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jackMark Rosewater
"At the end of one class, she asked for us to write a short story about a college student having breakfast and at the end of the next she asked us to write a short story about a serial killer having breakfast. When we turned the second paper in, she had the class discuss the differences between the two assignments."
-- Mark Rosewater
"But I was a smart alec, and submitted the same essay both times."
-- me
The original class went on (I think) to decide that it was easier because they were familiar with college students, but not with serial killers, so would need to do a lot of research for that. My philosophical point is that the chilling thing is, most of the time, a serial killer is just like everyone else.
Edsger Dijkstra
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- Edsger Dijkstra
"The question of whether a human can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- me
I liked this quote because it gets truer the more you look at it. It doesn't necessarily say the question is uninteresting, but that it's likely irrelevant to whatever you wanted to do. I decided to generalise this and apply it with gay abandon to any meaning of any word I wanted to temporarily mock out of existence.
"At the end of one class, she asked for us to write a short story about a college student having breakfast and at the end of the next she asked us to write a short story about a serial killer having breakfast. When we turned the second paper in, she had the class discuss the differences between the two assignments."
-- Mark Rosewater
"But I was a smart alec, and submitted the same essay both times."
-- me
The original class went on (I think) to decide that it was easier because they were familiar with college students, but not with serial killers, so would need to do a lot of research for that. My philosophical point is that the chilling thing is, most of the time, a serial killer is just like everyone else.
Edsger Dijkstra
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- Edsger Dijkstra
"The question of whether a human can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- me
I liked this quote because it gets truer the more you look at it. It doesn't necessarily say the question is uninteresting, but that it's likely irrelevant to whatever you wanted to do. I decided to generalise this and apply it with gay abandon to any meaning of any word I wanted to temporarily mock out of existence.