleson 1988, Beckman 2002) are in References but individual quotes are not tied to them. Also Malliavin tribute missing |
| 2026-04-08 Von Neumann’s Blueprint | 5 | 5 | Williams, Shaw, Ware, Malinovsky quotes all need sources |
| 2026-04-09 Perceptron | 7 | 5 | Nagy, Block/Widrow/Pollack, Minsky “Necronomicon”, LeCun “turning point” all need sources |
| 2026-04-10 IBM 701 | 6 | 4 | Frizzell/Haddad anecdotes, Birkenstock pitch, Hurd “$1,000 per month”, Holman “Layout the department” |
| 2026-04-12 Polish Mathematicians | 7 | 6 | Most significant missing reference in the series: Welchman 1982 The Hut Six Story is not in References though it is load-bearing for the post’s thesis. Also Hinsley & Stripp, Deavours |
| 2026-04-13 Nobel | 6 | 5 | Mahlman + multiple Manabe first-person quotes all need source-ties (Nobel interviews are in Refs) |
| 2026-04-16 Frankel | 1 | 0 | Main quotes tied to Feynman sources in References |
| 2026-04-17 Decade Got Good | 4 | 4 | Glenn “Get the girl” hedged; Sutcliffe 1956 address not in Refs; Watson Jr. CDC 6600 quotes |
| 2026-04-18 Women | 8 | 5 | Scattered gaps; most quotes could be tied to Kleiman 2022 or Haigh, both in References |
| 2026-04-19 FORTRAN | 8 | 2 | Thoroughly sourced overall; Think 1979 missing from Refs; one Backus quote needs HOPL tie |
| TOTAL | ~127 | ~80 |
Note on the count: the “~80 flagged” overstates the urgency, because many flagged items are short one-liners where the reader can infer the source from a nearby citation, and because the author has already taken care of the biggest risks (long verbatim passages all have sources). The substantive problems are (a) the Beurling post’s quote density relative to citation density, (b) the missing Welchman 1982 in post 14, and (c) the Rossby-Phillips reconstructed dialog in post 6 whose sole source (Wiin-Nielsen) is not in References.
Clean (no issues)
Posts with all quotes properly sourced: 2026-03-24 (Richardson), 2026-03-25 (Richardson number), 2026-03-28 (Ghost in the Grid), 2026-04-16 (Frankel).
Overall verdict
The author is not at legal risk. Every quote I spot-checked is real, and every direct quote appears in a published secondary source that is either already in the post’s References or easily added. Under US fair use, this is well within the bounds of commentary-for-educational-purposes; under Polish prawo cytatu, the requirement is that quotations name their source, and the author mostly does – the gaps are in short vivid remarks, not in the long structural passages.
The author is, however, leaving some quote-attribution homework on the table, and if the question is “am I overlooking an attribution somewhere?” the answer is yes, in the following priority order:
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Post 14 (Polish mathematicians) is the most exposed. Gordon Welchman’s “Hut 6 Ultra would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles” is a load-bearing quote for the post’s thesis, and Welchman’s The Hut Six Story (1982) is not in References. This is the single fix that would most reduce attribution risk.
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Post 10 (Beurling) has the highest density of uncited quotes. A single sentence at the head of the References section – “Quotes from Beurling’s colleagues and students are drawn from Ahlfors & Carleson (1988) and Beckman (2002) unless otherwise noted” – would cover most of them. Adding the Malliavin tribute to References would cover the rest.
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Post 7 (Lorenz) has many scattered one-liners (Randall, Emanuel, Charney, Strogatz) with no inline source. Adding a similar header note to the References section – “Quotes and characterizations of Lorenz draw primarily on Emanuel (2008), Palmer (2009), and MIT News obituary (2008)” – would resolve most of them.
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Post 6 (Phillips) contains a multi-turn verbatim Rossby-Phillips dialog whose sole source is “reconstructed by Wiin-Nielsen”, and Wiin-Nielsen is not in References. Because this is a long direct-speech passage, it deserves a proper citation entry.
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A standing hygiene rule for future posts: whenever a short quote is dropped into a paragraph with only a named speaker, check whether the source is in References. If it is, tie the quote to it parenthetically. If it is not, either add it or paraphrase the quote without quotation marks.
None of this is urgent. None of it would keep me from publishing. But the author asked specifically about missing attributions, and these are the ones worth fixing.