QOTD

“For a long time, science had not been in the forefront. It was faith or science, take your pick. Now we’re saying that science is the answer to our prayers.”

–Rep. Nancy Pelosi

QOTD

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

– John Rogers @ Kung Fu Monkey

QOTD

The thing about Texas is it’s so easy to forget you’re in Texas because they’re so bad about reminding you every damn where you go.

– lonelysandwich

QOTD

We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

– Barack Obama

Here’s hoping that we will.

QOTD

“These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you’re making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice.”
-Marilynne Robinson

(From a friend’s facebook profile)

QOTD

There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvellous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator in his own account.

–H.L. Mencken

Mencken would no doubt be delighted that we’re getting close.

Finally, a president who respects science

It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.

- President-elect Barack Obama in his weekly address

It’s about time we heard that from Washington DC, and it’s great to see that he’s backing it up by appointing several well known and respected scientists to key positions. From my perspective, it’s especially exciting to have Eric Lander on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He’s one of the biggest names in genomics and should do a great job of informing this White House about the power and potential of personalized medicine.

Update: How did I miss Harold Varmus? He’s a Nobel-laureate cancer researcher. As someone working on cancer genomics, this lineup makes me very happy.

QOTD

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”
–Carl Sagan

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

– Charles Darwin

“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels — men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Show Me

“I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”

– Willard Duncan Vandiver

SOS, Missouri – State Archives Missouri History FAQ.

“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

Brian W. Kernighan

13 Geek-y Programmer Quotables.

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

– Langston Hughes

QOTD

“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. ”
Robert Heinlein

QOTD

Sometimes people say I shouldn’t mind being searched if I have nothing to hide. I immediately accuse them of having a swastika tattooed on their genitalia — if they have nothing to hide, then surely they shouldn’t mind dropping their pants to prove me wrong.

source

QOTD

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

–J.R.R. Tolkien

QOTD

“The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done”

-George Carlin

“A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.”

-Arthur C. Clarke

QOTD

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

–Dwight D. Eisenhower

QOTD

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

– George Bernard Shaw