Writing Haskell

From a comment by Johnathan Feinberg on a post at the Vetta Project blog:

... Writing Haskell, for example, involves an hour of meditation followed by the emission of a fold expression.

"You Never get a Cup of Bovril in an Ian Curtis Lyric"

From a BBC radio program I overhead this afternoon: Peter Hook, of Joy Division, talking on the about Love Will Tear Us Apart:

... You'd have to say that it is full of poetic technique.  What it isn't full of is detail, there's just these wild abstractions, very much a young man's poetry.  You never get a cup of bovril in an Ian Curtis lyric.  ...

Relativity for Dogs

Chad Orzel has been discussing physics with his dog again:

I look in the rear-view mirror. She's standing on the seat, wagging her tail and looking pleased with herself.
"Oh, God," I say. "Don't tell me you ran out of quantum physics books, and have started reading about relativity."

Click through for the full story.

Previous discussions are here and here. 

Book-Sniffing Breaks

From a comment by 'Frank' at the Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science blog:

As for libraries, ever heard of E-books? I foresee the rows of books being used for amusing random walks over information space.
I say put all the books on-line for research, and display only a random sample of the physical collection for book-sniffing breaks. The latter should change monthly and be accompanied by a free hot latte.

Software Construction versus Building Construction

From a comment by Reginald Braithwaite:

Analogies to the construction of physical buildings do not work for software.
If you absolutely must go in this false direction, remember that the entity responsible for laying bricks is not a programmer, it is a compiler.