March - May 2000 Oldproj

"I was hoping to call this weekend, but this weekend was Hell on wheels. It sucked sixteen ways from Sunday." -- Sean

ESPN: "What is your favorite Marino memory?"
Dave Finan, Lambertville, N.J.: "His retirement is my favorite moment. Now I'll never have to worry about him throwing for 400 yards and three touchdowns against my Jets."

"According to our records the above password has not been changed recently. To reduce the chances of your account being used by intruders, C&C policy requires you to change your password on Uniform Access computers (such as Homer and Dante) every 120 days." -- University of Washington Unix people (if you don't understand why this quote is funny, then write me and I'll explain it :)

"Swamps suck, unless they are inhabited by little green dudes who rock more than you could possibly imagine, and since such dudes do not inhabit the CS program at UW, I must say, 'Bummer, sucks to be swamped'." -- Sean, referring to the quagmire of work that was the end of my winter quarter

"If X is placed in the same slot as O then the problem is equivalent to scheduling tasks S-{x} in a new empty array G where any start time or finish time that is greater than Xstart is decremented by one. It is like solving the problem without X. Similarly the new optimal solution is one in which x is deleted and all start and finish times in O after Xstart are decremented by one." -- Don's "least clear paragraph" in a CSE 521 Algorithms problem set

"Do you own anything resembling a firearm or some other small weapon? Preferably something urban." -- Jesse (to Sarah, of course)

"As usual, the NY Times has explained in one page what the Seattle Times has failed to explain in an entire year." -- department chair Ed Lazowska, regarding an article in the NYT about the Kingdome Implosion

"Claim: The annual cost to the US economy of waiting for Windows to boot is $50 billion.

Analysis (all figures conservative):

100 million PCs in the hands of adults
5 minutes per day spent waiting for Windows to (re-)boot

"I woke up at 9:30 and said to Shaun, 'Hey, the Kingdome's gone.' 'Huh,' he said. Shaun is the king of 'not morning persons'." -- Jennifer, regarding missing the Seattle Kingdome implosion on 3/26

"Day after day, month after month, year after year, you never win anything. ... The streak continues! SORRY." -- "Official Game Message" inside my bag of Peanut M&M's

"Speaking of your project, have I not said anything even remotely funny in the past couple of months?" -- Laura

"His score utilizes a variety of electronic noises that at times don't even sound like music. Some portions sound like someone pounding a wrench against a fire hydrant or mailbox." -- a review of Brad Fiedel's soundtrack for "Terminator 2: Judgement Day"

"Therefore, if one of your smaller distribution lists is taken entirely from your large address list then we could draw a circle around that group of names, another circle around the whole address list and a box around the whole thing and there we have the universe ... :)" -- Jennifer, exhibiting a classic example of "Proof by Venn Diagram" apparently to say that the universe revolves around me

"... we are off to Florence tomorrow morning ... can not wait to tell you all about the trip. i will talk to you soon. cannot find the apostrophe ..." -- Laura, on a computer in Rome

"Is it yours?" -- Valentin, apparently commenting on the lack of morals he has witnessed in American culture, after I offered him and his female friend the leftover pizza and breadsticks from Will's and my dinner

Me, trying to cut corners: "So what are the salient parts of this paper that I should read?"
Will, empathizing: "Conclusions ... introductions ... Section 2's kinda neat too."

"[That is] THE big databases conference, where we all sit around and talk about tuples." -- Professor Alon Levy

"The book is very good. It's got a beautiful cover ... and a bit of stuff inside." -- Alon

"It's one of those things that either you get right away, or you get it five seconds later." -- Alon, again

"So, a superkey is ... not just a really big key." -- yep, more Alon

"If you take a petabyte here and a petabyte there, and you take the Cartesian product ... that's REALLY big." -- Alon, representin'

"Teaching SQL is the worst job in the world. I'm just kind of a singing and dancing manual." -- indeed, Alon

"Fear of making the wrong choice is a big thing too. People basically understand that success in life is determined by making the right decisions. Some people get paralyzed by that and opt out of making a decision, which is a bad decision. A lot of people like this are called procrastinators. I like to tell them to just put the procrastination off till later ..." -- John Beall, founder of Tsun Jo Wing Chun

"The news is out! There will be a series of planetary alignments in the year 2000. Will the earth tilt over? No. Will tidal forces trigger earthquakes? No. Will the polar ice caps melt? No. Will you even be able to see the alignments? Not really." -- Griffiths Observatory web page, "Planetary Alignment in 2000"

"I'll send you books about drugs, and you'll send me drugs about books ... er ... drugs that help you read books ... yeah, `You're gonna need *this* drug to read *this* book.'" -- Alon, imitating Amazon.com representative in merger talks with Drugstore.com representative

"Really, I mean, these people were on drugs when they wrote this."

"RDF is the brainchild of people on drugs."

"I don't have anything nice to say about this, so let's move on." -- Alon, re RDF, one of the less good ideas in modern databases

"[It's] a very active area of ... well, I wouldn't call it `research' ... it's an area [that generates] lots of email."

"When I moved to Seattle and Microsoft found out that an author of XML-QL was in town, they called me up and said, ``We need your Joins!'' I said, ``Well, how much is it worth to you?''"

"I was wondering what was up with you guys whilst I sat on the shitter this morning." -- Will, the "Eloquence King", on AOL

Will, for about the 20th time in five minutes, singing: "If you want my body, and you think--"
Me, trying to eat lunch: "Okay, shut the fuck up before I beat you over the head with this half-eaten apple."

"The way things stand, things in the Deep South almost have to get better. Otherwise, the people who live there will devolve into preverbal, overall-wearing sub-morons within a century," said Professor Dennis Lassiter of Princeton University. "Either Southerners will start improving themselves, or they'll be sold to middle-class Asians as pets."

Me, not singing: "I can feel it ... coming ... in the air tonight."
Will, singing: "If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy ..."
Me and Bart: "Nooooo."

"Albright praised Barak at a news conference for planning to pull Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon in July under U.N. resolutions. `It is strange that a country is criticized for withdrawing from another country,' Albright said." -- from AP International

"But I know what you mean. He is sometimes reminiscent of one of those little government officials who are always scurrying around in Kafka novels and Chekhov plays." -- Michele, re: an administrative assistant we know

Scott, at Shabbat dinner: "Marie, how do you say 'poodle' in French?"
Marie: "Caniche."
Everyone else: "Knish??"

Will: "I need a girlfriend."
Me: "So she can play Quake with you?"

Me, chewing on a piece of pizza: "I don't know about you, but after this hard day of reading and eating and drinking ...."
Will, knowingly: "You'd like to blow up some shit?"
Me: "... I'd like to blow some shit up."

"You have a week from this coming Friday (i.e. it's due April 28th), but it's so packed with excitement that even if you start today you won't be finished until three weeks from Tuesday!" -- Bart, distributing our next Databases problem set

Will, as I seat-bop in the office: "I think you're having too much fun."
Me: "That's because I'm playing with my .project."

"Shit, I really have trouble typing on this keyboard at home. It's so ergocidal." -- Jen

"Later [in Germany], a guy came up to me and started asking me questions in English. I stared at him too, but this time because I was listening. Emily came up from behind and pulled me away and said, in English, 'I'm sorry, sir, she doesn't speak German.' I said, 'He's speaking English.' He said to Emily, 'Do you speak English?' Emily said, 'No,' and walked away." -- Laura, re: her spring break trip through Europe

"So, he [was] down at Berkeley at the end of last week, visiting some classes and meeting with people. While wandering around the department, he [ran] into a recruiter from a software company. The recruiter said, 'Go to UW. The students in CSE there have much closer faculty interaction than the students at Berkeley.'" -- Ed Lazowska, regarding a prospective UW CSE freshman

"I skipped the arba imahos hand motions, etc." -- Sarah, regarding her seder at Sara M.'s house

"... singing flitting pirates." -- Frank, regarding, uh, something

Igor: "Is this problem NP-complete?"
Alon: "At least."

"Questions? [hearing none] If we stopped right now, could you go and build a query optimizer? [silence] Okay, let's continue a little bit." -- Alon

"The only restriction -- except for the 50 that are coming next ..." -- yep, more Alon

"So these are the semantics of Datalog -- you apply the rules until the system crashes or you reach a fixed point ... and you never know which one's going to happen first." -- as always, Alon

"Ladies and gentlemen, in the unlikely event of a water landing, please use third base as a safety flotation device." -- ESPN's Kenny Mayne

"Black thoughts fill a vacuum." -- Ed Lazowska

"Anyway, I get to spend my day either in the gym or playing with dolphins, so my life can't be all bad." -- Sean

"Then again, belts are ultimately meaningless other than the fact that they keep your gi closed." -- Sean

"One other highlight of today's meeting: a DARPA office director, as an introduction to a presentation that was going to take issue with some previous presentations, told the story of his glory days playing the trumpet in his high school band ... At one event, his dad said to his mom, 'Look at our son Bill. He's the only one marching in step.'" -- Ed

"I saw a most frightening sight in Safeway the other night ... bottled Borscht! 'Made with REAL beets!' Rather than show my fear by fleeing immediately (you know these things can sense fear), I slowly backed away and then booked off to the safety of the cereal isle." -- Sean

"Wow, I just e-krulic'ed myself. You don't see that every day." -- Sean

"PDT blows goats ... it screws the pooch ... it does all sorts of nasty beastial euphemisms." -- Sean, expressing dislike for my Time Zone

"Sing well, and make a funny face to the audience for me." -- Sean, writing a message with which I complied big time at the 4/29 Seattle Symphony Chorale concert

"Get your mind out of ... someone's pants!" -- Frank, to Jayant

Bart, whining about his computer problems: "Willlll ... I helped you out when you had the Blue Screen of Death!"
Will, not helping: "No, you didn't!"
Bart: "Well, at least I was supportive!"

"I like your line about the `there's going to be a dead rabbi.' That was delightfully irreverent." -- Jennifer

"Jeez, I hope I'm able to locate your mailing information somewhere ..." -- Jen (hmm, do I sense a hint of sarcasm?)

Frank, assertively: "Don't get a Masters. Get a PhD."
Tim: "PhD's are lame."
Frank, unrelatedly: "OW!"

"He quickly became a confidant to Gates, who is said to consider him a rare intellectual equal." -- from the AP, in an article about Nathan Myhrvold (hello? who here actually GRADUATED from college?)

"So, if we do a block-loaded merge ..." -- Justin

"I really think I should get points for being Romanian." -- Ana, re a Databases assignment (because every major DB researcher these days is either Jewish or Romanian)

"Your Shopping Cart is empty. Your Shopping Cart lives to serve. Give it purpose -- fill it with books, CDs, videos, DVDs, toys, electronics, and more." -- message at Amazon.com

"I finally understood that wired thing today ... it means wherever there is a printer on campus on the last day of school, they will all be out of toner -- everyone knows how to print everywhere." -- Jason F., re Yahoo's ranking of Worcester Polytechnic Institute as one of the Top 100 Most Wired College Campuses in the nation

Me: "[I finally have] the actual lyrics to 'Gangsta's Paradise' in [my] possession ... is that at all important?"
Sean: "No, no, I would say not. Well, now, actually, if you consider that in some situations ... hmm, no, no, nevermind."

"... for some reason, I totally blushed in embarrassment! Normally I love to be singled out and put on the spot! Am I learning humility or something? I hope not." -- Jennifer (a soprano)

"Lixia Zhang inflicted an early version of this paper on her seminar at UCLA, which generated constructive feedback." -- from McCanne, Jacobson, and Vetterli's "Receiver-driven Layered Multicast"

Jayant, indicating Will's calzone: "What's this?"
Will: "It's COW!"

"That's a fast window!" -- Bart

"So, if he doesn't have it up yet, do I just keep moving from right to left until he's ready?" -- female student in a swing dance class

"Mmmm, tastes like Thanksgiving." -- Me, re Diet Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale

Will, getting sick of Kenneth reading over his shoulder: "YOU can go to yourmom.com!"
Kenneth, not in surprise, but rather in honest stupidity: "Where?"

"By the way, whoever left the 1000 Lira note -- I owe you a pack of gum." -- Ed, regarding someone's donation to the $40,000,000 pot needed for the new CSE building

"But Friday I go to Eurodisney, and Sunday I head off to Barcelona and she has to sit home and work. HAH! I win. I always win. I'm a better person than she is. And that is precisely why I will not push her off the balcony." -- Laura, re her roommate in Paris, who sucks much butt