The best quotes I’ve read in a while.

From Overcoming Bias.

Quantum physics is not “weird”. You are weird. You have the absolutely bizarre idea that reality ought to consist of little billiard balls bopping around, when in fact reality is a perfectly normal cloud of complex amplitude in configuration space. This is your problem, not reality’s, and you are the one who needs to change.

And, one of the most simple yet insightful statements I have ever read.

Surprise exists in the map, not in the territory.

Think about it.

Best quote I read all day

For months, hackers–most likely in China and Russia, according to security watchers–have been surreptitiously installing keylogging software on WoW players’ Windows computers, hijacking their accounts and selling off their often valuable in-game assets.

From CNet. WoW = World of Warcraft.

Poor in America

From The Economist – Free Exchange:

  • Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
  • Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
  • Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
  • The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
  • Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
  • Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
  • Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
  • Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

. . . Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

Fascinating. I’ve always been interested in what constitutes “poor”.

Bush’s “responsibility” for the Iraq War

My favorite quote in response to Bush’s “acknowledgement” of responsibility for the War in Iraq.

And what the hell does it mean that “the responsibility rests with me”? Not “I take responsibility” or “I accept responsibility,” but responsibility coming, apparently under its own power, to rest in the general vicinity of George W. Bush. It’s his way of saying, “I can’t really get away with denying responsibility, so by default I’ll let it attach itself to me.” It’s really pathetic.

Quote of the day

“He (Bush) should resign straight away and be tried by the same kangaroo court.” – Mahathir Mohamad, former Malasian premier

What is a “kangaroo court”? Turns out it’s a well-known phrase, one that I had never heard before. Although the picture below indicates a better vision of what I thought was meant.

Writing documentation, late, late at night

I found a picture of my workspace at one of my old jobs recently.
I know, it’s a simple workspace.
What I had forgotten until looking at the picture was the quotes I had pasted to the wall. The top was found in the developer’s documentation. If you can figure out what it means, I am all ears:

The key of the attribute of the SCAttribute property is represented by an XML attribute named Key on the Attribute element.