=== Useful quotations for many occasions - please, no applause til the end So, without further adieu, let's get started! camera review AI is not for making money, money is for making AI. Tero Keski-Valkama --- You will be on a foundering team of two. Craigslist ad --- She is just an escape goat Yahoo commenter --- I'm used to apache talking to tomcat with mod_jk, but now I had to implement CORS in dev because my SPA is deployed on a lite-server serving at different port than the REST Api served by dropwizard. stack*overflow* ... digital computers can't encode any set that is uncountably infinite without error ... Reddit --- If there's anyone who plays 4D chess, it is scientists doing science politics. Reddit "Dark humor is like food, not everyone gets it." -- Josef Stalin Facebook We might consider the vacuum as a sort of "quantum computer" that computes Ramanujan's series. Lawrence Crowell --- Those who work in machine learning, what do you spend your days doing, and typically what % of your time is spent doing each of those things (on average) ? jcannell 34 points 4 days ago 50% over-fitting, 50% under-dressing Reddit I guess it turns out it is much less surprising, token-by-token, to hallucinate a citation than it is to halfway through a made-up citation be like "... lolz just kidding, I'm so full of crap right now". Shaun Harker War was to come, and now it was here. HistoryMarche, Youtube ... the road to a successful unicorn is littered with dead horses. Newsletter from proto.life ---*-()------------------------()-*---*-()-------------------------*-()--- Carmen is a psychedelic fringe dweller Conference announcement on twitter --- I don't know how you could be more wrong but I have no doubt you will try. Quora --- New York has always been a place where it is possible to have memories without the experiences that conventionally precede them. Adam Gopnik, Just a Bar At one point, Giuliani declared that Dorismond had been no "altar boy"; later, on being advised by a reporter that Dorismond had, in fact been an altar boy, he refused to comment, calling the question "argumentative." (An unarmed off-duty security guard was shot after telling an undercover narcotic officer asking where to buy drugs to move on.) "Personal and Political" Elizabeth Kolbert --- Cyberwarfare is what we might think of as attacks against digital ones and zeros. Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, deputy commander in chief U.S. Space Command, November 2000 --- Rock 'n' roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration, and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth. Frank Sinatra, 1957 --- In a democracy, anyone can be an elitist. Christopher Knight (art critic) --- Real scientists, I learned, do not use the World Book Encyclopedia. Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures --- One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so because they bite. Vladimir Il'ich Lenin The most difficult task for Christians is not to love God but to love their brothers and sisters. Alex Polari de Alverga, Forest of Visions It's a small apartment. I just have enough room to lay my hat and a few friends. Dorothy Parker, quoted on a personals page: "Pale Doll Waits Alone" --- A turtle without moisture is like a paperweight with nostrils. Heard on tv --- And how did it happen that I ended up as an intellectual of sorts, a professor even, with a smooth salary, a crooked reputation, and a wonderful wife? Even as a student, I had mocked the intellectual tumors grown by philosophers. America was the first country that gave me a vague idea what a culture might be. Paul Feyerabend, Killing Time --- ... How did those pieces look, translated onto bodies that for many years have been doing something else altogether? Rather odd, sometimes. Balanchine loved speed; the Kirov dancers have to struggle to keep up. Balanchine wanted dancing on the beat; the Kirov dancers tend to dance in front of the beat. Balanchine wanted no acting; the Kirov dancers like to act, often broadly. The otherwise superb young Svetlana Zakharova, as Terpsichore in "Apollo," made googly eyes at the god throughout her variation. And this is not to speak of general technical problems, such as the fact that many of the Kirov women, probably because their legs are so hyperextended, cannot pirouette without tipping over. Joan Acocella, "Lost and Found" "These were really, really great record companies--not someone that I could just squash like a bug." Polly Anthony, president of Epic Records, describing the competition to sign a new artist, interviewed by Louisa Kamps ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ | | | | | | | | | | v v v v v v v v v v -__-----___----_----_----____----__---__--_--_---_____--_-_-__--_-_-_____-_-- Marxism is, in a sense, the only "complete" dogma of modern times. There is as yet no explanation--and never will be an exact one--for the unexpected emergence, after medieval Scholasticism, of a dogmatized conception of the world and the human spirit. Milovan Djilas, The Unperfect Society How do you put 'paradise' into one word? Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley "My personal life doesn't interest me." Andrei Gromyko, asked about his family --- Texas Governor James "Pa" Ferguson explained, in 1917, why he had vetoed a bill to finance the teaching of foreign languages in the public school system: "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for the school children of Texas." The New York Times, Aug. 13, 1995. --- Although natural selection is often thought to be a slow pruning process, Reznick and his colleagues find that it can shape a population as fast as a chain saw can rip through a sapling. Virginia Morell, "Predator-Free Guppies Take An Evolutionary Leap Forward" Could Nostradamus himself have ever predicted that selling mail-order lead-lined "computer cozies" designed to contain the damage when everyone's CPU goes haywire would turn a laid- off Pennsylvania university chancellor into _Avarice_ magazine's "Profiteer of the Year"? Bruce McCall, "How to Profit from the Coming Y2K Glitch" ''There is corruption. I have to deal with it, although I would prefer not to.'' Boris Fyodorov, new head of Russia's tax collection agency [Boston Globe, 10 June 1998] --- When publisher Sergei Fedorov and a few friends started a business newspaper in the Volga River city of Samara in the early days of glasnost, they were arrested for running a photo that made fun of the Communist leadership's approach to dealing with ubiquitous shortages. The photo showed a sign at a pharmacy explaining that because of insufficient stocks, condoms were for sale only to elderly World War II veterans. "I can't imagine such an incident being repeated in today's conditions," Fedorov, now head of his own regional publishing company, recalled of his short-lived shutdown with nostalgic good humor. "Tycoons in Russia Buy Themselves a Voice Media: Moguls purchase news outlets to shape opinion about candidates most likely to benefit their bottom lines," CAROL J. WILLIAMS, Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1998. [for personal use only] --- At the time [1994] I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. I must have looked shocked. Ehrlichman just shrugged. Then he looked at his watch, handed me a signed copy of his steamy spy novel, The Company, and led me to the door. John Ehrlichman, Watergate co-conspirator The War on Drugs was declared by Nixon in 1969 Dan Baum, Legalize It All. Harper's, 1994. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ --- French courtroom decorum allows far more time than would be acceptable in an American or British court for free questioning, speechifying, digressive material, and moral instruction directed by whoever is in the mood to give it toward whomever he thinks deserves to get it. ... In a French courtroom, four or five separate prosecution teams--some civil, some from the government--can all argue the same case, each in its own way. Adam Gopnik, "Papon's Paper Trial" --- There are, of course, holes in the argument wide enough to drive a truck through--so wide that by now a six-lane toll highway runs where the theory once stood. Adam Gopnik, "The Power Critic" --- The belief that we should never fall into the grip of a single belief has us firmly in its grip. Louis Menand, "What is 'Art'"? `-,'`-',`-',`-'.`)',`_',`-',`(',`-',`_',`-',`-',)-',`-',`(',`-',`-',`-',`)', My eight-year-old has never seen the inside of a day-care center, and my husband has never eaten a TV dinner. And I know that when I get home from work, if I'm dog-tired and stressed-out, I can be alone and guilt-free. It's a rare day when all eight of my husband's wives are tired and stressed at the same time. Elizabeth Joseph, attorney and journalist, in a speech to Utah chapter of the National Organization for Women --- To Whom It May Concern: I am free. What should I do? Veronica Geng, "Post-Euphoria" ... that's comforting art, you see, because it's so easy to have an opinion and a reaction. Sister Wendy Beckett on Andres Serrano's _Piss Christ_ --- It was bigger than me, but it was me. An adopted woman remembering her birth mother --- He's circumnavigating the Pacific - so that you don't have to! Ad for a public tv series, "Full Circle with Michael Palin" --- "Of course, that was long ago, but at the time it seemed like the present." New Yorker cartoon - P.Steiner Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities -- . -.- . -- . . --. . --. .- - . --. . .--. . --. . - - ... it's not the fault of cosmetic surgery that it has been patronized by people of limited imagination. Larissa MacFarquhar, "The Face Age" On my knees, I decided that anthropomorphism was the most forgiveable of human errors. David Denby, "In Darwin's Wake" (studying a lizard's smile) --- Like mediocre fiction, fights for the heavyweight championship of the world are invariably freighted with the solemnity of deeper meanings. David Remnick, "Kid Dynamite Blows Up" 'Is the English and litricher that does beat me.' In Elias's mouth litricher was the most beautiful word I heard. It sounded like something to eat, something rich like chocolate. Hat said, 'You mean you have to read a lot of poultry and thing?' Elias nodded. We felt it wasn't fair, making a boy like Elias do litricher and poultry. V.S. Naipaul, Miguel Street --- "Since this is only your first offense, and you've been found not guilty, I'll be lenient in my sentencing." Judge, in a New Yorker cartoon by Shananan "God would never want you to say, 'I made millions of dollars, and now I'm gonna be broke for Jesus.' All the Bible characters were paid beyond belief." Joseph Simmons. aka Run of rap group Run D.M.C. Now an ordained minister --- When Theodore P. Williams shined a light into the eye of a newly dead rat, the rodent blinked. Well, actually its pupil contracted. But that was remarkable, considering that the eye was no longer attached to the rat. ... On a hunch, Williams tried his experiment at night, and sure enough, the pupil remained dilated. "Tales From a Dead Rat's Eye" We're looking for the kind of bad taste that will grab-- but not appall. cartoon in the New Yorker - artist's name illegible "The difference between him and crazy is about three billion dollars." former Perot volunteer With friends like this, who needs enemies? Bosnian general, on the Americans during the war I doubt whether the United States would enact its own constitution if it came up for a vote. George Soros --- To have elections is not the only way to be democratic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1996 (defending Castro) --- Early in this century several investigators estimated the densities of spiders in assorted terrestrial ecosystems....Perhaps the most imaginative estimate is 11,000 spiders per acre of woodland, derived from a count of nine spiders in a 4 square foot patch of forest. Bristowe (1971) claims that during some seasons a particular field in Sussex had over 2,000,000 spiders per acre. A few quick calculations led him to conclude that the weight of insects consumed by the entire British spider fauna in a year exceeds the combined weights of all the humans in Britain. The full implications of this finding are yet to be determined. D.H.Wise, Spiders in Ecological Webs --- ... Should there--could there--be such a thing as a Marxist, feminist you-name-it-ist scientific paper? (The answer is in the old joke about the southern Baptist who was asked if he believed in infant baptism. His answer: "Hell yes, I've seen it done.") Keith S. Thompson, book review ... The term entomologist does not seem generally understood throughout good collecting regions. ... As one very old man in Jackson said, ... "Well, I dare say, it's a good enough belief, but, as for me, I'm an old fashioned Hardshell Baptist like my folks before me and I ain't no use for your new sects." Annie Trumbull Slosson --- ... The decade [1920's] closed with "Ted Against Ted," a Civil War psychodrama about a soldier with a split personality who took himself prisoner during Sherman's march to Atlanta. Some theatregoers still feel a sensation in their temples when they recall the war-crimes trial where Ted delivers the testimony that convicts Ted. Douglas McGrath, "Some Notes on the Theatre Where You Are Seeing This Play" Mr. Thornton grunted. "I wish schools had never been invented!" he suddenly burst out: "They wouldn't then be so indispensable!" Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica --- ... The sexual stallion and future world-beater of nineteen, for whom three pizzas and an accompanied hour in the back seat of a car are just the beginning of a decent evening, and the sagging commuter of twenty-five years later, who staggers home hoping only to have the stamina to make it through the first half hour of "Charlie Rose," are nominally "the same person." But by virtue of what? Of having the same Social Security number? Identity is the artificial flower on the compost heap of time. Louis Menand, "Listening to Bourbon" "Today's letter is from a 7-year-old wanting to know if I believe in God. I always get letters like that. A lot of children, you know, are aware of me." Bill Blass, quoted by Louise Esterhazy --- I as yet can hardly understand anything but the fact that I am happier than I ever thought people could be, and it goes on getting better every day. Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, three weeks after both the death of her brother from typhoid and her acceptance 2 days later of Clive Bell's third proposal of marriage. My mother usually read us our bedtime stories. ... My little brother loved our paperback version of "Born Free," and being tenderhearted she would skip the epilogue, where the lioness dies. "One night, after I'd put Fred to bed I heard him crying," she recalls. "And I knew that he'd taught himself to read." Benjamin Cheever, "The New Deaf" --- The dualities proliferated when Duff made an excursion away from the usual 10 dimensions to a six-dimensional realm. (String theorists work in whatever number of dimensions is most convenient and then try to work their way back to the real world, like Dorothy trying to get home from Oz.) Duff suggested that if a five-brane were wrapped around a four-dimensional space known as a manifold in a six-dimensional universe, what would be left would be a one-dimensional object -- a string, one of the five varieties described in string theory's various formulations. If, as Strominger had suggested, another species of string was dual to these five-branes-turned-strings, there might be a duality between two different types of strings, albeit one that only existed in a six-dimensional universe. Gary Taubes, "A Theory of Everything Takes Shape" ... Finally, if we are going to conceive of pointlike particles as strings, why not as membranes or more generally as p-dimensional objects--inevitably dubbed p-branes? Michael J. Duff, "The Theory Formerly Known as Strings" --- If this is dying, then I don't think much of it. Lytton Strachey (as he was dying) --- ... When I first came over to America to study at Harvard twelve years ago, I was struck by a simple difference between Oxford and Harvard undergrads. Both were as smart and knew about as much. But the Harvardites were keen to ask about what they didn't know; the Oxonians devoted their entire energy to convincing you that they already knew it. Andrew Sullivan ... Now they dropped us off at our hotel, an enormous gloomy building where the elevators were not working and there seemed to be few guests. The desk clerk gave us food coupons for the dining room: outside Moscow, food is often rationed. In the empty lobby a huge electric shoe-shining machine stood high as a person's head; it swallowed our coins but would not turn on. On the hotel's main staircase lay a dead fish. (winter 1991) Adam Hoschschild, The Unquiet Ghost / Russians Remember Stalin --- _Savage Art_ [a biography of _noir_ author Jim Thompson] is a sobering document, sometimes almost as emotionally gruelling as Thompson's own work. It is a scrupulous record of bad luck, bad timing, deprivation, self-abuse, rancor, nameless dread, and often inexplicable resolve. As inspirational material for budding authors it should accomplish roughly what _All Quiet on the Western Front_ did for the soldier's trade. Luc Sante, reviewing a book by Robert Polito Zuchetta is the author of "Venice Bridge by Bridge," a two-volume, twelve-pound work that treats each if the island's four hundred and forty-six bridges as if it were a cherished young member of a royal family. Michael Specter, "A Sinking Feeling (Doesn't Venice want to be saved?)" --- Last week Control Data announced the 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing the system there are only 34 people including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers. Contrasting this modest effort with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer. Thomas Watson,IBM CEO 8/63 It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question. Seymour Cray When he was told that Apple had just bought a Cray to help design the next Mac, Seymour commented that he had just bought a Mac to design the next Cray. Gordon Bell, http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/barc/GBell/craytalk/tsld089.htm ---***-***-***-###-###-###-***-***-***-###-###-###-***-***-***--- -- INSERT: THIS NOTE HAS NO PURPOSE: DO NOT DELETE, AND IF DELETED, REINSERT SLOWLY -- Lost in the venal void our dreams deflate By easy stages through green atmosphere: Imagination's bright balloon is late, Like the blue whale, in coming up for air. It is not known what genus of the wild Black plums of thought best wrinkle, twitch and flow Into sweet wisdom's prune -- for in the mild Orchards of love there is no need to know. What use to cry for Capricorn? it sails Across the heart's red atlas: it is found Only within the ribs, where all the tails The tempest has are whisking it around. No time for tears: it is enough, today, That we, meandering these granular shores Should watch the ponderous billows at their play Like midnight beasts with garlands in their jaws. Mervyn Peake, from Titus Alone --- industrial art: /AB_2_47_1:1-33436 /release_candidates/AB_2_48_0:1-33364 /release_candidates/AB_ 2_48_1:1-33482 /release_candidates/AB_2_49_0:1-33005 /release_candidates/AB_2_50 _0:1-33531 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_1:1-33611 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_11: 1-35082 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_2:1-33939 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_3:1-34 384 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_4:1-34833 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_5:1-34066 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_6:1-34382 /release_candidates/AB_2_50_7:1-34313 /rel ease_candidates/AB_2_50_9:1-35027 /release_candidates/AB_2_51_0:1-34963 /release _candidates/AB_2_51_1:1-35211 /release_candidates/AB_2_51_10:1-37849 /release_ca ndidates/AB_2_51_2:1-35428 /release_candidates/AB_2_51_3:1-35807 /release_candid ates/AB_2_51_4:1-35752 /release_candidates/AB_2_51_5:1-36223 /release_candidates /AB_2_51_6:1-36383 /release_candidates/AB_2_51_7:1-36599 /release_candidates/AB_ 2_52_0:1-34544 /release_candidates/AB_2_52_3:1-34743 /release_candidates/AB_2_60 _0:1-37152 /release_candidates/AB_2_60_1:1-37190 /release_candidates/AB_2_60_2:1 -37409 /release_candidates/AB_2_60_3:1-37490 /release_candidates/AB_2_60_4:1-378 30 /release_candidates/AB_2_60_5:1-39965 /release_candidates/AB_2_60_6:1-40044 / release_candidates/AB_2_666_1:1-35229 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_0:1-38611 /rel ease_candidates/AB_2_70_1:1-38943 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_10:1-39618 /releas e_candidates/AB_2_70_11:1-40290 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_12:1-40093 /release_ candidates/AB_2_70_13:1-40832 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_14:1-40322 /release_ca ndidates/AB_2_70_15:1-40358 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_16:1-40509 /release_cand idates/AB_2_70_17:1-40558 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_18:1-41141 /release_candid ates/AB_2_70_19:1-41175 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_2:1-39019 /release_candidate s/AB_2_70_20:1-41556 /release_candidates/AB_2_70_21:1-41669 /release_candidates/ Hand-lettered calligraphy: ccccccc ccccccc ccccccc cccc cccc cccccc cccccc cccccc ccccc ccccc ccccc ccccc cccccc ccccccccc ccccc ccccc ccccc ccccc ccccc ccccccccccccc cccccc ccccc ccccc ccccc cccccc ccccccccccccc cccccc ccccc cccccc ccccccc cccccc ccccccccccc ccccccccc cccccc cccccc cccccc cccccccc ccccccccc ccccc cccccccc cccc cccccc ccccccc ccc ccccccc cccc ccccc cccc cc ccccc ccccc cccccc cccc cccc cc ccc cccccccc ccc cccccc c ccccc ccccccccccc cc ccc cccc c c ccc ccc ccc cc cccccc cc ccc cc cc ccc cc ccccc c cccccc ccc ccc cc cccc ccc ccc cc c ccc cc cc cc c cccc cccc cccc cc cc cc cc ccc ccc ccc cc ccc ccccccc cc cccc cc cc ccccc ccccccc ccccc ccccccc cc ccc ccc ccccccc ccccc ccc ccc ccc ccc ccc cccc cccc ccc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc c cc c c c c cc c c cc c c c