itsthomson

January 18, 1979

John Yau

So often artists have painted a woman 
washing, or combing her hair. 
And nearby is a mirror. 
And there you were, crouched in the tub. 
It was cold in the apartment.
It is always cold in winter. 

itsthomson

For example, a turkey using Bayesian inference would have a very 
specific posterior distribution of the kindness of a farmer who 
feeds it every day for 1000 days only to be surprised by a 
Thanksgiving event that was so many standard deviations away 
from the turkey’s mean belief that he never would have saw it 
coming.

itsthomson

when faced with two choices, simply toss a coin.
it works not because it settles the question for you.
but because in that brief moment when the coin is in the air,
you suddenly know what you are hoping for.

itsthomson

"Oxford is more ritualistic, is more conservative ... Cambridge 
is more scientific, more liberal ... in terms of our religion, 
[Oxford] is High Church [i.e. Catholic] ... Cambridge is Low 
Church, is Protestant. It's probably partly to do with the 
geography. [Cambridge and the East of England] is not very 
rich ... There are not big landlords in the same way as in 
central England, around Oxford ... [Cambridge] supported [the 
republican] Oliver Cromwell, [whereas Oxford] supported the 
king in the Civil War ... so in a way [Cambridge] is liberal 
... and Oxford is a bit more aristocratic ... [Cambridge 

itsthomson

Snippets from a letter written to me today, 
from me on May 21, 2007 (using futureme.org)

==

You're still not considering shaving your head permanently, are you?

--

Hopefully, you're chugging along nicely through your PhD. So Cambridge? 

itsthomson

from Le Monde, 26/04/10
--

Le roi Albert II a accepté, lundi 26 avril, en début de soirée, la démission du premier ministre, 
Yves Leterme. Les Belges se rendront donc en principe aux urnes au début du mois de juin. Il ne 
semble plus y avoir d'autre issue à la crise commencée jeudi dernier, moment où M. Leterme a 
annoncé au roi la démission de son équipe. Le chef de l'Etat avait tenu sa décision en suspens, 
dans l'espoir d'un éventuel retour au calme au sein de la coalition.

Comme M. Leterme, il avait toutefois dû constater un profond désaccord entre les trois partis 

itsthomson

-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Von: Safety Advisor <safetyadvisor@cucbc.org>
An: captains@lists.cucbc.org
Betreff: [CUCBC Captains] Swan and sewage leak
Datum: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:54:06 +0100



There have been a number of recent attacks from the swan know as Mr Asbo
or Stalin at the bottom of the Reach and into Plough Reach. There are

itsthomson

---------------------------
states i've been to (11/50)
---------------------------

california
arizona
texas
arkansas
tennessee 
iowa

itsthomson

Dear Thomson,

How are you doing? I just wanted to let you know that I got into UC Riverside 
and I owe it all to you man. I am still waiting on UC Irvine and UC Merced. 
I wasn't planning on applying to any UC's at all because of my GPA and SAT 
scores but I'm glad you forced me to. I will be the first one in my family 
to go to college and hopefully the first one to graduate. Thanks again for 
all the help you've given me on the personal statement and for giving me all 
the cool books for me to read this year.

itsthomson

If fidelity to freedom of democracy is the code of our civic 
religion, then surely the code of our humanity is faithful 
service to that unwritten commandment that says we shall give 
our children better than we ourselves received.