Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent of a prostate operation. -- Malcolm Muggeridge | |
Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of filename completion. (Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands: file completion vs. the Mac Finder.) | |
Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. -- Elizabeth Zwicky | |
BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'. | |
"Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?" -- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 | |
"There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction." -- John Cage, composer | |
One-Shot Case Study, n.: The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes green. | |
Q: What's yellow, and equivalent to the Axiom of Choice? A: Zorn's Lemon. | |
A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating resource centers along the roads. -- The Underground Grammarian | |
At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow | |
Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction. This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction techniques are very popular, even the military used them. SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction. We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just about _n. QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?") | |
Freaks In Linux Houses Shouldn't Throw FUD By Mr. Stu Poor, technology pundit for the Arkansas "Roadkill Roundup" newspaper. [Editor's Note: He's the local equivalent of Jesse Berst]. As you all know, February 17th was the happy day that Microsoft officially released Windows 2000. I went down to the local Paperclips computer store and asked if they had any copies in stock. One of the pimply-faced Linux longhairs explained that Paperclips didn't carry Win2K because it is not intended for consumers. What FUD! I can't believe the gall of those Linux Communists to spread such FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about Windows 2000, which is _the_ best, most stable operating system ever produced in the history of mankind! | |
You know, if you really do not understand the implications of running everything with permissions equivalent to root - get the hell out of any UNIX-related programming until you learn. - Al Viro explaining the merits of doing everything as root | |
Linus, Alan - Please apply the following self-explanatory patch. + /* LynuxWorks are politely reminded that removing copyright + notices is an offence under the Copyright Design and + Patents Act 1988, and under equivalent non-UK law in + accordance with the Berne Convention. */ + printk("Portions (C) 2000, 2001 Red Hat, Inc.\n"); - David Woodhouse on linux-kernel | |
<Deek> nopcode: No, it isn't. Win32 lacks the equivalent of fork(). <Knghtbrd> Deek: windoze is not meant for people who should have access to sharp objects, hence no fork() <Knghtbrd> instead, you must rely on spoon() | |
* Equivalent code is available from RSA Data Security, Inc. * This code has been tested against that, and is equivalent, * except that you don't need to include two pages of legalese * with every copy. -- public domain MD5 source | |
The sourceforge approach is to place all of the projects in some bland "open source surburbia", where all of the houses are alike, with only the colors and minor style variations (which building plan was used for which particular house) are allowed by the restrictive covenants and local zoning laws. Sourceforege is the open source equivalent of the subdivision in the movie "Edward Scissorhands". -- Terry Lambert | |
Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent I can find for "landskap"). These laws were written down sometime in the 13th century, but date back even down into Viking times. The oldest one is the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some Christian stuff. In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc. Here is an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of "lekare". "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it. If an artist is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring it out on the hillside. Then they shall shave off all hair from the heifer's tail, and grease the tail. Then the artist shall be given newly greased shoes. Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail, and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip. If he can hold her, he shall have the animal. If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what he received, shame and wounds." | |
Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of filename completion. -- Discussion on file completion vs. the Mac Finder | |
Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate. Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and great effort pushing boulders into a single word. It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow. Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass both Parliament and Party. It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other planets, this may be the first message received from us. -- The Realist, November, 1964. | |
It is well known that *things* from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" |