Recent Quotes
-
Voting:
-
1
+
How about Bayes Watch?— Dexter Kozen, Response to Alex Niculescu's plea for title suggestions for his untitled B-exam talk on Bayesian networks. · June 9, 2008 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
1
+
Tom: I could lend you my broomstick.— Benyah Shaparenko, After his A-exam practice talk, on suggestions for pointing devices. · Jan. 10, 2008 · Permalink
Benyah: But then how will you get here? -
Voting:
-
0
+
I am the founder of the Russian hamster breeding community; I am quite proud of this.— Daria Sorokina · Dec. 16, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
The fact that I've lost several moles worth of atoms since last Friday doesn't make you think I'm a different value.— Andrew Myers, When describing the meaning of state in programming languages. · Sept. 21, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
If you kick x, y jumps.— Andrew Myers, When elucidating the perils of imperative programming. · Sept. 21, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
...you're given an instance of some instance-ness...— Eric Breck, NLP seminar presentation · Sept. 10, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
While I'm drunk I should probably run that experiment I've been thinking about.— Thomas Finley, Not too long after his thesis proposal. · Feb. 23, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
In some sense, the world is a bunch of limbs.— Dan Huttenlocher, During a vision seminar. · Feb. 1, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
The idea here is that when there's a war, you should just give everybody more guns.— Andrew Myers, On a DDoS paper in the Systems Lunch · Jan. 26, 2007 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
0
+
Classical Chinese is very much like Perl.— Benyah Shaparenko · Dec. 7, 2006 · Permalink
-
Voting:
-
5
+
— Thomas Finley, As Coke czar, announcing the death of the departmental Coke machine. · Dec. 4, 2006 · Permalink
After a long and terrible battle with electrical shorts, a burnt out refrigeration unit, and a bill acceptor that like as not would turn your bills into confetti, our beloved Coke machine has been "unplugged" from life support in a touching ceremony in the PhD mailroom where it has lived and reigned over us with a gentle enlightened hand lo these many years. As the Coke machine not-so-quietly reflected on its life in its last moments with a horrible arcing buzz, the High Coke Machine Repair Man James said, "I'd better unplug it," and I, following the ancient cant set down in the old scrolls of the Coke rites and ceremonies established by the proud order of the Coke Czarship in the Golden Age of Carbonation, sucked on my teeth briefly and replied "yeah." Then, at roughly 2 PM, Monday December 4 2006 (Gregorian calendar) the machine sputtered its last and was still.
Those that wish to pay their respects may visit the PhD mailroom, where the deceased machine shall lie in state while a tomb suitable to its high stature is being constructed. There have been, in the course of recorded department history, some items of power that have cast shadows across Upson. The Coke machine, on the contrary, was a fountain of light and of hope. And Coke. Actually, just Coke. When it was kept stocked, anyway. Otherwise it just blinked the "out of stock" light at you, as if in sympathy to your despairing sighs.
It was, if I interpreted its last words correctly, the final wish of the Coke machine that we think of it often in the days to come, and remember it fondly. Let us reflect on the good things of its life, and forgive it its money stealing ways, its tendency to refrigerate anywhere from below freezing to room temperature, and for reliably being out of what you wanted. Yea, I say unto you, let us forgive it its flaws, and remember it henceforth for the joy it brought into our life these many years, not the grief and piping hot Coke it spitefully served at the last weeks of its service.
It shall be anywhere from a week to a month before we actually get it repaired or (more likely) entirely replaced. In the meantime I'd suggest drinking some undiluted stop bath to get the same charming acidic burns on your teeth.
The Coke machine is dead. Long live the Coke Czar!
-Tom -
Voting:
-
0
+
[Computer science] is a science of make believe.— Judea Pearl, CS Colloquium: Extolling the virtues of computer science in solving causality. · Nov. 14, 2006 · Permalink