"...dude, do my p values suck."
--Asheen

"You build a thing in the yard to prove...you know...stuff."
--Rebecca

"Also they have a 'bottomless cookie jar' (freshly baked) at this B&B. It seems like a fallacious claim... i will have to challenge it."
--Asheen

"I'd rather kick homeless people out of my car than try to build an engine out of soup cans."
--Sean, on his preference for using a PC over using the MythTV DVR software.

"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!"
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "A Psalm of Life"

"Don't you hate it when you realize that you've forgotten your sackbut?"
--Liza

"A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Nature

"Doesn't the goatee give you +3 strength?"
--Nate

"Buying a Windows machine is like buying a car full of homeless people - you have to kick them all out before you can use it."
--Sean

Prof. Moore: "Wasn't each segment cut from one motherblank?"
Scott: "Motherblank...yeah, that's kind of what we called it."

"He spake; and to confirm his words, outflew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from thighs
Of mighty cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumined Hell; highly they raged
Against the highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven."
--John Milton (1608 - 1674), Paradise Lost

"I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it— but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809 - 1894)

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919), 26th President of the U.S.

"But I wait...
Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain-
Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate,
Happier winds that pile her hair;
Again
They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air
Upon me, winds that I know, and storm."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940), This Side of Paradise (1920)

"A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing Right or Wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad."
--Plato, from Apology

[On Chemical Engineers having the highest average salaries] "They tip the scales, but then they have to inhale all those fumes. We pay them more, but they don't last as long."
--Prof. Fauchet

"Tenure is more permanent than marriage."
--Prof. Fauchet

Prof. Fienup (to me): The reference most people quote is VanTrees. Have you read that?
Me: No.
Sapna: Yes, he has.
Me: I have?

Nathan: Guys are easy to model.
Me: Yeah, they're linear.
Nathan: Girls are definitely nonlinear...
Greg: ...and non-causal.
All: Right Sapna?
Sapna: I have a big adaptive filter in my ear. I can't hear any of you!

"I'm like a mosquito: I don't itch while I'm there, I itch after I leave."
--Nate

"If Fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow."
--William McFee (1881 - 1966)

"Lo, there do I see my Father.
Lo, there do I see my Mother,
And my Sisters and my Brothers.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people,
Back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me,
They bid me take my place among them,
In the halls of Valhalla,
Where the brave may live forever."
--Viking battle prayer from The 13th Warrior

"Truth, not a pet, is man's best friend."
--J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904 - 1967), "Father" of the atomic bomb

"At dawn of day, when you dislike being called, have this thought ready: 'I am called to man's labour; why then do I make a difficulty if I am going out to do what I was born to do and what I was brought into the world for?'"
--Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180), Roman Emperor (161 - 180), from The Meditations

[On the advantages of the English language...]
Nate: For example, we don't sex nouns.
Brad: Oh, well I do.
Greg: What do you think he was doing all weekend?
Brad: Yeah...I like to take them out to a movie first...you know..

Me: I hate people who try to be all serious and make a point, but don't take the time to write it properly and spell check and use proper grammar.
Nate: I just hate people.

[While looking at clothes in Express]
Me: I just don't get fashion.
Tom: Well, someone must be buying [the clothes]...I mean they don't all get shipped off to the circus.

Me: So fudge is basically the glass of chocolates?
Brad: Well, I think your goals are different with glass and chocolate.

Ashu: I get blamed for a lot at home.
Sapna (Ashu's wife): I think that's because you do it.

"Have you ever considered stand-up comedy? Seriously, you should be on TV...so I can turn you off."
--Brad, to me

"A priori constraints on the object can really help the [optimization] process...with enough of them, you don't need data."
--P. Carney

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900 - 1944)

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."
--Douglas Adams (1951 - 2001) (courtesy Asheen)

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
--Douglas Adams (1951 - 2001)

"It is not correctness of opinion that determines the value of a person, but whether they live by what they believe, and accord others respect for doing likewise."
--Orson Scott Card, "World Watch: Why I Miss Karol Wojtyla" (2005)

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945), 32nd President of the U.S.

Tom: "Not a disc golf fan?"
Greg: "No, not a Nathan fan."

"I really just need to have a kidney."
--Rebecca Alperstein

"He wants to use Outlook...I think it's just easier to kill him."
--Brian McIntyre, on the phone with an IT guy, about me :-)

"Do you know your ice is frozen?"
--Tom Zielinski

"The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We've always done it this way.'"
--Grace Hopper (1906 - 1992)

"Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest."
--Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

"I arise today
Through the strength of heaven,
Light of sun,
Brilliance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock."
--from the Lorica of Saint Patrick, ca. 377 (courtesy Asheen)

"The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior."
--Earl Warren (1891 - 1974), 30th Governor of California (1943–1953), 14th Chief Justice of the United States (1953-1969)

"I've got a funny story about hypoxia..."
--Sean Anderson

"The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair."
--Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965), in his last major speech to the House of Commons (March 1, 1955)

[03:37:30 PM] CanIMajorInThis2: Popcorn violates the law of conservation of mass-energy!
[03:37:47 PM] CanIMajorInThis2: i scoop, say, 10 popped kernals from the bag
[03:37:51 PM] CanIMajorInThis2: 7 make it to my mouth
[03:37:57 PM] CanIMajorInThis2: one ends up on the ground
[03:37:58 PM] CanIMajorInThis2: !!!
[03:38:03 PM] Elrond320: and the other two??
[03:38:09 PM] CanIMajorInThis2: EXACTLY!
--A typical IM between Asheen and I

"The Asheen-Bolcar Postulate: When one of these two people Works Hard, this has a positive correlation on the amount of work output of the other. One leading scientist suggests that the cause of this correlation is less shared time spent IMing each other (results pending verification)."
--Asheen's Away Message

"The photons are coming in slow enough that you have time to name them."
--P. Lightsey, on the James Webb Space Telescope

"How well can we polish and fly a brick?"
--P. Lightsey, on the JWST

"It can go down to 35K, 10^-5 torr...we're still negotiating for an anti-gravity device."
--T. Whitman, on the JWST Test Chamber

"I would like [your] data to show that our predictions are right, and if they're not, I'd be happy to help you guys find your mistakes."
--D. Redding, on some initial error simulations

"We didn't know it, we knew we didn't know it and we knew by how much we didn't know it."
--D. Redding, on the "unknown" portion of the error

D. Redding: "So coming out [of the algorithm] we didn't know [the error] to about the same degree that we didn't know it going in."
Prof. Moore: "Thank you, Donald Rumsfeld."

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."
--Erica Jong (1942 - )

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
--Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968)

"Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance."
--Anthony de Mello (1931 - 1987)

"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life."
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

"The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility...I admire its purity. A survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality."
--as spoken by Ash in the movie Alien (1979) about the creature

"That's Microsoft's version of an 8-Dimensional Poincaré sphere."
--Ari Friberg, visiting professor in his colloquium talk: "Coherence & Polarization in Electromagnetic Fields" given on 1/29/05

"A victory that comes dearly is better savored."
--as spoken by Marianne de Morangias in the movie The Brotherhood of the Wolf (2002)

Breckenridge: "You got a dollar?"
Josh: "Yeah."
Breckenridge: "Take it out. Look at the back. The seal, the pyramid, it's unfinished, with they eye of God looking over it, and the words annuit coeptis - He, God, favors our undertaking. The seal is meant to be unfinished, because this country's meant to be unfinished. We're meant to keep doing better. We're meant to keep discussing and debating. And, we're meant to read books by great historical scholars and then talk about them..."
--The West Wing, "Six Meetings Before Lunch"

"Of course, a procedure that always converges to zero isn't going to help you attract friends."
--An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing Pain, Edition 1.25

"Home is behind,
The world ahead.
And there are many paths to tread,
Through shadow,
To the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Mist and shadow,
Cloud and shade,
Hope shall fail,
All shall fade."
--"The Steward of Gondor", sung by Pippin in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Movie (2003)

"Sometimes to do what's right, we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most, even our dreams."
--as spoken by Spiderman in the movie Spiderman 2 (2004)

[On the invisible ink that shows up under blacklight]
Me: One of the suggestions on the package was to use it to highlight your books without ruining them.
Greg: Sure, then you can read them when you're baked.

[On the AOSLO System's Researcher] "I know a little bit about it because I'm kinda married to her."
--Greg Brady

"It's like pulling teeth from a baby."
--Me, severely confusing two similes

"I wish my eyes could integrate."
--Me, while stargazing

"I want infrared vision so I can see through the fog."
--Nathan Clark

Nathan: "What's a Nebula?"
Me: "It's a big cloud of gas...much like our apartment after Woody's been in the bathroom."

Bartlet: A long flight across the night. You know why late flights are good? Because we cease to be earthbound and burdened with practicality. Asking important questions. Talking about the idea that nobody has thought about yet. Put it a different way...
Sam: Be poets.
--The West Wing, "The Portland Trip"

Sapna: "Nobody fishes in India. Maybe it's because we don't have any of those inland fish things."
Me: "You mean...lakes?"

"I'm just the husband. I just go where I'm told, when I'm told."
--Greg Brady

"Your hamster might, despite some encouraging first steps, never be able to fully grasp the concept of Logical Markup."
--The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e

"Having a woman as a friend is about as useless as having $19 in the bank and wanting to use your ATM card."
--Alonzo Bodden, Last Comic Standing

"The stars and stripes wave for them. The word hero was made for them. They are the best and the bravest. And they will never be left behind."
--Sen. John Edwards (1953 - ), 2004 Democratic Nominee for Vice President in his nomination acceptance speech

Agent Smith: "Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why? Why do you get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something - for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom, or truth, or perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect, trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now - you can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why? Why do you persist?"
Neo: "Because I choose to."
--The Matrix: Revolutions (2003)

The Seven Principles of Bushido: The Samurai Code

"He has it all in a paper that he swears by, though usually he just swears at it."
--Julian Christou, visiting researcher from the Center For Adaptive Optics

Me: "You wanna go to a concert on June 7th?"
Jessica: "What band?"
Me: "Breaking Benjamin"
Jessica (whose husband's name is Benjamin): "I've already done that."

Ulysses - Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

[11:31:50:PM] CanIMajorInThis2: sometimes my brain really gets in the way of a good nap
--Asheen Phansey

"The master in the art of living
Makes little distinction between
His work and his play,
His labor and his leisure,
His mind and his body,
His education and his recreation,
His love and his religion,
He hardly knows which is which.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence
In whatever he does
Leaving others to decide
Whether he is working or playing.
To him he is always doing both."
--Zen Buddhist Text

The envelope of science will not be forever pushed by scientists laboring in the isolated ivory towers of their own disciplines.
--Asheen Phansey

"When I sleep, I dream about a great discussion with experts and ideas and diction and energy and honesty. And when I wake up I think, 'I can sell that.'"
--as spoken by President Bartlet in The West Wing, "Mandatory Minimums"

"I want to be a comfort to my friends in tragedy and I want to be able to celebrate with them in triumph and for all the times in between I just want to be able to look them in the eye."
--as spoken by Josh Lyman The West Wing, "The Crackpots and These Women"

"And at the center of the target chamber, we try to do fusion...though most people say it's just confusion."
--John Zuegel, researcher at The Laboratory for Laser Energetics

"We are limited creatures. Realizing this, we see that all we can do is strive for Right Action, never knowing if our efforts will be ultimately futile. But when we ride forth, empty-handed into the breach, clutching only a certainty that we do what is Right, then invisible all around us also rides an army of angels, and true defeat is impossible."
--Herb Wilmoth

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before"
--Edgar Allen Poe (1809 - 1849), "The Raven" (1844)

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
--often attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1797), this is probably a ghostquote, or paraphrase

"Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue."
--Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), The Analects

"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
--Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Discours de la Methode

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
--Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
--Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), 16th President of the U.S.

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
--Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)

"Sons of Gondor - of Rohan...my Brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day may come when the courage of Men fails; when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship - but it is not this day! An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the Age of Man comes crashing down - but it is not this day!! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth - I bid you stand!"
--as spoken by Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Movie (2003)

Theoden: "So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?"
Aragorn: "Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them."
Theoden: "For death and glory?"
Aragorn: "For Rohan. For your people."
Gimli: "The sun is rising..."
--The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers Movie (2002)

Sam: "Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going because they where holding on to something."
Frodo: "What were they holding on to, Sam?"
Sam: "There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for."
--The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers Movie (2002)

"We strive to do what is Right and must realize that doing so is rarely easy. We must make ourselves strong as steel, face the storm and never stray from our quest - aware that even steel bends in time, and even the Earth retreats before a storm. What are we, this flesh and bone, to stand against such force? We are eternal..."
--Me

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968)

"This cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose. It is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation. We find the best among us, send them forth into unmapped darkness and pray they will return. They go in peace for all mankind. And all mankind is in their debt."
--G.W.Bush (1946 - ), 43rd President of the U.S., after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

"In an age of nothing, at a time when we stand at the brink of our own destruction - strengthen your belief in yourself, in the future of humanity, in the things of this world which cannot easily be perceived. Awaken that which lies dormant now within your soul. Re-ignite the flame of your consciousness, and measure the strength of your conviction. Reveal the lie, renounce your hatred. Seek, find and embrace the truths you are fortunate enough to discover. Cherish them, use them to anchor you in the sea of chaos that is the world we live in. When twilight draws near, when you are pushed to the very limits of your soul, when it seems that all you have left are the dead remnants of the fabric of your life - Believe."
--Liner notes of Disturbed's Believe album (2002)

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes"...
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."
--Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - ), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Me: "After being away from work for a week, it's really hard to get back into the schedule."
Greg: "Or you can just be like me and never get into it..."

"There are three types of people in this world: those who take the road most traveled, those who take the road least traveled, and those who make their own road."
--Unknown

"The great architect of the universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician."
--J.H.Jeans (1877 - 1946), The Mysterious Universe

"Oh thick wits. Oh blind watchers of the sky."
--Tycho Brahe (1546 - 1601)

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on"
--John Keats (1795 - 1821), "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

"I know that I am mortal by nature...but when I trace the windings...of heavenly bodies I no longer touch earth with my feet but stand in the presence of Zeus himself..."
--Ptolemy (85 - 165)

"There once was a girl named Bright,
who traveled much faster then light.
She departed one day, in a relative way,
and returned the previous night."
--Unknown

"A mind that is stretched by a new idea can never return to its original dimensions."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

"All things are artificial for nature is the art of God."
--Thomas Browne (1605 - 1682), "On Dreams"

"He is short-sighted who looks only on the path he treads and the wall on which he leans."
--Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

"All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one."
--Occam's Razor

"I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here."
--Kepler's epitaph (1570 - 1630), Johannes Kepler gesammelte Werke

"Ignorance breeds confinement."
--Unknown

"The heart that is distant creates its own solitude."
--T'ao Ch'ien

"Whoever comes to the gates of death, knows the value of life."
--from the Babur-nama

"An unchallenged mind is one that will never know the true meaning of success."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results."
--motto of Alcoholic's Anonymous

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
--Semisonic "Closing Time"

"Life is described by differential equations."
--Ravi Ramakrishna

"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will."
--Jawaharal Nehru (1889 - 1964)

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."
--Unknown

"We are men of action - lies do not become us."
--as spoken by Wesley in the movie The Princess Bride (1987)

"Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man."
--Henry Adams (1838 - 1918), from The Education of Henry Adams (1906)

"All who genuinely seek to learn, whether atheist or believer, scientist or mystic, are united in having not a faith but faith itself."
--Timothy Ferris (1944 - ) from The Whole Shebang (1997)

"We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring,
Will be to arrive where we started,
And know the place for the first time."
--T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965), from Little Gidding

"We emerged to see - once more - the stars."
--Dante (1265 - 1321), from Inferno

"Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes."
--Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892), from Song of Myself

"What we do in life, echoes in eternity."
--as spoken by Maximus in the movie Gladiator (2000)

"If a claim cannot be disproven, it does not belong to the enterprise of science."
--Stephen J. Gould (1941 - 2002), from Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History (1998)

"My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began;
So it is now I am man;
So be it when I shall grow old;
Or let me die!"
--William Wordsworth (1770 - 1885), from My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold (1802)

"The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science."
--Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996), from The Demon-Haunted World (1996)

"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
--Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996), from The Demon-Haunted World (1996)

"Among the !Kung San hunter gatherers of the Kalahari Desert, when two men, perhaps testosterone inflamed, would begin to argue, the women would reach for their poison arrows and put the weapons out of harm's way. Today, our poison arrows can destroy the global civilization and just possibly annihilate our species. The price of moral ambiguity is now too high. For this reason - and not because of its approach to knowledge - the ethical responsibility of scientists must also be high, extraordinarily high, unprecedentedly high. I wish graduate science programs explicitly and systematically raised these questions with fledgling scientists and engineers. And sometimes I wonder whether in our society, too, the women - and the children - will eventually put the poison arrows out of harm's way."
--Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996), from The Demon-Haunted World (1996)

"Happy the man, and happy he alone,
who can call today his own;
He who secure within can say,
tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today."
--Horace (65 - 8 B.C.), translated by John Dryden (1631 - 1700), from Happy The Man

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life."
--Federico Fellini (1920 - )

"I can see the headlines now: 'ENGINEER FALLS OUT WINDOW - CLAIMS PROBLEM SET SAID TO NEGLECT GRAVITY'"
--Jeff Vinocur

"Minnesota? I'm not even sure I know where that is."
--Frances Spalding [from Illinois]

Dad: "I stand corrected."
Jen: "We don't care if you stand, just as long as you're corrected."

"Chris and I are soooo going to bed tonight....not together."
--Frances Spalding

"Today we are going to solve systems that have no solution."
"Today we are going to do orthogonal projections without doing orthogonal projections."
"Solving systems with no solution and doing orthogonal projections without doing orthogonal projections...pretty spectacular for one lecture."
--Dr. Phoebus Rosakis, Math 294 Professor

"Its not that bad!"
--Prof. Rosakis, refering to a double infinite series of double integrals. He could not say this with a straight face nor could he continue lecture without laughing.

"I wish I had a defrag for my life."
--Jeff Vinocur

"Oh good, they start out with questions I can answer...like `Name:`"
--Jeff Vinocur

"Why don't you do the world a favor and pull your bottom lip over your face and swallow."
--One former roommate to another

"You might still want to ask, what is an electric field?...Two observations may be useful here. First, since it works, it doesn't make a difference."
--from Electricity and Magnetism, Edward Purcell [our E&M textbook]

[On the spectral classification of stars (OBAFGKM)] "Its the result of Harvard astronomers trying to use the alphabet."
--Dr. J.R.Houck, Astro 211 Professor

[On surface brightness] "Its so confusing, we're going to as best as possible, ignore it."
--Dr. Houck

[On Planck's Law] "Well this is fun...in a warped sort of way."
--Dr. Houck

"This course is very nice. Not many courses tell you how to win a Nobel prize."
--Dr. Houck

"On the slight chance that you do not remember the non-relativistic derivation of an electron degenerate gas, I will persist..."
--Dr. Houck

"Globular Clusters are the things that crowd around spiral galaxies like fleas."
--Dr. Houck

[On Dark Matter] "What the material actually is will not be revealed on the homework...you'll have to win a Nobel prize for that."
--Dr. Houck

"So we see here in pink, because any good empire is always in pink, the conquests of Alexander the great."
--Dr. P. Deer, Hist 281 Professor

"You do realize I make most of this stuff up?"
--Dr. Deer

[On the Catholic Church during Galileo's discoveries] "They had other problems on their hands to deal with...like Protestants."
--Dr. Deer

Allison: "How am I supposed to write six pages on something I don't understand??"
Asheen: "Become an engineer."

"We have to start being comfortable about talking about certain disgusting details of modern life, like who takes the stinkiest sh*ts."
--Chris, on the five of us living together

"Isn't it fun to wear Chris's pants?"
--Frances to Liz

Tony: "Is this mold growing in your Brita Filter?"
Chris and Frances: "No, that's Brita Filter growing in our mold."

"I'm so hungry, my stomach is attacking my liver."
--Devon