Quotable

From an interview of computer scientist Leslie Lamport.

Question: You have always been a member of an industrial research lab. What is the difference between an industrial research lab and a university department?

Leslie Lamport: Jean Renoir wrote in his autobiography that someone once asked his father, the painter Auguste, why he painted from nature. Renoir père answered that if he were to try painting a tree in the studio, he would be able to draw four or five different kinds of leaves, and the rest would all look like them. But nature creates millions [his count] of different kinds of trees. I like working in industry for the same reason Renoir liked to paint from nature.

via Artblog.