All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed. -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence? A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence. Perilous to all of us are the devices of an art deeper than we ourselves possess. -- Gandalf the Grey [J.R.R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"] You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships. It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity" It is so very hard to be an on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up. Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. -- Mark Twain Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. Talkers are no good doers. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately, they're not all recommended. Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject -- the actual enemy is the unknown. -- Thomas Mann Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little more time for dreaming. -- J. P. McEvoy Lesson: Never solve your girlfriends computer problems completely or she'll devalue your relationship. Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in. -- Sydney J. Harris Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. -- Mark Twain Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. -- Thomas Jefferson I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. -- H.L. Mencken Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publius Syrus The answer to lies is not bombs, the answer to lies is truth. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -- Albert Camus This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur Clarke Some parts of the past must be preserved, and some of the future prevented at all costs. You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean you weren't here today. Don't read everything you believe. No woman ever falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of him than he deserves. -- Edgar Watson Howe The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles. -- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road" You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. -- Saul Bellow Change your thoughts and you change your world. The makers may make and the users may use, but the fixers must fix with but minimal clues "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." -- Walt Disney Indecision is the true basis for flexibility. It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not stopped. -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. -- Nietzsche Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. -- Kernighan "Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the world." -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp. When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet. -- P.E. Trudeau Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. -- "Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" On the relationship between programming and mathematics: "Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians." Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first. What is research but a blind date with knowledge? -- Will Harvey Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. There's a lot to be said for not saying a lot. If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away. -- Dag Hammarskjold Without followers, evil cannot spread. -- Spock, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5 What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you. -- Nietzsche "An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt." -- a saying at RPI "It is dreadful when something weights on your mind - not to have a soul to unburden yourself to... I tell my piano the things I once told you." -- Frederic Chopin Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. -- Shakespeare If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you lack sufficient imagination. Conscience doth make cowards of us all. -- Shakespeare Alas, how love can trifle with itself! -- William Shakespeare, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. -- Mark Twain "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong. "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -- Stephen Roberts Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -- Elbert Hubbard There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Hamlet" True happiness will be found only in true love. The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. Beer & Pretzels -- Breakfast of Champions. A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail. -- Jerry Ogdin Kent's Heuristic: Look for it first where you'd most like to find it. A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished. -- Zsa Zsa Gabor, "Newsweek" Never tell people how to do things. Tell them WHAT to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Prejudice: A vagrant opinion without visible means of support. -- Ambrose Bierce Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled. -- Spock, "Operation -- Annihilate!" stardate 3287.2 Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- Franklin P. Jones During the voyage of life, remember to keep an eye out for a fair wind; batten down during a storm; hail all passing ships; and fly your colors proudly. When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will. Carson's Consolation: Nothing is ever a complete failure. It can always be used as a bad example. Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow. Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full mooon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door. He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober, Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October; But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow, Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." -- Walt West In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. -- Thomas Jefferson Be less critical more often Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not almost one, it is damn near zero. -- David Ellis "Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it weren't for other people" -- Blore I/O, I/O, It's off to disk I go, A bit or byte to read or write, I/O, I/O, I/O... "You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the Germans don't want to go to war!" --Chris Rock No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. -- C. Schulz There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet. -- Admiral William Halsey It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. -- Alfred Adler Ninety percent of everything is crap. -- Theodore Sturgeon People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time. -- Norman Cousins Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. Reality is nothing but a collective hunch. -- Lily Tomlin You may be infinitely smaller than some things, but you're infinitely larger than others. "Little else matters than to write good code." -- Karl Lehenbauer All the evidence concerning the universe has not yet been collected, so there's still hope. "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite." -- Bertrand Russell, _Sceptical_Essays_, 1928 Patience is the best remedy for every trouble. -- Titus Maccius Plautus Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. -- Euripides Creativity is not always bred in an environment of tranquility; sometimes you have to squeeze a little to get the paste out of the tube. Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering. -- Roger Price I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps the time I found out that M&Ms really DO melt in your hand. -- Peter Oakley Conquest is easy. Control is not. -- Kirk, "Mirror, Mirror", stardate unknown "All Bibles are man-made." -- Thomas Edison 28 October 1998: "The invention of [congruence notation] by Gauss affords a striking example of the advantage which may be derived from an appropriate notation, and marks an epoch in the development of the science of arithmetic." --G. B. Matthews (1861-1922) You can't cross a large chasm in two small jumps. Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. -- Schopenhauer The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate. -- Marcus Terentius Varro Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. Corollary: Following the rules will not get the job done. In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's. And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. -- Kahlil Gibran Pauca sed matura. [Few but excellent.] -- Gauss Elegance and truth are inversely related. -- Becker's Razor Progress means replacing a theory that is wrong with one more subtly wrong. Confidence is simply that quiet, assured feeling you have before you fall flat on your face. -- Dr. L. Binder You can never do just one thing. -- Hardin Nothing is finished until the paperwork is done. A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. -- Lao Tsu