"I read a lot of fantasy and have wondered sometimes, not so much what I would do in a fantasy setting, but what the book characters would do in the real world."
-- Romana
"That's the thing that's always fascinated me about Go. It is essentially an extremely simple game gone terribly, terribly wrong."
-- Amorymeltzer
"Dealing with the sheer of volume of "stuff" available on the internet is like being a crackhead with OCD. In the course of one hour I've tweaked my fantasy baseball lineup, posted on this message board, read Yahoo news, answered my latest e-mail, downloaded guidance criteria for PAHs in soils in NY State, checked the discography of a couple of bands, sent a deliverable to a client, and checked the weather. If that isn't superstimulus I don't know what is. It's amazing how much I can do, yet accomplish so little."
-- Misanthropic
"We don't have thoughts, we are thoughts. Thoughts are not responsible for the machinery that happens to think them."
-- John K Clark
"I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs."
-- Jonathan I. Katz
"There's no difference between a pessimist who says, "Oh, it's hopeless, so don't bother doing anything," and an optimist who says, "Don't bother doing anything, it's going to turn out fine anyway." Either way, nothing happens."
-- Yvon Chouinard
"Life moved ever outward into infinite possibilities and yet all things were perfect and finished in every single moment, their end attained."
-- David Zindell, Neverness
@RU & Doug S.
You know I sent that physics quote around to my quant friends and I must say there was much nervous giggling, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and then finally smiles of revenge. Even with subprime. Here at my office alone we have 6 quants and I can tell you they enjoy the $$$,$$$. Because living like a monk at CERN can suck.
That doesn't mean that they don't miss "the Great Work that Shines in Beauty" as one self-employed quant, formerly of Sandia, told me. But he enjoys being able to afford great seats at the symphony and playing as much Go as he pleases.