Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well.
-- Joel Moses, Algorithms and Complexity, ed. J.F. Traub
Monday, February 29, 2016
Quote of the Day
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Quote of the Day
I collect rare photographs... I have two... One of Houdini locking his keys in his car... the other is a rare picture of Norman Rockwell beating up a child.
-- Stephen Wright
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Quote of the Day
The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
-- James Thurber
Friday, February 26, 2016
Quote of the Day
Why don't you listen to something really classical like Mozart, Mendelsohn or Motorhead?
-- Arnold Judas Rimmer
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Quote of the Day
Sure I eat what I advertise. Sure I eat Wheaties for breakfast. A good bowl of Wheaties with bourbon can't be beat.
-- Dizzy Dean
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Quote of the Day
God gave man two ears and one tongue so that we listen twice as much as we speak.
-- Arab proverb
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Quote of the Day
It ain't supposed to make sense; it's faith. Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe.
-- Archie Bunker
Monday, February 22, 2016
Quote of the Day
You will find men like him in all of the world's religions. They know that we represent reason and science, and, however confident they may be in their beliefs, they fear that we will overthrow their gods. Not necessarily through any deliberate act, but in a subtler fashion. Science can destroy a religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistance of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.
-- Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End)
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Quote of the Day
In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.
-- George Orwell
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Quote of the Day
Oh my God. This is just like that drug trip I saw in that movie while I was on that drug trip.
-- Philip J. Fry
Friday, February 19, 2016
Quote of the Day
When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
-- Albert Einstein
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Quote of the Day
Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries, knows nothing about grapes.
-- Philippus Paracelsus
Monday, February 15, 2016
Quote of the Day
You must've torn out the "Q" section in my dictionary, because I don't know the meaning of the word "quit"!
-- Mr. Furious
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Quote of the Day
Archie was the bitch and Jughead was the butch. That's why he was always going around wearing that crown-looking hat. He was the king of queen Archie's world.
-- Hooper LaMont
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Friday, February 12, 2016
Quote of the Day
Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
-- H.L. Mencken
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Quote of the Day
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
-- Jack Handey
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Quote of the Day
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
-- Peter Ustinov
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
Quote of the Day
I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.
-- Stephen Wright
Monday, February 08, 2016
Quote of the Day
It's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.
-- Derek Smalls
Sunday, February 07, 2016
Saturday, February 06, 2016
Quote of the Day
Stealing?! How could you?! Haven't you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church? Captain What's-his-name?
-- Homer J. Simpson
Friday, February 05, 2016
Quote of the Day
I'm going to the backseat of my car with the woman I love, and I won't be back for TEN MINUTES.
-- Homer J. Simpson
Thursday, February 04, 2016
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Quote of the Day
...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism," Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Monday, February 01, 2016
Quote of the Day
We're talking about whether any independent contractors working on the uncompleted death star were innocent victims when the rebels destroyed it.
-- Dante Hicks