for AH KAREN This is your game. I’ve never played before. FOLEY It’s not a game. It’s not something you play. KAREN Well, does this make any sense to you? FOLEY It doesn’t have to, it’s something that happens. It’s like seeing someone for the first time, like you could be […]
“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.” –Miller, Repo Man, 1984
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular. –Edward Gibbon
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. – Robert R. Coveyou
I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be –Percy Bysshe Shelley, Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation, 1818-9
Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. […]
This is a test of the XXX public announcement system. If you can’t hear this announcement, please contact your floor warden. I am not making this up. Yes, I work at a semi-famous FFRDC, which supposedly hires smart people.
A large number of rent-collectors and financial middlemen making vast amounts of money are keeping the current system in place. The fact that what they are doing is destroying the economy will not sway their thinking. As Upton Sinclair noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon […]
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. –George Orwell, ‘In Front of Your Nose’, Tribune, March 22, 1946.
Summary: The government dropped a bomb on a U.S. citizen, who, though a total dick and probably a criminal, may have been engaged only in propaganda, which, though despicable, is generally protected by the First Amendment; it did so without a trial or even an indictment (that we know of), based at least in part […]
Tagged another amendment downMatt Taibbi calls it right: But it seems to me that if you’re broke enough that you’re not paying any income tax, you’ve got nothing but skin in the game. You’ve got it all riding on how well America works. You can’t afford private security: you need to depend on the police. You can’t afford […]
Tagged OWS“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life—so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.” –Matt Cartmill “Of course, you become an archbishop to meet boys. –Doug Nelson “Scientists don’t meet girls either” […]
Look at me. Look at me. If you look away I will remove two stars. —Yelping with Cormac, December 2011 Genius.
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.” — Paul Dirac
“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.” –Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 3, 1776 “Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. […]