[Beowulf] Pah!

[Robert G. Brown]

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Jim Lux wrote:

> But seriously, in response to an earlier query...

Seriously.  Right...:-)

> All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, 
> public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, 
> what have the Romans ever done for us?

My favorite Reagan near-quote (can't google up the original text, which
doubtless his supporters wished quietly forgotten, along with his
assertion that Evolution was "only a theory" and maybe wrong):

  "publicly funded research never came up with anything''.

But I digress, ever more off topic.  Sorry.

> But of all things, remember that it's not meant to be taken literally, it's a 
> general endorsement of all manufacturers of dairy products.
>
> And, that the verb takes the imperative, and it's "motion towards" so the 
> noun takes the locative, so it's Romani ite domum.
>
> Or (my new favorite quote, which I hope to learn in the original language), 
> as the namesake of this list said, upon discovering that some fool had stolen 
> a piece of treasure from a dragon's horde, thereby annoying the dragon and 
> disrupting 50 years of peace, "There's only one thing to do, bring me my 
> sword"  {sorry, my paraphrase isn't as good as Seamus Heaney's translation, 
> but you get the idea}

Sancho!  My lance!

But >>are<< pigeons happy?  If not, are they sad?  Do pigeons have
Buddha nature?  We've now spent an entire dinner hour at my table
discussing the issue.  Any thoughts?

    rgb

(P.S. -- I was just kidding about the pigeons... too off topic.  Instead
let's try "can pigeons solve NP-complete problems in P time in their
heads?".  That's more on-topic...:-)

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu