As promised, here are some quotes I've heard in lectures and elsewhere during my time here. This will be similar to the overheard format, so no names, with a date or location to give some context.
2016/10/06CockcroftWe leave in a world of change.
2016/10/09CockcroftOne of my favourite films is 'Some like it Hot', and it's closing line is 'Nobody's Perfect.' Apparently some people in this room think they are...
2016/10/18CockcroftThe economy grows exponentially, but it is very hard to stay exponential.
2016/11/04CockcroftWhat I wrote down would be remarkable if true.
Mill Lane(Books) these things are amazing: they're like a hundred Kindles stuck together!
ML is the go to language to make change...
This is useless in ML, well ML is useless
2016/11/05CockcroftIn my opinion, you can get through university with just integration by parts and sin cos formulae
If rabbits drank Rioja they would live forever.
2016/11/09Mill LaneI'm sure some of you would've woke up to the horror and despair this morning - Toblerone has changed the design of their chocolate bar!
2016/11/10Cockcroft...from my home boi Newton...
...dashpot, not tosspot, which is the future or America...
2016/11/12CockcroftI'm paid to be here, why are you here?
2016/11/17CockcroftIn this case...and life is good. But life is seldom good in the mathematics tripos...
0 is 0 by construction
2016/11/18Mill LaneI shit machine code (paraphrase)
2016/11/20CockcroftWe don't all have ponies but we've had pringles before so thats fine. (In reference to a saddle extrema)
Ah there's a button here that says lamp! (Projector)
2016/11/21Mill LaneExceptions are only for exceptional circumstances.
Don't use Java for Nuclear Reactors.
2016/11/24CockcroftWhere would we be without computer games?
Mathematics is all connected, even if we try to separate it into different courses, its all the same shit. (In a good way!)
2016/11/25Mill LaneBy 1960s, there were 700 decent languages. 700 good languages! ... and ML.
2016/11/28Mill LaneNo more ticks this term. (Applause!)
I feel like I just stepped into an elevator.
The irony is that it's supposed to read brainwaves, but the people that bought one probably don't have any...
2017/10/04TrinityTrinity College: everybody hates us and we don't care.
2017/10/05CLHave you tried turning it off and on again?
"This thing is cool; if you use it, you will be cool!"
I'm quitting Computer Science and moving to engineering, where they actually know how to build things!
You want your programs to go fast, so you don't actually care what they do...
The code's behaviour is undefined, which means the compiler is allowed to do WHATEVER it wants!
2017/10/06CockcroftMathematics is a human activity--god might be doing mathematics
An egg sandwich is better than nothing, nothing is better than eternal joy
Here's a proof of Fermat's Theorem: "It's true."
This is Cambridge maths, we're not meant to understand it immediately - it's not Oxford!
Why the hack will people believe it is true without proving it?
2017/10/09CLYou're at Cambridge now, it doesn't matter how many people you murdered to get here...
CockcroftIf you look at the table and ask "Does this make sense to me?" "It does. I am defining it to be true."
2017/10/13CLThat's the... "When someone stand up you shoot them" phenomenon...
2017/10/17CockcroftIf this picture doesn't help you, don't worry. It doesn't help me either.
2017/10/18CL(Lecturer): Ah, so you think my notes are older than yours?
2017/10/24CLAh, I lied. Not enough syntax!
...Neo-neo-liberalism - here we go!
2017/10/26CLUniverses, sadly, have a finite lifetime... It's coming up close now
2017/11/05TrinityYou wanted magic, don't ask questions.
2017/11/09CLHello! You all full of youthful vigour...
No! I'm making it too easy for my programmers to shoot themselves in their many feet!
2017/11/14CL... you are insufficiently caffeinated this morning!
2018/01/19CLI like thinking of SML as the Stalinist approach..
2018/01/24CLWhy. Tell me why this isn't working?
Just forget everything I said, I've confused myself again...
Oh it says right here, in my own slides - if only I read my own slides...
2018/01/25CLThey're like cats, but smarter, with little fingers...
2018/01/27CLSome of you may become bad guys, in which case I will pay you a visit!
2018/02/02CockcroftYour integration skills get worse as you go through Tripos and get away from STEP...
Mill Lane"Explode me"
2018/02/05CLWhat day of the week is it today? Is it monday? Oh okay
2018/02/07CL17 and 21 are my favourite numbers!
What's the difference between apples and oranges? There's no difference. There's only oranges. Except for the apples.
2018/02/14CLSome of you may think I'm winging it up here, but it's not true - I do prepare!
2018/02/16CockcroftProposition: The divergence theorem is true. Proof: Gauss said it was true. Therefore it is true.
2018/02/19TMSKeep your rings - we don't want your rings!
2018/02/24TrinityAsians are like flies
2018/03/02TrinityJust because you are recursive doesn't mean you're born somewhere else...
2018/03/13TrinityYou can't trust the Reals, they're too close together!
2018/04/26CLQ: which one (lecture notes) is better? A: It's just the layout!
2018/04/27CLI used to be an engineer, turned to the dark side I have
Most philosopher haven't done this course called computation theory...
This meat is very complicated.
We are walking talking meat computers
To get all this data, you need a room full of slav..PhD students!
In a few days we were watching Star Trek on a supercomputer
2018/04/30Think I'm supposed to say "trigger warning" or something like that
CLWhy does the receptionist have permissions to access the firmware of an eye scanner?
Would I sit in a self-driving car in the 1980s? Of course not - that's why we have PhD students...
2018/05/04Mill LaneWhilst what I said was strictly wrong, in the edge case of the number being definitely 0 then the statement I said could be perceived as correct. In fact both statements could be considered correct under different assemptions. However in most situations what I said was in fact strictly wrong.
2018/05/11CLSounds like a simple problem, like something you'd do on countdown...
2018/05/18CLThere's no reason to stop here right? Other than the fact I've ran out of (Turing) tape...
2018/05/22CLYou want to have a go? It's not about you. It's nothing personal..
2018/05/23CLWait. This is not Alice, this is Alice'...
2018/09/16SlackAny problem co-filtered by stomachs is regularized
2018/10/05CLyou can have a controlled transition from aliving cat to a dead cat, but one of the directions is easier than the other
2018/10/09CLI'm not responsible for these jokes
This shows you don't have to be a genius professor who has read 1000 papers to do something new. This guy just had an idea and a lot of energy. Although, he did join the nazi party a year later, so...
2018/10/11CLI'm mostly solid, the computer lab is not rendering my back
2018/10/12CLIt's easy to wreck a nice peach.
In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there's quite a large difference
LT2A non-inverted U-shaped curve is a U-shaped curve
2018/10/25CLEmacs solves all problems...
LT 1If you did this in ML, it wouldn't terminate, and you'd be sad, and global warming would be ever so slightly worse.
2018/10/27TrinityI'm normal, I'm just weird on a day to day basis.
2018/11/01CLStudying a humanities subject isn't like programming in Java,
I am a descendant of Gauss
2018/11/02CLYou can't choose your mother but you can choose your mother wavelet
2018/11/06LT2Homework: Come up with some bogus bullshit argument as to why the sum of squares is a good welfare function.
2018/11/07CLBe careful what you ask for - once you become a Gabor wavelet, you can't go back
I always carry Complex Exponentials in my pocket
2018/11/12CLBusiness studies - hopefully it will change your life for the better(no money back guaranteed)
In 1956, I was at MIT, working on AI, machine learning... it's still bullshit
2018/11/13CLThe hope is you are the same person at 18 when you turn 28, or you might have discovered sex and drugs and rock n' roll...
I hope the languages you design are type safe and normalising, thank you.
2018/11/16CLWe're going to buy some mushrooms. Not those mushrooms... MAGIC mushrooms.
2018/11/19TrinityDo you know how hard it is to prove anything?
2018/11/28CLPrice is normally not a problem - value is.
An acquisition is like a marriage - it doesn't happen quickly.
2018/12/05StanfordOne more slide, sit down. Ok you can go now
This is completely orthogonal to deep learning
2019/01/17CLSo is it true if I stick my finger into this socket I would receive 230 volts? No. It's actually 325 volts, which I can tell you is a lot more painful!
In this course you will get wet
2019/01/21CLIt is better to not do something than to take action.
2019/01/22CLThis man has been incapacitated, I invite you to do the same
2019/01/28CLI want to blame society but it's probably just my fault.
2019/02/03TrinityHow is this even true
2019/02/04TMSHow do we know it's a stupid idea? (Even) Elon Musk thinks we live in the matrix
"You should rank the things you want to do by whether they are worth working on, then divide it by the number of people already doing it"
2019/02/08CLAm I off by one, as usual? I don't think so. I might be off by two. Being off by two is fine, it just being off by one, off by one.
2019/02/12CLLet the record show I don't care much about constants
2019/02/14CLThis slide was shown to a cat, a film was made. You just watch, cats do it too!
2019/02/19LT1The whole pig! ...David Cameron not welcome.
2019/02/28CLI think he (Lecun) is the chief scientist at one of the large social media websites now... Twatter?
2019/03/01Corn ExchangeExplain in general how the actions that a user takes are related to the user's goals.
2019/03/07CLThis is definitive proof that Ross Anderson is a vampire.
2019/03/12CLSometime when I'm not concentrating I give myself full marks
2019/04/25LT1Climate change is very popular at the moment
2019/04/26CLI've been on sabbatical, my brain is in a different place.
2019/04/30CLyou said you want it we won't tell you what Brexit means...
2019/05/01CLWhy can't I get to the little Red Cross!!! Argh!!!
2019/05/02CLIf you like Haskell then Algol is your ancestor! Too many inappropriate jokes here...
2019/05/21CLHere is a computation don't mess with me
2019/05/29CLDeno is your main thing but you do Hoare on the side.
2019/10/10TrinityMusic you can twerk to is not music
2019/10/14CLOk, none of this is working
2019/10/15CL LT2Near infinity: super high.
LT2, WGBIn the beginning of computer science, there were lots of strings around.
2019/10/22GnDsIf you love what you do, it's not stress
2019/10/23LTAWeren't you here last year?
Pen, go away
People pay money to sit on a Ferris wheel when it's all just a tautology
2019/10/24LTAAlice & Bob share a cup
So it's a little more subtle than star trek.
2019/10/30LTAMatrices are all about bureaucracy.
Onlinerigor is a relative notion
2019/11/06CLI may be repetitive, but I'm not strictly periodic.
LTAGreen is for good, white is for bad
2019/11/12LTAThe tensor product is usually the answer to everything. Unfortunately it is not the answer to this question.
2019/11/19LTAI'm drowning in my own notation here
I've done enough flipping on these 2 flipping slides
2019/11/28LTAEverything is a spider - there's nothing left anymore
2020/01/16CLThe difference between CompScis and Physicist is that CompScis know that you can't fit a cat in a quantum computer
LT2Deep learning is a bit like Java Programming. There are millions of people doing it and most of them are rubbish.
2020/01/22LTAI'm sorry sounds like you're not satisfied with my very eloquent answer
Bill Gates is actually a very generous philanthropist - sorry Bill! *looks up*
2020/01/29LTAI defy anyone to find a better name for a prison than wormwood scrubs.
2020/01/31RHBWhat is your category number? My research is on (inf, inf) categories
2020/02/04LT2I'll do my best because you're my children and I love you
LTAI am James Dean playing this game --- Siri: "my apologies"
I think we will finish here today --- Siri: "I don't know how to respond to that"
2020/02/05LTASo the final solution is in the middle
2020/02/10LabAnd now I *click*, and now I've applied the third reidermeister move --- crazy right?
LT2Don't duel if you are good at mathematics. And if you do, write the mathematics down the night before.
2020/02/11LTAWait did I make a joke? No? Ok
2020/02/18StatSometimes you need to skip
2020/02/19LTAIt doesn't matter how computationally hard it is, just do it
There's no mechanism, its just fun!