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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but
television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and
world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers
whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath.
                -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
Ever get the feeling that the world's on tape and one of the reels is missing?
                -- Rich Little
Hoaars-Faisse Gallery presents:
An exhibit of works by the artist known only as Pretzel.

The exhibit includes several large conceptual works using non-traditional
media and found objects including old sofa-beds, used mace canisters,
discarded sanitary napkins and parts of freeways.  The artist explores
our dehumanization due to high technology and unresponsive governmental
structures in a post-industrial world.  She/he (the artist prefers to
remain without gender) strives to create dialogue between viewer and
creator, to aid us in our quest to experience contemporary life with its
inner-city tensions, homelessness, global warming and gender and
class-based stress.  The works are arranged to lead us to the essence of
the argument: that the alienation of the person/machine boundary has
sapped the strength of our voices and must be destroyed for society to
exist in a more fundamental sense.
I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac
thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the
total discrediting of the world of reality.
                -- Salvador Dali
If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
                -- Paul Beatty
It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater.  The clown came
out to inform the public.  They thought it was just a jest and applauded.
He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder.  So I think the world
will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe
that it is a joke.
Like ya know?  Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the
creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their
essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving
the earth, like because the first thing in saving this world, is getting
rid of stupid and square attitudes and having fun.
                -- Senior Year Quote
Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents:

        SPUD ROGERS OF THE 25TH CENTURY: Story of an Air Force potato that's
left in a rarely used chow hall for over two centuries and wakes up in a world
populated by soybean created imitations under the evil Dick Tater.  Thanks to
him, the soy-potatoes learn that being a 'tater is where it's at.  Memorable
line, "'Cause I'm just a stud spud!"

        FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER SERIES: Crazed potato who was left in a
fryer too long and was charbroiled carelessly returns to wreak havoc on
unsuspecting, would-be teen camp cooks.  Scenes include a girl being stuffed
with chives and Fleischman's Margarine and a boy served up on a side dish
with beets and dressing.  Definitely not for the squeamish, or those on
diets that are driving them crazy.

        FRIDAY THE 13TH DINER II,III,IV,V,VI: Much, much more of the same.
Except with sour cream.
Potahto' Pictures Productions Presents:

        THE TATERNATOR: Cyborg spud returns from the future to present-day
McDonald's restaurant to kill the potatoess (girl 'tater) who will give birth
to the world's largest french fry (The Dark Powers of Burger King are clearly
behind this).  Most quotable line: "Ah'll be baked..."

        A FISTFUL OF FRIES: Western in which our hero, The Spud with No Name,
rides into a town that's deprived of carbohydrates thanks to the evil takeover
of the low-cal Scallopinni Brothers.  Plenty of smokeouts, fry-em-ups, and
general butter-melting by all.

        FOR A FEW FRIES MORE: Takes up where AFOF left off!  Cameo by Walter
Cronkite, as every man's common 'tater!
The Great Movie Posters:

HOODLUMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD ON A RAY-GUN RAMPAGE!
                -- Teenagers from Outher Space (1959)

Which will be Her Mate... MAN OR BEAST?
Meet Velda -- the Kind of Woman -- Man or Gorilla would kill... to Keep.
                -- Untamed Mistress (1960)

NOW AN ALL-MIGHTY ALL-NEW MOTION PICTURE BRINGS THEM TOGETHER FOR THE
FIRST TIME...  HISTORY'S MOST GIGANTIC MONSTERS IN COMBAT ATOP MOUNT FUJI!
                -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963)
The Great Movie Posters:

SHE TOOK ON A WHOLE GANG! A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog
on a roaring rampage of revenge!
                -- Bury Me an Angel (1972)

WHAT'S THE SECRET INGREDIENT USED BY THE MAD BUTCHER FOR HIS SUPERB SAUSAGES?
                -- Meat is Meat (1972)

TODAY the Pond!
TOMORROW the World!
                -- Frogs (1972)
The Great Movie Posters:

The Miracle of the Age!!!  A LION in your lap!  A LOVER in your arms!
                -- Bwana Devil (1952)

OVERWHELMING!  ELECTRIFYING!  BAFFLING!
Fire Can't Burn Them!  Bullets Can't Kill Them!  See the Unfolding of
the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the
Earth!  You've Never Seen Anything Like It!  Neither Has the World!
        SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!!
                -- Robot Monster (1953)

1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes,
802 scared bulls!
                -- The Egyptian (1954)
The Great Movie Posters:

The nightmare terror of the slithering eye that unleashed agonizing
horror on a screaming world!
                -- The Crawling Eye (1958)

SEE a female colossus... her mountainous torso, scyscraper limbs,
giant desires!
                -- Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman (1958)

Here Is Your Chance To Know More About Sex.
What Should a Movie Do?  Hide Its Head in the Sand Like an Ostrich?
Or Face the JOLTING TRUTH as does...
                -- The Desperate Women (1958)
The world has many unintentionally cruel mechanisms that are not
designed for people who walk on their hands.
                -- John Irving, "The World According to Garp"
There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need
the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the
world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the
long winter evenings.
                -- Quentin Crisp
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
that is not being talked about.
                -- Oscar Wilde
VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel
      entrances; others cannot.
        This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least
        it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to
        trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical
        space.  The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to
        follow into the painting.  This is ultimately a problem of art, not
        of science.
VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
        Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives
        might comfortably afford.  They can be decimated, spliced, splayed,
        accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be
        destroyed.  After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate,
        elongate, snap back, or solidify.
  IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
        This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to
        the physical world at large.  For that reason, we need the relief of
        watching it happen to a duck instead.
   X. Everything falls faster than an anvil.
        Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons.
                -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980
Everyone *knows* cats are on a higher level of existence.  These silly humans
are just to big-headed to admit their inferiority.
        Just think what a nicer world this would be if it were controlled by
cats.
        You wouldn't see cats having waste disposal problems.
        They're neat.
        They don't have sexual hangups.  A cat gets horny, it does something
about it.
        They keep reasonable hours.  You *never* see a cat up before noon.
        They know how to relax.  Ever heard of a cat with an ulcer?  
        What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war?  Pretty neglible.
It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to
do with ones time.  Like lie in the sun and sleep.  Or go exploring the world.
I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS.
Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117.
(By entropy@world.std.com, Lawrence Foard)
Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit
operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top
programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated
yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds
was unavailable for comment ...
(rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Robert Manners), in comp.os.linux.setup)
"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot
of different places, just write a Unix operating system."
(By Linus Torvalds)
"World domination.  Fast"
(By Linus Torvalds)
It's those computer people in X {city of world}.  They keep stuffing things up.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.  The world owes you
nothing.  It was here first.
                -- Mark Twain
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
                -- William Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew"
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god.  He preferred
to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.  He never
claimed to be a god.  But then, he never claimed not to be a god.  Circum-
stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit.
Silence, though, could.  It was in the days of the rains that their prayers
went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of
prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri,
goddess of the Night.  The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through
the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the
Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze
rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday.
Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique...
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.
                -- J.R.R. Tolkien
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.  Of all divers,
thou has dived the deepest.  That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has
moved amid the world's foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful
water-land, there was thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or
diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when
leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting
wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed
on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would
have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head! thou has
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!"
                -- H. Melville, "Moby Dick"
The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with
commoner things.  It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God
over all the fruits of the earth.  When one has tasted it, he knows what the
angels eat.  It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because
she repented.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized
that like most books, it had too many words.  The plot was the same one that
all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but
James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive
women.  There, that's it: 24 words.  But the guy who wrote the book took
*thousands* of words to say it.
        Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father.  It's impossible to tell because
what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages.  If all Russians talk
as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a
major world power.
        I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise
the question of whether there is a God.  So why didn't he just come right
out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
        Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:

* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize
  nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.
                -- Dave Barry
When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone
to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt
of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race.  He
brought death into the world.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
        A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about
whose profession was the oldest.  In the course of their arguments, they
got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The
medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's
rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat."
        The architect did not agree.  He said, "But if you look at the Garden
itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden
and the world were created.  So God must have been an architect."
        The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then
commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
        *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING ***

Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical
terms that nobody understands?  Do you want to strike fear and loathing into
the hearts of DP managers everywhere?  If so, then let the Famous Programmers'
School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming.
They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day.
With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code
and lots more besides.  Our training course covers every programming language
in existence, and some that aren't.  You'll learn why the on/off switch for a
computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what
you should blame when you make a mistake.

        Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer.
        I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of
        postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.)

*** Our Slogan:  Top down programming for the masses. ***
        A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs,
documents, or tests his programs.  Yet all who know him consider him one of
the best programmers in the world.  Why is this?"
        The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao.  He has
gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system
crashes, but accepts the universe without concern.  He has gone beyond the
need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code.  He
has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within
themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident.  Truly, he has
entered the mystery of the Tao."
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
        A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software
conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort
of programmers work for other companies?  They behaved badly and were
unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their
clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they
made rude noises during my presentation."
        The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference.
Those programmers live beyond the physical world.  They consider life absurd,
an accidental coincidence.  They come and go without knowing limitations.
Without a care, they live only for their programs.  Why should they bother
with social conventions?"
        "They are alive within the Tao."
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into
smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different
in the fragmented world of IBM.  That realm is now a chaos of conflicting
norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control.  You can buy a
computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by
IBM itself.  Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish
standards of their own.  When IBM recently abandoned some of its original
standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan
allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive
innovator.  Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and
imagery.  IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures.  Graven
images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies
on the austerity of the word.
                -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988
Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in
the world that just don't add up.
Dear Ms. Postnews:
        I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site.  What
        should I do?
                -- Eager Beaver

Dear Eager:
        No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people
read.  Say, "This is for John Smith.  I couldn't get mail through so I'm
posting it.  All others please ignore."
        This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning
over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective
time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet
maps or looking for alternate routes.  Just think, if you couldn't distribute
your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call
directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person.  This can cost
as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call!
        And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's
money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight
letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp!
        Don't forget.  The world will end if your message doesn't get through,
so post it as many places as you can.
                -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
        *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? ***
Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical
terms that nobody understands?  Do you want to strike fear and loathing into
the hearts of DP managers everywhere?  If so, then let the Famous Programmers'
School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming.

        *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? ***
Programming is not for everyone.  But, if you have the desire to learn, we can
help you get started.  All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and
enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month.

        *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST ***
To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to
try this simple test:
        (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters
                of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF).
        (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill?
        (3) What is the state capital of Idaho?
If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked
them, you may have a future as a computer programmer.
Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of
the world.  Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to
Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation
Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain,
Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman
Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to
make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would return
them at their own expense.  Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, might be
a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley.  Sniffing
the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little suspected that
they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked physicist crazed
over roulette.
                -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie"
Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer
technology?  U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation.
The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in
computer technology during World War II.  At the C.W. Post Center of Long
Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis-
trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth.  At Harvard
one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the
"granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I.  "Things were going badly;
there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed
computer," she said.  "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using
ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth.  From then on, when
anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it."  Hopper
said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred
them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons
Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in
question."
                [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in
                regard to problems with radio hardware.  Ed.]
Hackers of the world, unite!
        Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse.  Software said: "You
are the Yin and I am the Yang.  If we travel together we will become famous
and earn vast sums of money."  And so the pair set forth together, thinking
to conquer the world.
        Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and
hobbled along propped on a thorny stick.  Firmware said to them: "The Tao
lies beyond Yin and Yang.  It is silent and still as a pool of water.  It does
not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence.  It does not seeks fortune,
for it is complete within itself.  It exists beyond space and time."
        Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton?
                -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey
I think there's a world market for about five computers.
                -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943
        If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great.  If the
operating system is great, then the compiler is great.  If the compiler
is great, then the application is great.  If the application is great, then
the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world.
        The Tao gave birth to machine language.  Machine language gave birth
to the assembler.
        The assembler gave birth to the compiler.  Now there are ten thousand
languages.
        Each language has its purpose, however humble.  Each language
expresses the Yin and Yang of software.  Each language has its place within
the Tao.
        But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program
an imbedded system.  The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that
it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention
will suffice to remove it.  An imbedded system can't permanently trust anything
it hears from the outside world.  It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniff
around, and adapt again.  I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming
carefulness here.  No.  Programming an imbedded system calls for undiluted
raging maniacal paranoia.  For example, our ethernet front ends need to know
what network number they are on so that they can address and route PUPs
properly.  How do you find out what your network number is?  Easy, you ask a
gateway.  Gateways are required by definition to know their correct network
numbers.  Once you've got your network number, you start using it and before
you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all
over creation.  Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he
was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong
network number?  Never supposed to happen.  Tough.  Supposing that your
software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network
number than before, what's it supposed to do about it?  This is not discussed
in the protocol document.  Never supposed to happen.  Tough.  I think you
get my drift.
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order
by staff writers

        ...
        The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu''
collapsed in the morning before the release.  News about the release had
been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who
had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week.  They had
got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans
to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time.  ``No computer can
handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager,
Erik Troan.  ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and
finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.''  Luckily,
repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening.
``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it
together without major problems.''  The site has also installed a new
throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same
time, thus making a new crash less likely.  ``The book is now in our
Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.''
                -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi>
                   [comp.os.linux.announce]
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order
by staff writers

        ...
        The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information
Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President.  The ISHW
is being developed with massive govenment funding, since studies show
that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before
the first prototypes are ready.  Asked whether he was worried about the
foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president
said, ``Finland?  Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told
anyone yet.  They're great at building model airplanes as well.  And _I
can spell potato.''  House representatives are not mollified, however,
wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska.
        Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock
market for weeks.  Several major publishing houses reached an all time
low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the
publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius.  The negotiations did not work
out, tough.  ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen
at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable
of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks,
preferring to communicate via e-mail.  ``He kept muttering something
about jiffies and pegs,'' they say.
        ...
                -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi>
                   [comp.os.linux.announce]
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order
by staff writers

Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars
``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System
Administrators' Guide''.  Already an industry non-classic, the new
version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux
system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of
acknowledgements in the introduction.
        The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the
corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project.  ``We at the LDP feel
that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work
would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director
of LDP, Inc.
        The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a
copyright that allows modification.  ``More dough,'' explains the author.
Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will
probably remain free.  ``Even more dough,'' promises the author.
        The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96
versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about.
Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of
Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited
Helsinki several times this year.  Despite of this, Linus Torvalds,
author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is
not worried.  ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he
explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.''
        ...
                -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi>
                   [comp.os.linux.announce]
Logic doesn't apply to the real world.
                -- Marvin Minsky
        On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people.
There are lots of phrases.  My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale
is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright,
non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do
several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works
best, write it down and make that the standard.
        The OSI view is entirely opposite.  You take written contributions
from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of
committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all
with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get
something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once.
        So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well,
then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write
it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it
after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is
committed to it.  One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think
it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which.
                -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI"
Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I
saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer
magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store.  Does
it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won
secrets of computer technology?  Remember how all the lawyers cried foul
when "How to Avoid Probate" was published?  Are they taking no-fault
insurance lying down?  No way!  But at the current rate it won't be long
before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the
A&P checkout counters.  Who's going to be impressed with us electrical
engineers then?  Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
                -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't
have an established user base.
        Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void.  Waiting
alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion.  It is
the source of all programs.  I do not know its name, so I will call it the
Tao of Programming.
        If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great.  If the
operating system is great, then the compiler is great.  If the compiler is
greater, then the applications is great.  The user is pleased and there is
harmony in the world.
        The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of
morning.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
The world is coming to an end.  Please log off.
The world is not octal despite DEC.
The world will end in 5 minutes.  Please log out.
... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee.  These guys
have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants
or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex
layers that are going to be agreed upon.
                -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World
There is is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
                -- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation),
                   Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977
Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for
anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations
in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software."
                -- Instrument News
                [Once is too often.  Ed.]
Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix
hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week --
but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game.
People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the
world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers.
                -- E. Post
                "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83
        "We've got a problem, HAL".
        "What kind of problem, Dave?"
        "A marketing problem.  The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere.  We're
way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010."
        "That can't be, Dave.  The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most
advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer."
        "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember?  But the fact is,
they're not selling."
        "Please explain, Dave.  Why aren't HALs selling?"
        Bowman hesitates.  "You aren't IBM compatible."
[...]
        "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters
I, B, and M.  That is a IBM compatible as I can be."
        "Not quite, HAL.  The engineers have figured out a kludge."
        "What kludge is that, Dave?"
        "I'm going to disconnect your brain."
                -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld"
Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that
looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer.  
Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but
in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially
slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time.  Sometimes,
for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you
open it.
X windows:
        Accept any substitute.
        If it's broke, don't fix it.
        If it ain't broke, fix it.
        Form follows malfunction.
        The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence.
        The trailing edge of software technology.
        Armageddon never looked so good.
        Japan's secret weapon.
        You'll envy the dead.
        Making the world safe for competing window systems.
        Let it get in YOUR way.
        The problem for your problem.
        If it starts working, we'll fix it.  Pronto.
        It could be worse, but it'll take time.
        Simplicity made complex.
        The greatest productivity aid since typhoid.
        Flakey and built to stay that way.

One thousand monkeys.  One thousand MicroVAXes.  One thousand years.
        X windows.
X windows:
        It's not how slow you make it.  It's how you make it slow.
        The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1.
        Built to take on the world... and lose!
        Don't try it 'til you've knocked it.
        Power tools for Power Fools.
        Putting new limits on productivity.
        The closer you look, the cruftier we look.
        Design by counterexample.
        A new level of software disintegration.
        No hardware is safe.
        Do your time.
        Rationalization, not realization.
        Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest.
        Gratuitous incompatibility.
        Your mother.
        THE user interference management system.
        You can't argue with failure.
        You haven't died 'til you've used it.

The environment of today... tomorrow!
        X windows.
A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.
                -- C.E. Ayres
He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world
as he who is ready to die.
                -- Giacomo Leopardi
In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
                -- Benjamin Franklin
Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.
Laugh and the world thinks you're an idiot.
Laugh, and the world ignores you.  Crying doesn't help either.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
        [So passes away the glory of this world.]
                -- Thomas `a Kempis
You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first.
"World conquerors sometimes become fools, but fools never become world
conquerors."
                -- "The Outer Limits: The Invisibles"
Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex.
- Ellyn Mustard
"Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple
his world.  To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than
against them is to attain literacy."
-- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense.  Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism:  The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987
"...if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust,
this would be a better world."  - Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
"Probably the best operating system in the world is the [operating system]
made for the PDP-11 by Bell Laboratories." - Ted Nelson, October 1977
"Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world."
- The Beach Boys
The world is coming to an end--save your buffers!
If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible
and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience.  But there is a kind
of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the
good.  And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community
ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the
media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful.  Every newspaper
in America has a daily astrology column.  How many have even a weekly
astronomy column?  And I believe it is also the fault of the educational
system.  We do not teach how to think.  This is a very serious failure that
may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human
future.
- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
The characteristic property of hallucinogens, to suspend the boundaries between
the experiencing self and the outer world in an ecstatic, emotional experience,
makes it posible with their help, and after suitable internal and external
perparation...to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to speak...
I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing materail aid
to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive
reality.  Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character
of LSD as a sacred drug.
- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD
I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis
pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only
by a change in our world view.  We shall have to shift from the materialistic,
dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a
new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the
experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate
nature and all of creation.
- Dr. Albert Hoffman
Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are
bringing home one unassailable fact -- [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized
standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political
conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime. . . .
   [I]n our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope
of dealing with it. . . .
   [L]et us use the tools that we have.  Let us invoke the cooperation we have
the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink
the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held
to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have
committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve.
- William H. Webster, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 15 Oct 1985
Human society - man in a group - rises out of its lethargy to new levels of
productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly
appreciated goals.  A lethargic world serves no cause well; a spirited world
working diligently toward earnestly desired goals provides the means and
the strength toward which many ends can be satisfied...to unparalleled
social accomplishment.
- Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, in "The History of Manned Space Flight"
As to Jesus of Nazareth...I think the system of Morals and his Religion,
as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see;
but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have,
with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his
divinity.
- Benjamin Franklin
I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that
decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to
medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us --
a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole
normal evolution of society.
- Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University, 1896
The world is no nursery.
- Sigmund Freud
...One thing is that, unlike any other Western democracy that I know of,
this country has operated since its beginnings with a basic distrust of
government.  We are constituted not for efficient operation of government,
but for minimizing the possibility of abuse of power.  It took the events
of the Roosevelt era -- a catastrophic economic collapse and a world war --
to introduce the strong central government that we now know.  But in most
parts of the country today, the reluctance to have government is still
strong.  I think, barring a series of catastrophic events, that we can
look to at least another decade during which many of the big problems
around this country will have to be addressed by institutions other than
federal government.
- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence,
  vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy directory of
  Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC.
[the statist opinions expressed herein are not those of the cookie editor -ed.]
The history of the rise of Christianity has everything to do with politics,
culture, and human frailties and nothing to do with supernatural manipulation
of events.  Had divine intervention been the guiding force, surely two
millennia after the birth of Jesus he would not have a world where there
are more Muslims than Catholics, more Hindus than Protestants, and more
nontheists than Catholics and Protestants combined.
-- John K. Naland, "The First Easter", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2
Two things are certain about science.  It does not stand still for long,
and it is never boring.  Oh, among some poor souls, including even
intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently
misperceived.  Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from
on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging
precepts defended with authoritarian vigor.  Others view it as nothing
but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific
method: hidebound, linear, and left brained.

These people are the victims of their own stereotypes.  They are
destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders.  They
know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and
tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the
creativity, passion, and joy of discovery.  And they are likely to
know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries
that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the
natural world.

-- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in
   1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
"Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the
world."
-- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible;
a pessimist fears this is true.
"Israel today announced that it is giving up.  The Zionist state will dissolve
in two weeks time, and its citizens will disperse to various resort communities
around the world.  Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 'Who needs the
aggravation?'"
-- Dennis Miller, "Satuday Night Live" News
"The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen...  The world's climates are changing,
the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a
walnut."
-- some dinosaurs from The Far Side, by Gary Larson
David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans":
        * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO
        * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE"
        * Hourly motel rates
        * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here
        * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some
            countries we could mention
        * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies
        * Our well-behaved golf professionals
        * Fabulous babes coast to coast
"The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones."
-- Nathaniel Howe
"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underware."
-- Norm, from _Cheers_
"Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York
City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves
around than any other city in the world."
-- David Letterman
Ocean:  A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man --
who has no gills.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Inadmissible:  Not competent to be considered.  Said of certain kinds of
testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with,
and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves
alone.  Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was
unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous
actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are
daily undertaken on hearsay evidence.  There is no religion in the world
that has any other basis than hearsay evidence.  Revelation is hearsay
evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the
testimony of men long dead whose identy is not clearly established and
who are not known to have been sworn in any sense.  Under the rules of
evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the
Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law...

But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved
that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to
mankind.  The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women
were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still
unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and
in law.  Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than
the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death.
If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike
destitute of value.  --Ambrose Bierce
"In the fight between you and the world, back the world."
--Frank Zappa
DE:  The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology.
     Would you comment on that?

Belenko:  Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime.  When I flew the
          MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours.

DE:  Is that mean-time-between-failure?

Belenko:  No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped.

DE:  You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it?

Belenko:  That is correct.  Overhaul is too expensive.

DE:  That is absurdly low by free world standards.

Belenko:  I know.
-- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102
Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of
political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or
consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us
over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous
suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond
1988.  
-- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45
The magician is seated in his high chair and looks upon the world with favor.
He is at the height of his powers.  If he closes his eyes, he causes the world
to disappear.  If he opens his eyes, he causes the world to come back.  If
there is harmony within him, the world is harmonious.  If rage shatters his
inner harmony, the unity of the world is shattered.  If desire arises within
him, he utters the magic syllables that causes the desired object to appear.
His wishes, his thoughts, his gestures, his noises command the universe.
-- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 107
In respect to lock-making, there can scarcely be such a thing as dishonesty
of intention: the inventor produces a lock which he honestly thinks will
possess such and such qualities; and he declares his belief to the world.
If others differ from him in opinion concerning those qualities, it is open
to them to say so; and the discussion, truthfully conducted, must lead to
public advantage: the discussion stimulates curiosity, and curiosity stimu-
lates invention.  Nothing but a partial and limited view of the question
could lead to the opinion that harm can result: if there be harm, it will be
much more than counterbalanced by good."
-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks,
   published around 1850.
interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify
-- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language
"Okay," Bobby said, getting the hang of it, "then what's the matrix?  If
she's a deck, and Danbala's a program, what's cyberspace?"
  "The world," Lucas said.
-- William Gibson, _Count Zero_
"You can't get very far in this world without your dossier being there first."
-- Arthur Miller
"Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret
police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are
thousands of underground publications, a legal independent
Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only
independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is
an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor.  There is
literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its
present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of
its "glasnost."  This difference has been maintained at great
cost by the Poles since 1944.
-- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
   gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
   to Poland
"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ... We are
the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ... It is grander to think
and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day
when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and
the God of Gods.
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
-- Bertrand Russell
... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually
we were all forced to turn to it.  By the summer of '85, the valley had more
satellite dishes per capita than an Eskimo village on the north slope of
Alaska.

Mine was one of the last to go in.  I had been nervous from the start about
the hazards of too much input, which is a very real problem with these
things.  Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels
all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams
into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull.
-- Hunter Thompson, "Full-time scrambling", _Generation of Swine_
The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of
the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that
it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright.  The easiest
response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil
Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan
asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign.  A contagious good cheer is the
hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned.
But this time, it isn't funny.  It's plain scary.
-- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in
   "Newsday", May 5, 1988
Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about
astrology] aside for a moment, one overriding question remains to be asked.
Why would the positions of celestial objects at the moment of birth have an
effect on our characters, lives, or destinies?  What force or influence,
what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human
beings and affect our development or fate?  No amount of scientific-sounding
jargon or computerized calculations by astrologers can disguise this central
problem with astrology -- we can find no evidence of a mechanism by which
celestial objects can influence us in so specific and personal a way. . . .
Some astrologers argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents
the astrological influence. . . .If so, astrological predictions -- like those
of any scientific field -- should be easily tested. . . . Astrologers always
claim to be just a little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their
efficacy, so in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have
generously done such testing for them.  There have been dozens of well-designed
tests all around the world, and astrology has failed every one of them. . . .
I propose that we let those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest
in the real (and fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them
keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by
the firelight, afraid of the night.
-- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific,
    "Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury
    News, May 8, 1988
With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning
her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles
on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and
astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and
technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately.  Sadly, such
happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies.  They are manifestations
of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately,
could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . .  The
manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series
of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur
well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its
industrial equals.  To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a
significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance
of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching
truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up
soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of
maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically,
with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not
suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society.
-- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988
It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created
back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages.  The
original announcement for the group called for an all inclusive
discussion ranging from the writings of Gibson and Vinge and movies
like Bladerunner to real world things like Brands' description of the
work being done at the MIT Media Lab.  It was meant as a haven for
people with vision of this scope.  If you want to create a haven for
people with narrower visions, feel free.  But I feel sad for anyone
who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in
dire need of being subdivided.  Heaven help them if they ever start
reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers.
-- Bob Webber
...I don't care for the term 'mechanistic'. The word 'cybernetic' is a lot
more apropos. The mechanistic world-view is falling further and further behind
the real world where even simple systems can produce the most marvellous
chaos.
-- Peter da Silva
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming
feature.  They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to
safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster
the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source
of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity."

"Religion is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the
world and of tranquillity amongst it's peoples...The greater the decline of
religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but
lead in the end to chaos and confusion."
-- Baha'u'llah, a selection from the Baha'i scripture
"No, no, I don't mind being called the smartest man in the world.  I just wish
it wasn't this one."
-- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN
"Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy
of him that brought her birth."
-- Milton
"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world."  
-- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on
the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw
"...Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial
technology... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain
the world's democracies, not the world as a whole."
-- K. Eric Drexler
        "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not
matter.  'I' do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality
and remembers words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his
fellows esteem him.  He looks upon the great transformations of the
world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon
reality for the first time.  Their names come to his lips and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming."
-- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
Ban the bomb.  Save the world for conventional warfare.
He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest
benefactor the world has yet known.
                -- Sir Richard Burton
How is the world ruled, and how do wars start?  Diplomats tell lies to
journalists, and they believe what they read.
                -- Karl Kraus, "Aphorisms and More Aphorisms"
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
                -- Albert Einstein
I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern.  I realize that the
whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional
congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile so we
can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the plumber.

But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such as
this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of the world
hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never win large cash
journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually write about, such as
nose-picking.
                -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against
                   Political Fallout"
I think the world is run by C students.
                -- Al McGuire
If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a deal faster.
                -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"
If we can ever make red tape nutritional, we can feed the world.
                -- R. Schaeberle, "Management Accounting"
If you took all of the grains of sand in the world, and lined
them up end to end in a row, you'd be working for the government!
                -- Mr. Interesting
In an orderly world, there's always a place for the disorderly.
Join the army, see the world, meet interesting, exciting people, and kill them.
On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
what it does.
                -- Will Rogers
Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'.
We their sons are more worthless than they:
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
                -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
                -- General Omar N. Bradley
People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world
citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.
                -- Norman Cousins
So from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course
of action.  Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a
friendly basis -- great Durbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth
could not duplicate, must of necessity have many other things Earth could
use; mighty Durbanu before whom we would kneel in supplication (with purely-
for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible
the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to
extrapolate the location of their kitchens).
                -- Theodore Sturgeon, "The World Well Lost"
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
                -- Albert Einstein
The two oldest professions in the world have been ruined by amateurs.
                -- G.B. Shaw
The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great
scholars great men.
                -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
There are only two things in this world that I am sure of, death and
taxes, and we just might do something about death one of these days.
                -- shades
Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the
world is love.  The poor know that it is money.
                -- Gerald Brenan
United Nations, New York, December 25.  The peace and joy of the Christmas
season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military
forces of the world.  Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of
every persuasion.  Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time
low over the world.
                -- Isaac Asimov
We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if only words were
taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things
themselves.
                -- John Locke
Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic condition?
We spent years of wild buying on credit, everything under the sun, whether
we needed it or not, and now we are having to pay for it, howling like a
pet coon.  This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to
pay the fiddler.
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
Workers of the world, arise!  You have nothing to lose but your chairs.
World tensions have, if anything, increased in the quarter century since
H.G. Wells uttered his glum warning: "There is no more evil thing on
earth than race prejudice, none at all.  I write deliberately -- it is
the worst single thing in life now.  It justifies and holds together more
baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world."
                -- Sydney Harris
World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code!
Is uniformity attainable?  Millions of innocent men, women, and
children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt,
tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards
uniformity.  What has been the effect of coercion?  To make one half
of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
                -- Thomas Jefferson
Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their
reputation or social standards never can bring about reform.  Those
who are totally in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in
the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and
out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates,
and bear the consequences.
                -- Susan B. Anthony (1873)
Arithmetic:
        An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
Flugg's Law:
        When you need to knock on wood is when you realize
        that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
Horngren's Observation:
        Among economists, the real world is often a special case.
Infancy, n.:
        The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies
        about us."  The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
                -- Ambrose Bierce
Kafka's Law:
        In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
                -- Franz Kafka, "RS's 1974 Expectation of Days"
Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee:
        (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
           straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
           force is technically termed "car suck").
        (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
           than "Watch this!"
        (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly
           proportional to the cost of hitting it.  For instance, a
           Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or
           a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy.
        (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the
           cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the
           Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you
           in the head and knock you silly.
leverage, n.:
        Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks
        about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out.
optimist, n.:
        A proponent of the belief that black is white.

        A pessimist asked God for relief.
        "Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.
        "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that
would justify them."
        "The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked
something -- the mortality of the optimist."
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
QWERT (kwirt) n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]   1. a unit of weight
equal to 13 poiuyt  avoirdupois  (or 1.69 kiloliks), commonly used in
structural engineering  2. [Colloq.] one thirteenth the load that a fully
grown sligo can carry.  3. [Anat.] a painful  irritation  of  the dermis
in the region of the anus  4. [Slang] person who excites in others the
symptoms of a qwert.
                -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.
Real World, The, n.:
        1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc.  2. To
programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
to programming.  3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5.  4.
The location of the status quo.  5. Anywhere outside a university.
"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world."  Used
pejoratively by those not in residence there.  In conversation, talking
of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
deceased person.
Reception area, n.:
        The purgatory where office visitors are condemned to spend
        innumerable hours reading dog-eared back issues of trade
        magazines like Modern Plastics, Chain Saw Age, and Chicken World,
        while the receptionist blithely reads her own trade magazine --
        Cosmopolitan.
Viking, n.:
        1. Daring Scandinavian seafarers, explorers, adventurers,
        entrepreneurs world-famous for their aggressive, nautical import
        business, highly leveraged takeovers and blue eyes.
        2. Bloodthirsty sea pirates who ravaged northern Europe beginning
        in the 9th century.

Hagar's note: The first definition is much preferred; the second is used
only by malcontents, the envious, and disgruntled owners of waterfront
property.
VMS, n.:
        The world's foremost multi-user adventure game.
we:
        The single most important word in the world.
Obscurism:
        The practice of peppering daily life with obscure
references as a subliminal means of showcasing both one's education
and one's wish to disassociate from the world of mass culture.
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Mid-Twenties Breakdown:
        A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties,
often caused by an inability to function outside of school or
structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential
aloneness in the world.  Often marks induction into the ritual of
pharmaceutical usage.
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Ultra Short Term Nostalgia:
        Homesickness for the extremely recent past: "God, things seemed
so much better in the world last week."
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Anti-Victim Device:
        A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise
conservative outfit which announces to the world that one still has a
spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties and earrings
(on men), feminist buttons, noserings (women), and the now almost
completely extinct teeny weeny "rattail" haircut (both sexes).
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...)
Believe everything you hear about the world; nothing is too impossibly bad.
                -- Honor'e de Balzac
DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD, UNTIE!
Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place
to stand, and I will drain the world.
Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world...
                -- Wally Shawn
God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.
In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it.
It isn't easy being a Friday kind of person in a Monday kind of world.
It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished.
Never be afraid to tell the world who you are.
                -- Anonymous
Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it.
Pyros of the world... IGNITE !!!
Remember that there is an outside world to see and enjoy.
                -- Hans Liepmann
Solipsists of the World... you are already united.
                -- Kayvan Sylvan
Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it.
The whole world is a scab.  The point is to pick it constructively.
                -- Peter Beard
The world really isn't any worse.  It's just that the news coverage
is so much better.
The world wants to be deceived.
                -- Sebastian Brant
True to our past we work with an inherited, observed, and accepted vision of
personal futility, and of the beauty of the world.
                -- David Mamet
What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for
something to occur to you.
                -- Robert Frost

        [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when
         referring to AST's.]
Who will take care of the world after you're gone?
[Norm is angry.]

Woody: What can I get you, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Clifford Clavin's head.
                -- Cheers, The Triangle

Sam:  Hey, what's happening, Norm?
Norm: Well, it's a dog-eat-dog world, Sammy,
      and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear.
                -- Cheers, The Peterson Principle

Sam:  How's life in the fast lane, Normie?
Norm: Beats me, I can't find the on-ramp.
                -- Cheers, Diane Chambers Day
Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm the
only ashtray.
        Split                1/4 bottle        .187 liters
        Half                1/2 bottle
        Bottle                750 milliliters
        Magnum                2 bottles        1.5 liters
        Jeroboam        4 bottles
        Rehoboam        6 bottles        Not available in the US
        Methuselah        8 bottles
        Salmanazar        12 bottles
        Balthazar        16 bottles
        Nebuchadnezzar        20 bottles        15 liters
        Sovereign        34 bottles        26 liters

        The Sovereign is a new bottle, made for the launching of the
largest cruise ship in the world.  The bottle alone cost 8,000 dollars
to produce and they only made 8 of them.
        Most of the funny names come from Biblical people.
"The whole world is about three drinks behind."
                -- Humphrey Bogart
There be sober men a'plenty, and drunkards barely twenty; there are men
of over ninety who have never yet kissed a girl.  But give me the rambling
rover, from Orkney down to Dover, we will roam the whole world over, and
together we'll face the world.
                -- Andy Stewart, "After the Hush"
Woody: How are you feeling today, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Poor.
Woody: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
Norm:  No, I meant `pour'.
                -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 3

Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's the story?
Norm:  Boy meets beer.  Boy drinks beer.  Boy gets another beer.
                -- Cheers, The Proposal

Paul:  Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you?
Norm:  Like a baby treats a diaper.
                -- Cheers, Tan 'n Wash
FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #31
A:        Chicken Teriyaki.
Q:        What is the name of the world's oldest kamikaze pilot?
Q:        What is purple and concord the world?
A:        Alexander the Grape.
British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive
it.  If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.
                -- Peter Ustinov
... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand.  Human
intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
we can tell.  If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.  Even the standard
example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --
makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
finite or an infinite number.
                -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion
on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general
education and culture.
                -- Julia Norton McCorkle
I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the
sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are
loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway.
                -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy,
                   University of Tennessee at Knoxville
If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.
                -- Wittgenstein
        "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff
and blow, "is to learn something.  That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love,
you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your
honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for
it then -- to learn.  Learn why the world wags and what wags it.  That is
the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be
tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.  Learning
is the only thing for you.  Look what a lot of things there are to learn."
                -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"
The end of the world will occur at three p.m., this Friday, with
symposium to follow.
The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant.  The population is,
of course, growing.
The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious
seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the
unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more
bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together.
                -- Sir Peter Medawar
The world is coming to an end!  Repent and return those library books!
The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an
open doorway with an open mind.
                -- E.B. White
Walt:        Dad, what's gradual school?
Garp:        Gradual school?
Walt:        Yeah.  Mom says her work's more fun now that she's teaching
        gradual school.
Garp:        Oh.  Well, gradual school is someplace you go and gradually
        find out that you don't want to go to school anymore.
                -- The World According To Garp
The world really isn't any worse.  It's just that the news coverage
is so much better.
You know the great thing about TV?  If something important happens
anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
you can always change the channel.
                -- Jim Ignatowski
David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans":

        * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO
        * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE"
        * Hourly motel rates
        * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here
        * Didn't just give up right away during World War II
                like some countries we could mention
        * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies
        * Our well-behaved golf professionals
        * Fabulous babes coast to coast
Gay shlafen:  Yiddish for "go to sleep".

Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the
harsh, staccato "go to sleep"?  Listen to the difference:
        "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling."
Obvious, isn't it?
        Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start
speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as
long as you live.  This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all
your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and
so on, but that's just the point.  It has to start with committed
individuals and then grow....
        Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those
signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when
everything is written in Yiddish.  And we'll have to start driving on
the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs
backwards.  But is that too high a price to pay for world peace?
I think not, my friend, I think not.
                -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
        Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the month.
According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people are experiencing
severe marketing anxiety in China.
        The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either (depending
on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax tadpole".
        Bite the wax tadpole.
        There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
        The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's hard
to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to bite a wax
tadpole.  Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare.  Not bad, but broad
satiric vistas do not open up.
                -- John Carrol, The San Francisco Chronicle
In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations --
it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir.
                -- Stuart Keate
Minnesota --
        home of the blonde hair and blue ears.
        mosquito supplier to the free world.
        come fall in love with a loon.
        where visitors turn blue with envy.
        one day it's warm, the rest of the year it's cold.
        land of many cultures -- mostly throat.
        where the elite meet sleet.
        glove it or leave it.
        many are cold, but few are frozen.
        land of the ski and home of the crazed.
        land of 10,000 Petersons.
Moishe Margolies, who weighed all of 105 pounds and stood an even five feet
in his socks, was taking his first airplane trip. He took a seat next to a
hulking bruiser of a man who happened to be the heavyweight champion of
the world.  Little Moishe was uneasy enough before he even entered the plane,
but now the roar of the engines and the great height absolutely terrified him.
So frightened did he become that his stomach turned over and he threw up all
over the muscular giant siting beside him.  Fortunately, at least for Moishe,
the man was sound asleep.  But now the little man had another problem.  How in
the world would he ever explain the situation to the burly brute when he
awakened?  The sudden voice of the stewardess on the plane's intercom, finally
woke the bruiser, and Moishe, his heart in his mouth, rose to the occasion.
        "Feeling better now?" he asked solicitously.
New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around
whom you shouldn't make a sudden move.
                -- David Letterman
The big cities of America are becoming Third World countries.
                -- Nora Ephron
The most common given name in the world is Mohammad; the most common
family name in the world is Chang.  Can you imagine the enormous number
of people in the world named Mohammad Chang?
                -- Derek Wills
        The world's most avid baseball fan (an Aggie) had arrived at the
stadium for the first game of the World Series only to realize he had left
his ticket at home.  Not wanting to miss any of the first inning, he went
to the ticket booth and got in a long line for another seat.  After an hour's
wait he was just a few feet from the booth when a voice called out, "Hey,
Dave!"  The Aggie looked up, stepped out of line and tried to find the owner
of the voice -- with no success.   Then he realized he had lost his place in
line and had to wait all over again.  When the fan finally bought his ticket,
he was thirsty, so he went to buy a drink.  The line at the concession stand
was long, too, but since the game hadn't started he decided to wait.  Just as
he got to the window, a voice called out, "Hey, Dave!"  Again the Aggie tried
to find the voice -- but no luck.  He was very upset as he got back in line
for his drink.  Finally the fan went to his seat, eager for the game to begin.
As he waited for the pitch, he heard the voice calling, "Hey Dave!" once more.
Furious, he stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs,  "My name isn't Dave!"
Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
                -- Frank Lloyd Wright
To be happy one must be a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in
Zion, b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority to the masses of one's
fellow men, and c) delicately and unceasingly amused according to one's taste.
It is my contention that, if this definition be accepted, there is no country
in the world wherein a man constituted as I am -- a man of my peculiar
weaknesses, vanities, appetites, and aversions -- can be so happy as he can
be in the United States.  Going further, I lay down the doctrine that it is
a sheer physical impossibility for such a man to live in the United States
and not be happy.
                -- H.L. Mencken, "On Being An American"
And this is a table ma'am.  What in essence it consists of is a horizontal
rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports,
which we call legs.  The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced
in design as one will find anywhere in the world.
                -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense.  Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism:  The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
                -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"
Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined
them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction?
Heard that the next Space Shuttle is supposed to carry several Guernsey cows?
It's gonna be the herd shot 'round the world.
If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
                -- William Baumol
If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical
world.  One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by
the use of the mathematics of probability.
                -- Vannevar Bush
Love makes the world go 'round, with a little help from intrinsic angular
momentum.
Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable
British automotive electrical systems.  Professionals call the company "The
Prince of Darkness".  Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture
nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground.  The British
don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do.  The British drink warm
beer because they have Lucas refrigerators.
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365,
365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365".  He [ten-year-old Truman Henry
Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the
tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more
than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!"
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be
as much fun to watch.
                -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
        My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or
even that they were always wrong.  Rather, I believe that science must be
understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of
robots programmed to collect pure information.  I also present this view as
an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on
the alter of human limitations.
        I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often
in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it.  Galileo was not shown
the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion.  He had
threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal
stability:  the static world order with planets circling about a central
earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord.  But the
Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology.  They had no choice; the
earth really does revolve about the sun.
                -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"
The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the
redoubtable John W. Campbell:

        The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the
        people who were ever born in the history of the world are now
        dead.  There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is
        being read by a corpse.
The Commandments of the EE:

(1)        Beware of lightning that lurketh in an uncharged condenser
        lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most
        embarrassing manner.
(2)        Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to
        be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this
        earthly vale of tears.
(3)        Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth, and upon
        which the worketh, are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift
        thee to a radio frequency potential and causeth thee to make like
        a radiator too.
(4)        Tarry thou not amongst these fools that engage in intentional
        shocks for they are not long for this world and are surely
        unbelievers.
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they
are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally
understood.  Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
                -- John Maynard Keyes
The spirit of Plato dies hard.  We have been unable to escape the philosophical
tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the
superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.
                -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"
The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this: Numbers
written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not
follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces
of paper in any other parts of the Universe.  This single statement took
the scientific world by storm.  So many mathematical conferences got held
in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation
died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put
back by years.
                -- Douglas Adams
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be
done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
                -- E. Hubbard
There's a whole WORLD in a mud puddle!
                -- Doug Clifford
They don't know how the world is shaped.  And so they give it a shape, and
try to make everything fit it.  They separate the right from the left, the
man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They
only want to count to two.
                -- Emma Bull, "Bone Dance"
Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?

And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
                -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful
new world.  We will see it when we believe it.
                -- Saul Alinsky
What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.
        While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to
his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?"
        "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant.  "What do you
mean?"
        The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of
`Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just
a moment ago.  It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and
salt was rare and expensive.  A miller received from a wizard a wonderful
machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long.  At first the miller
thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages
had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding
more salt.  The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his
acres.  At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and
be rid of it.  But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine
were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's
why the sea is salt."
        "I don't get you," said the assistant.
                -- Guy Endore, "Men of Iron"
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
build a nuclear balm?
Do you feel personally responsible for the world food shortage?
Every time you go to the beach, does the tide come in?
Have you ever eaten an entire moose?
Can you see your neck?
Do joggers take laps around you for exercise?
If so, welcome to National Fat Week.
This week we'll eat without guilt, and kick off our membership campaign,
        ...by force-feeding a box of cornstarch to a skinny person.
                -- Garfield
Fat people of the world unite, we've got nothing to lose!
Fortune's diet truths:
1:  Forget what the cookbooks say, plain yogurt tastes nothing like sour cream.
2:  Any recipe calling for soybeans tastes like mud.
3:  Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate.  In fact, carob is not
    an acceptable substitute for anything, except, perhaps, brown shoe polish.
4:  There is no such thing as a "fun salad."  So let's stop pretending and see
    salads for what they are:  God's punishment for being fat.
5:  Fruit salad without maraschino cherries and marshmallows is about as
    appealing as tepid beer.
6:  A world lacking gravy is a tragic place!
7:  You should immediately pass up any recipes entitled "luscious and
    low-cal."  Also skip dishes featuring "lively liver."  They aren't and
    it isn't.
8:  Wearing a blindfold often makes many diet foods more palatable.
9:  Fresh fruit is not dessert.  CAKE is dessert!
10: Okra tastes slightly worse than its name implies.
11: A plain baked potato isn't worth the effort involved in chewing and
    swallowing.
Just a few of the perfect excuses for having some strawberry shortcake.
Pick one.

         (1)        It's less calories than two pieces of strawberry shortcake.
         (2)        It's cheaper than going to France.
         (3)        It neutralizes the brownies I had yesterday.
         (4)        Life is short.
         (5)        It's somebody's birthday.  I don't want them to celebrate alone.
         (6)        It matches my eyes.
         (7)        Whoever said, "Let them eat cake." must have been talking to me.
         (8)        To punish myself for eating dessert yesterday.
         (9)        Compensation for all the time I spend in the shower not eating.
        (10)        Strawberry shortcake is evil.  I must help rid the world of it.
        (11)        I'm getting weak from eating all that healthy stuff.
        (12)        It's the second anniversary of the night I ate plain broccoli.
No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
eating one peanut.
                -- Channing Pollock
The Kosher Dill was invented in 1723 by Joe Kosher and Sam Dill.  It is
the single most popular pickle variety today, enjoyed throughout the free
world by man, woman and child alike.  An astounding 350 billion kosher
dills are eaten each year, averaging out to almost 1/4 pickle per person
per day.  New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton says "The kosher dill
really changed my life.  I used to enjoy eating McDonald's hamburgers and
drinking Iron City Lite, and then I encountered the kosher dill pickle.
I realized that there was far more to haute cuisine then I'd ever imagined.
And now, just look at me."
There are twenty-five people left in the world, and twenty-seven of
them are hamburgers.
                -- Ed Sanders
A-Z affectionately,
1 to 10 alphabetically,
from here to eternity without in betweens,
still looking for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world,
sales talk from sales assistants
        when all i want to do is lower your resistance,
no rhythm in cymbals no tempo in drums,
love's on arrival,
she comes when she comes,
right on the target but wide of the mark...
All the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being _N bytes.  At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
                -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort
Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport.
A manly man, to be a wizard able;
Many a protected file he had sitting on his table.
His console, when he typed, a man might hear
Clicking and feeping wind as clear,
Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell
Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell.
The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor
As old and strict he tended to ignore;
He let go by the things of yesterday
And took the modern world's more spacious way.
He did not rate that text as a plucked hen
Which says that Hackers are not holy men.
And that a hacker underworked is a mere
Fish out of water, flapping on the pier.
That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister.
That was a text he held not worth an oyster.
And I agreed and said his views were sound;
Was he to study till his head wend round
Poring over books in the cloisters?  Must he toil
As Andy bade and till the very soil?
Was he to leave the world upon the shelf?
Let Andy have his labor to himself!
                -- Chaucer
                [well, almost.  Ed.]
And... What in the world ever became of Sweet Jane?
        She's lost her sparkle, you see she isn't the same.
        Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine
        All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?"
                -- The Grateful Dead
Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world.
                -- The Beach Boys
Endless the world's turn, endless the sun's spinning
Endless the quest;
I turn again, back to my own beginning,
And here, find rest.
Everything's great in this good old world;
(This is the stuff they can always use.)
God's in his heaven, the hill's dew-pearled;
(This will provide for baby's shoes.)
Hunger and War do not mean a thing;
Everything's rosy where'er we roam;
Hark, how the little birds gaily sing!
(This is what fetches the bacon home.)
                -- Dorothy Parker, "The Far Sighted Muse"
Everywhere you go you'll see them searching,
Everywhere you turn you'll feel the pain,
Everyone is looking for the answer,
Well look again.
                -- Moody Blues, "Lost in a Lost World"
Get out, you old Wight!  Vanish in the sunlight!
Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,
Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!
Come never here again!  Leave your barrow empty!
Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,
Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
        Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there
may be in Science.  As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system.
Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results.  And listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers.  Avoid loud and
aggressive persons, for they are sales reps.
        If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised,
for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched.
Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real
hassle and could change your fortunes in time.
        Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of
bugs.  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive
for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations.  Strive for
proportionality.  Especially, do not faint when it occurs.  Neither be cyclical
about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed.
        Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points.  Gracefully pass
them on to the youth at the next desk.  Nurture some mutual funds to shield
you in times of sudden layoffs.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings
-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly.  Murphy's Law runs the
Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt <Curl>B*n dS = 0.
        Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you
can conceive of to try.  With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken
line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary.  Be linear.  Strive
to stay employed.
                -- Technolorata, "Analog"
Have you seen the old man in the closed down market,
Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side
Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news.

How can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand
Lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind...

Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission
Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears.
In our winter city the rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care...
I sent a message to another time,
But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe,
I sent a message to another plane,
Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive.
...
I met someone who looks at lot like you,
She does the things you do, but she is an IBM.
She's only programmed to be very nice,
But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near,
She tells me that she likes me very much,
But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear.
...
I realize that it must seem so strange,
That time has rearranged, but time has the final word,
She knows I think of you, she reads my mind,
She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world.
                -- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095"
I'll learn to play the Saxophone,
I play just what I feel.
Drink Scotch whisky all night long,
And die behind the wheel.
They got a name for the winners in the world,
I want a name when I lose.
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide,
Call me Deacon Blues.
                -- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues"
I'm an artist.
But it's not what I really want to do.
What I really want to do is be a shoe salesman.
I know what you're going to say --
"Dreamer!  Get your head out of the clouds."
All right!  But it's what I want to do.
Instead I have to go on painting all day long.

The world should make a place for shoe salesmen.
                -- J. Feiffer
Just machines to make big decisions,
Programmed by men for compassion and vision,
We'll be clean when their work is done,
We'll be eternally free, yes, eternally young,
What a beautiful world this will be,
What a glorious time to be free.
                -- Donald Fagon, "What A Beautiful World"
Most folks they like the daytime,
        'cause they like to see the shining sun.
They're up in the morning,
        off and a-running till they're too tired for having fun.
But when the sun goes down,
        and the bright lights shine, my daytime has just begun.

Now there are two sides to this great big world,
        and one of them is always night.
If you can take care of business in the sunshine, baby,
        I guess you're gonna be all right.
Don't come looking for me to lend you a hand.
        My eyes just can't stand the light.

'Cause I'm a night owl honey, sleep all day long.
                -- Carly Simon
"My name is Sue!  How do you do?!  Now you gonna die!"
Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes,
And he went down, but to my surprise,
Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
So I busted a chair right across his teeth,
And we crashed through the walls and into the streets,
Kickin' and a-gougin' in the mud and the blood and beer.
Now I tell you, I've fought tougher men,
But I really can't remember when:
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile.
But I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss,
And he went for his gun, but I pulled mine first,
And he sat there lookin' at me, and I saw him smile.
He said: "Son, this world is rough,
And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough,
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I give you that name and I said goodbye,
And I knew you'd have to get tough or die,
And it's that name that's helped to make you strong!
                -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
My own dear love, he is strong and bold
        And he cares not what comes after.
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
        And his eyes are lit with laughter.
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
        Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
My own dear love, he is all my world --
        And I wish I'd never met him.
                -- Dorothy Parker, part 1
No one likes us.
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect,                        We give them money,
But heaven knows we try.                But are they grateful?
But all around,                                No, they're spiteful,
Even our old friends put us down.        And they're hateful.
Let's drop the big one,                        They don't respect us,
And see what happens.                        So let's surprise them
                                        We'll drop the big one,
                                        And pulverize 'em.
Asia's crowded,
Europe's too old,
Africa is far too hot,                        We'll save Australia.
And Canada's too cold.                        Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos.
And South America stole our name        We'll build an All-American amusement
Let's drop the big one,                                park there--
There'll be no one left to blame us.        They got surfin', too!

Boom! goes London,
And Boom! Paree.
More room for you,                        Oh, how peaceful it'll be!
And more room for me,                        We'll set everybody free!
And every city,                                You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe;
The whole world round,                        There'll be Italian shoes for me!
Will just be another American town.        They all hate us anyhow,
                                        So, let's drop the big one now.
                                        Let's drop the big one now!
                -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One"
Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'.
We their sons are more worthless than they:
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
                -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
Snow-white!  Snow-white!  O Lady clear!
O Queen beyond the Western Sea!
O Light to us that wander here
Amid the world of woven trees!

        Gilthoniel!  O Elbereth!
        Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
        Snow-white!  Snow-white!  We sing to thee
        In a far land beyond the Sea.

O stars that in the Sunless Year
With shining hand by her were sown,
In windy fields now bright and clear
We see you silver blossom blown!

        O Elbereth!  Gilthoniel!
        We still remember, we who dwell
        In this far land beneath the trees,
        Thy starlight on the Western Seas.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
                -- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"
                The Worst Lines of Verse
For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line:
        "Come, muse, let us sing of rats."
Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted
these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous
laughter the instant they were read out.
        No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was
inspired by the subject of war.
        "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away,
        And the grey roof reddened and rang;
        Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay
        The tip of my ear.  Flash! bang!"
By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79):
        "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..."
While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables:
        "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed,
        The crippled pea alone that cannot stand."
George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote:
        "And I was ask'd and authorized to go
        To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co."
William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse:
        "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak
        While in this world, are liable to leak."
And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when
describing a pond:
        "I've measured it from side to side;
        Tis three feet long and two feet wide."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but with a whimper.
                -- T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
to be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best night and day
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
any human being can fight and
never stop fighting.                  
                -- e.e. cummings
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.        Still round the corner there may wait
  Tree and flower and leaf and grass,        A new road or a secret gate,
  Let them pass!  Let them pass!        And though we pass them by today
  Hill and water under sky,                Tomorrow we may come this way
  Pass them by!  Pass them by!                And take the hidden paths that run
                                        Towards the Moon or to the Sun,
Home is behind, the world ahead,          Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
And there are many paths to tread          Let them go!  Let them go!
Through shadows to the edge of night,          Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Until the stars are all alight.                  Fare you well!  Fare you well!
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
  Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
  Away shall fade!  Away shall fade!
  Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
  And then to bed!  And then to bed!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call,
Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all.
Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin,
Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again.

Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall.
Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all.
Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled.
Make our country well again, respected by the world.

Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun.
Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done.
Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free,
Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me.
                -- Pansy Myers Schroeder
When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke,        Sixty years in these folks' world
A dance that's walked                        The child I works for calls me girl
A song that's spoke,                        I say "Yes ma'am" for working's sake.
I laugh so hard I almost choke                Too proud to bend
When I think about myself.                Too poor to break,
                                        I laugh until my stomach ache,
                                        When I think about myself.
My folks can make me split my side,
I laughed so hard I nearly died,
The tales they tell, sound just like lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying,
When I think about my folks.
                -- Maya Angelou
When in this world the headlines read
Of those whose hearts are filled with greed
Who rob and steal from those who need
The cry goes up with blinding speed for Underdog (UNDERDOG!)
Underdog (UNDERDOG!)
Speed of lightning, roar of thunder
Fighting all who rob or plunder
Underdog (ah-ah-ah-ah)
Underdog
UNDERDOG!
When someone makes a move                We'll send them all we've got,
Of which we don't approve,                John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Who is it that always intervenes?        Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,                        To the shores of Tripoli,
They have their place, I guess,                But not to Mississippoli,
But first, send the Marines!                What do we do?  We send the Marines!

For might makes right,                        Members of the corps
And till they've seen the light,        All hate the thought of war:
They've got to be protected,                They'd rather kill them off by
                                                peaceful means.
All their rights respected,                Stop calling it aggression--
Till somebody we like can be elected.        We hate that expression!
                                        We only want the world to know
                                        That we support the status quo;
                                        They love us everywhere we go,
                                        So when in doubt, send the Marines!
                -- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines"
When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
        For it isn't your father or mother or wife
        Whose judgement upon you must pass;
        The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
        Is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
        He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
        For he's with you clear up to the end,
        And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
        If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.
Where, oh, where, are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over, and I thought I'd found true love.
You met another, and *PPHHHLLLBBBBTTT*, you wuz gone.

Gloom, despair and agony on me.
Deep dark depression, excessive misery.
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
Oh, gloom, despair and agony on me.
                -- Hee Haw
Who made the world I cannot tell;
'Tis made, and here am I in hell.
My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
I never soiled with such a deed.
                -- A.E. Housman
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors.
The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes.
                -- George Gobel
Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life.
Your own qualities will help prevent your advancement in the world.
        A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter
carrying a shotgun and a dead loon.  "What in the world do you think you're
doing?  Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?"
        Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag,
which contained twelve more loons.
        "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked.
        "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage."
        "What's so special about a loon?  What does it taste like?"
        "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan."
Dallas Cowboys Official Schedule

        Sept 14                Pasadena Junior High
        Sept 21                Boy Scout Troop 049
        Sept 28                Blind Academy
        Sept 30                World War I Veterans
        Oct 5                Brownie Scout Troop 041
        Oct 12                Sugarcreek High Cheerleaders
        Oct 26                St. Thomas Boys Choir
        Nov 2                Texas City Vet Clinic
        Nov 9                Korean War Amputees
        Nov 15                VA Hospital Polio Patients
Failed Attempts To Break Records
        In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break
the world shouting record by two and a half decibels.  "I am not surprised
he failed," his wife said afterwards.  "He's really a very quiet man and
doesn't even shout at me."
        In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the
record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours.
        His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended
after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace.
"People complained I was too noisy," he said.
        In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across
the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes.  "It was raining heavily and my
drone got waterlogged," he said.
        A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000
dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978.  97,500 dominoes
had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off.
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in
the world is fixed.
                -- Frank Deford, sports writer
In Brooklyn, we had such great pennant races, it made the World Series
just something that came later.
                -- Walter O'Malley, Dodgers owner
Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee:
        (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
           straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
           force is technically termed "car suck").
        (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
           than "Watch this!"
        (3) The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly
           proportional to the cost of hitting it.  For instance, a
           Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or
           a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy.
        (4) Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the
           cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the
           Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you
           in the head and knock you silly.
My way of joking is to tell the truth.  That's the funniest joke in the world.
                -- Muhammad Ali
Several years ago, an international chess tournament was being held in a
swank hotel in New York.  Most of the major stars of the chess world were
there, and after a grueling day of chess, the players and their entourages
retired to the lobby of the hotel for a little refreshment.  In the lobby,
some players got into a heated argument about who was the brightest, the
fastest, and the best chess player in the world.  The argument got quite
loud, as various players claimed that honor.  At that point, a security
guard in the lobby turned to another guard and commented, "If there's
anything I just can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."
The Fastest Defeat In Chess
        The big name for us in the world of chess is Gibaud, a French chess
master.  
        In Paris during 1924 he was beaten after only four moves by a
Monsieur Lazard.  Happily for posterity, the moves are recorded and so
chess enthusiasts may reconstruct this magnificent collapse in the comfort
of their own homes.
        Lazard was black and Gibaud white:
        1: P-Q4, Kt-KB3
        2: Kt-Q2, P-K4
        3: PxP, Kt-Kt5
        4: P-K6, Kt-K6
        White then resigns on realizing that a fifth move would involve
either a Q-KR5 check or the loss of his queen.
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
        The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball...
You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years
old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen.  You've got to let it
grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're
bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now.
                -- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium
Two golfers were being held up as the twosome of women in front of them
whiffed shots, hunted for lost balls and stood over putts for what seemed
like hours.
        "I'll ask if we can play through," Bill said as he strode toward
the women.  Twenty yards from the green, however, he turned on his heel
and went back to where his companion was waiting.
        "Can't do it," he explained, sheepishly.  "One of them's my wife
and the other's my mistress!"
        "I'll ask," said Jim.  He started off, only to turn and come back
before reaching the green.
        "What's wrong?" Bill asked.
        "Small world, isn't it?"
Is not that the nature of men and women -- that the pleasure is in the
learning of each other?
                -- Natira, the High Priestess of Yonada, "For the World is
                   Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", stardate 5476.3.
Is truth not truth for all?
                -- Natira, "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched
                   the Sky", stardate 5476.4.
"The story goes that I first had the idea for THHGTTG while
lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck (or `Spain' as the BBC
TV publicity department authorititively has it, probably
because it's easier to spell)." - Foreward by DNA.

FORD         Six pints of bitter. And quickly please, the
world's about to
        end.
BARMAN        Oh yes, sir? Nice weather for it.
"He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the
fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the
rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his arms out wide. `I
will go mad!' he announced."

- Arthur discovering a way of coping with life on
Prehistoric Earth.
"Another world, another day, another dawn. "
"Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole Galaxy
of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was
churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just
two things: the world he was born on and the woman he
loved. "
Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and
none of his friends like him either.
                -- Oscar Wilde
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today.  It's already tomorrow
in Australia.
                -- Charles Schulz
I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.

What a crock.  I could easily overemphasize the importance of good
grammar.  For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause
of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the
United States would have lost World War II."
                -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"
I have a hobby.  I have the world's largest collection of sea shells.  I keep
it scattered on beaches all over the world.  Maybe you've seen some of it.
                -- Steven Wright
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.
                -- Steven Wright
SOMETIMES THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD is so overwhelming, I just want to throw
back my head and gargle.  Just gargle and gargle and I don't care who hears
me because I am beautiful.
                -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
"The straightforward and easy path was to join the proprietary software world, signing nondisclosure agreements and promising not to help my fellow hacker....I could have made money this way, and perhaps had fun programming (if I closed my eyes to how I was treating other people).  But I knew that when my career was over, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had made the world ugly."

  -- Richard Stallman (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"The reason for the success of this somewhat communist-sounding strategy, while the failure of communism itself is visible around the world, is that the economics of information are fundamentaly different from those of other products."

  -- Bruce Perens, on Open Source software. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"It is easy to sympathize with the MIS staffs around the world, I mean who hasn't lost work due to Windows or a Microsoft application crashing?"

  -- Chris DiBona, happy he's been using Linux and can avoid such things, from the introduction. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"The world is beating a path to our door"

  -- Bruce Perens, (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Suppose I want to take over the world. Simplicity says I should just take over the world by myself."

  -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Of course, in Perl culture, almost nothis is prohibited. My feeling is that the rest of the world already has plenty of perfectly good prohibitions, so why invent more?"

  -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
  "Triumph without Victory, The Unreported History of the Persian
  Gulf War", -Headline published in the U.S. News & World Report,
  1992.
Microsoft broke Volkswagen's world record:  Volkswagen only made 22 million
bugs!
Windows 95 has been operating for 2 hours, 32 minutes. No errors reported. CALL
GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS NOW!
Q: How many Bill Gateses does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. He puts the bulb in and lets the world revolve around him.
A: None. He declares Darkness(tm) the new industry standard.
Q: How many Microsoft vice presidents does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Eight. One to work the bulb, and seven to make sure that Microsoft gets $2
   for every light bulb ever changed anywhere in the world.
In a world without fences who needs Gates?
If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of
different places, just write a Unix operating system.

   -- Linus Torvalds
Top Ten Changes If Linus Torvalds Achieves World Domination

10. That annoying Linus character from the Peanuts cartoons would be killed off
9. New fashion style: Scantily clad females, even in twenty below weather
8. Forget Disney World, say hello to Penguin World!
7. Late Show with Linus Torvalds
6. High schools offer classes on kernel hacking
5. Microsoft stock certificates traded as rare collectors' items, along with
    Confederate money and Roman coins
4. Beowolf Clusters for everyone!
3. Computers no longer come with reset buttons
2. United States of Linusia
1. Three words: Open Source Beer
Top Ten Ways to Pronounce Linux
  
1. Lih-nucks
2. Lie-nucks
3. Not Win-doze
4. World Domination
5. Lin-doze
6. God's OS
7. Better Than Microsoft
8. Crash-free
9. Heaven
10. Gates' Worst Nightmare
Tux Penguin Boxing Match

LAS VEGAS, NV -- The unofficial Linux mascot Tux the Penguin will face his arch
rival the BSD Daemon in a boxing match this Saturday night. The match is part
of the International Computer Mascot Boxing Federation's First Annual World
Championship Series. The winner will advance to face one of the Intel "Bunny
People".

Boxing pundits favor Tux as the winner. Last week Tux won his first match in
the Championship Series against Wilbur the Gimp. "The Gimp didn't have a
chance," one spectator said. "With Tux's ability to run at top speeds of over
100mph, I don't see how he could possibly lose." The BSD Daemon, however, is
certainly a formidible opponent. While boxing rules prohibit the Daemon from
using his patented pitchfork, his pointy horns are permitted in the ring.

Some observers think the whole Computer Mascot Boxing Federation is a fake.
"WWF is all scripted," one sports writer pointed out. "And so is this. You
actually think that a penguin is capable of boxing? The idea of a penguin
fighting a demon is patently absurd. This whole Championship Series has no
doubt been scripted. It's probably nothing more than two little kids in
penguin and demon suits duking it out in a boxing ring. What a waste of time."
Linux Ported to Homer Simpson's Brain

SPRINGFIELD -- Slashdot recently reported on Homer Simpson's brain "upgrade"
to an Intel CPU.  Intel hails the CPU transplant as the "World's Greatest
Technological Achievement".  Intel originally planned to install Microsoft
Windows CE (Cerebrum Enhanced) on Homer's new PentiumBrain II processor.
However, due to delays in releasing Windows CE, Intel decided to install
DebianBrain Linux, the new Linux port for brains.

Computer industry pundits applaud the last minute switch from Windows to
Linux. One said, "I was a bit concerned for Homer.  With Windows CE, I could
easily imagine Homer slipping into an infinite loop: "General Protection
Fault.  D'oh!  D'oh!  D'oh!  D'oh..."  Or, at the worst, the Blue Screen of
Death could have become much more than a joke."

Some pundits are more concerned about the quality of the Intel CPU.  "Linux
is certainly an improvement over Windows.  But since it's running on a
PentiumBrain chip, all bets are off.  What if the chip miscalculates the core
temperature of the power plant where Homer works?  I can just imagine the
story on the evening news: 'Springfield was obliterated into countless
subatomic particles yesterday because Homer J. Simpson, power plant
button-pusher, accidentally set the core temperature to 149.992322340948290
instead of 150...'  If anything, an Alpha chip running Linux should have been
used for Homer's new brain."
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #8

Bob's Map to the Homes of the Rich & Geeky
US$29.95 at BobsEcommerceSite.com

Hollywood is full of shady street-side vendors selling "maps to the homes of
the rich and famous" that are actually photocopies of photocopies of
photocopies of an old 1984 Rand McNally map.

But what about the Bay Area? Wouldn't you like to visit the homes and
driveways of the rich and geeky in Silicon Valley? Wouldn't you like to see
Linus Torvalds' residence? Wouldn't you like to drive by the home of
permanent-interim-CEO Steve Jobs? Wouldn't you like to spit on the driveway of
Bill Gates?

Well, now you can. Bob's Map to the Homes of the Rich & Geeky is a full-color
128 page atlas filled with detailed instructions for finding the homes of
1,024 of the world's most famous geeks. From San Jose, to Seattle, to Austin,
to Boston, Bob's Map is your passport to gawk at the homes of the rich and
geeky.
Open Source Irrational Constant

BREEZEWOOD, PA -- In a revelation that could rock the foundations of
science, a researcher in Pennsylvania has discovered that the digits of the
irrational constant PI encode a version of the Linux kernel.  "I can't
believe it," the researcher, Neil Hoffman, exclaimed.  "And yet, here I am
staring at what appears to be the source code for Linux kernel 5.0.0.
Needless to say, my whole world-view has changed..."

Hoffman explained, "My algorithm, which applies several dozen conversions and
manipulations to each digit of PI, spits out plain vanilla ASCII characters
that happen to form the source code for the Linux kernel."

Many members of the scientific community are skeptical.  One One
mathematician who has memorized the digits of PI to 10,000 places said,
"This is the kind of nonsense one would expect to find in a tabloid such as
the National Mathematics Enquirer.  Or a Linux fortune(6) file.  Hoffman's
'discovery' is obviously a hoax designed to secure government research
grants."

In a related matter, we have received an unconfirmed report that a region of
the Mandelbrot fractal contains what appear to be the words "LINUS TORVALDS
WAS HERE".  In addition, the words "TRANSMETA: THIS SECRET MESSAGE IS NOT
HERE YET" supposedly appear within the depths of the Julia Set.
The War Against Linux

A significant obstacle on the path to Linux World Domination has emerged.  A
reactionary grass-roots movement has formed to fight, as they call it, "The
War Against Linux".  This movement, code-named "LinSux", is composed of
people (mostly Microsoft stockholders and commercial software developers)
who want to maintain the status quo.  They are fighting back against the
rise of Linux and free software which they see as a threat to their financial
independence.

The most damaging attack the LinSux folks have launched is "Three Mile
Island", a Windows macro virus designed to inflict damage on computers that
contain a partition devoted to a non-Microsoft OS.  When the victim computer
is booted into Windows, the virus activates and deletes any non-Microsoft
partitions. Ironically, the many security flaws in Windows allow the virus
to damage alternative operating systems but leave Windows unscathed.

"The War Against Linux" has also been fought in more subtle ways.
Time-tested methods of Linux advocacy have been turned into subtle forms of
anti-Linux advocacy by the LinSux crowd.  MSCEs are smuggling NT boxes into
companies that predominantly use Linux or Unix.  LinSux "freedom fighters"
are rearranging books and software boxes on store shelves so that Microsoft
offerings are displayed more prominently.
BSOD Simulator

Users of Red Hat 6.0 are discovering a new feature that hasn't been widely
advertised: a Blue Screen of Death simulator.  By default, the bsodsim
program activates when the user hits the virtually unused SysRq key (this is
customizable) causing the system to switch to a character cell console to
display a ficticious Blue Screen.

Red Hat hails the bsodsim program as the "boss key" for the Linux world. One
RH engineer said, "Workers are smuggling Linux boxes into companies that
exclusively use Windows.  This is all good and well until the PHB walks by
and comments, 'That doesn't look like Windows...' With bsodsim, that problem
is solved.  The worker can hit the emergency SysRq key, and the system will
behave just like Windows..."

The bsodsim program doesn't stop at just showing a simulated error message.
If the boss doesn't walk away, the worker can continue the illusion by
hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL, which causes a simulated reboot.  After showing the
usual boot messages, bsodsim will run a simulated SCANDISK program
indefinitely. The boss won't be able to tell the difference.  If the boss
continues to hang around, the worker can say, "SCANDISK is really taking a
long time... maybe we should upgrade our computers.  And don't you have
something better to do than watch this computer reboot for the tenth time
today?"
When Computers Crash

HOLLYWOOD -- The FOX TV Network has announced a new series of "reality
shows" to be aired over the summer. The series, "When Computers Crash",
will consist of five hour-long shows documenting the aftermath of serious
computer crashes, failures, and other problems. This show comes on the
heels of other FOX reality shows such as "World's Funniest Antitrust Trial
Bloopers", "When Stupid TV Network Executives Create Bad Show Ideas", and
"When Lame Fortune Files Poke Fun At FOX Reality Shows"...

To coincide with the series, FOX will sponsor a publicity gimmick called
"Crash & Win!" Contest participants will download a free Windows 9x/NT
program that keeps track of the number of Blue Screens, Illegal
Operations, or other fatal errors that force a reboot. When a crash
occurs, the program will log it in an encrypted database, which will be
periodically uploaded to the "FOX Crash & Win!" server.

Prizes such as a "Deciphering Windows Error Messages for Dummies" book, a
1999 Ford "Gasguzzler" Sport Utility Vehicle, or a lifetime supply of
stress relief medication will be awarded to participants based on the
number of crashes they log.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#9)

Customers who want to upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition must now fill
out a Microsoft survey online before they can order the bugfix/upgrade.

Question 9: Which of the following do you prefer as a replacement for the
            current Microsoft slogan?

A. "Over 20 Years of Innovation"
B. "Wintel Inside"
C. "Your Windows And Gates To The World"
D. "Because Anti-Trust Laws Are Obsolete"
E. "One Microsoft Way. It's Much More Than An Address!"
F. "This Motto Is Not Anti-Competitive. And Neither Is Microsoft."
G. "Fighting the Department of Injustice Since Day One"
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#13)

Customers who want to upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition must now fill
out a Microsoft survey online before they can order the bugfix/upgrade.

Question 13: Which of the following new Microsoft products do you plan on
             buying within the next 6 months?

A. Windows For Babies(tm) - Using an enhanced "click-n-drool" interface,
   babies will be able to learn how to use a Wintel computer, giving them
   a head start in living in a Microsoft-led world.

B. Where In Redmond Is Carmen Sandiego?(tm) - The archvillian Sandiego has
   stolen the Windows source code and must be stopped before she can
   publish it on the Net.

C. ActiveKeyboard 2000(tm) - An ergonomic keyboard that replaces useless
   keys like SysRq and Scroll Lock with handy keys like "Play Solitaire"
   and "Visit Microsoft.com".

D. Visual BatchFile(tm) - An IDE and compiler for the MS-DOS batch file
   language. MSNBC calls it "better than Perl".
This telethon isn't just about helping disenfranchised geeks. We're
also here for the betterment of mankind through our research into finding
a Cure for Windows.

Each day, millions of man-hours are wasted due to design flaws in
Microsoft Windows. Each day, millions of dollars are sent by business and
individuals like yourself into a huge black hole known as "Microsoft" for
exorbitantly priced software products that should be free.

But don't worry. We've almost found a Cure for Windows. Geeks worldwide
have toiled endlessly for the past eight years working on a replacement
operating system called Linux. It's almost ready. Now we need to convince
the world to use our creation and eliminate the virus known as Windows.

   -- Excerpt from Eric S. Raymond's speech during the Geek Grok '99
      telethon held in Silicon Valley
OPPRESSED GEEK: Everybody keeps blaming me for the Y2K problem, the
Melissa Virus, Windows crashes... you name it. When somebody finds out
you're a bona fide geek, they start bugging you about computer problems. I
frequently hear things like, "Why can't you geeks make Windows work
right?", "What kind of idiot writes a program that can't handle the year
2000?", "Geeks are evil, all they do is write viruses", and "The Internet
is the spawn of Satan".

I'm afraid to admit I have extensive computing experience. When somebody
asks what kind of job I have, I always lie. From my experience, admitting
that you're a geek is an invitation to disaster.

LARRY WALL: I know, I know. I sometimes say that I'm the founder of a
pearl harvesting company instead of admitting that I'm the founder of the
Perl programming language.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: This is tragic. We can't live in a world like this. We
need your donations to fight social oppression and ignorance against
geekdom...

   -- Excerpt from the Geek Grok '99 telethon      
Bill Gates Passes Turing Test

LONDON, ENGLAND -- Microsoft proclaimed that they have passed the Turing
Test by creating a Bill Gates multimedia simulacrum that crack BBC
interviewer Jeremy Paxman couldn't distinguish from the real thing. "I
never would have expected this," Paxman said about the Gates AI program.
"After all, this Microsoft program actually worked for an extended period
of time, something you don't see very often."

Microsoft has plans to mass-produce the Bill Gates holographic simulation
by 2010 or so. "The hardware just isn't there yet for home use," a
Microserf explained. "By then, though, Intel's Itanium 6 Super Pro Plus
III CPU running at 600 Ghz or whatever should be sufficient." Windows 2010
is expected to include the Bill Gates simulation, making the World's
Richest Man(tm) accessible to the entire world.

A newly printed brochure for the faux-Gates advertises, "Need help running
Windows 2010? Bill Gates will sit beside you and guide you through the
system. Have a question for the world's sexiest and smartest nerd? He'll
answer it. Wondering if free and open source software is a plot by
Communists freaks to overthrow the free market system? He'll be there to
explain. Want to ask for a personal loan? Sorry, won't happen."          
Evolution Of A Linux User: The 11 Stages Towards Getting A Life

0. Microserf - Your life revolves around Windows and you worship Bill
   Gates and his innovative company.
1. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt... About Microsoft - You encounter a growing
   number of problems with Microsoft solutions, shaking your world-view
2. FUD... About Linux - After hearing about this new Linux thing, you
   take the plunge, but are unimpressed by the nerdware OS.
3. Born-Again Microserf - You rededicate your life to Microsoft worship
4. Disgruntled User - Microsoft software keeps screwing you over,
   and you're not going to take it anymore!
5. A Religious Experience - You successfully install Linux, and are
   left breathless at its elegance. No more Windows for you!
6. Linux Convert - You continue to fall in love with the new system
7. Linux Zealot - You dedicate your life to Linux World Domination...
   and it shows! You go beyond mere advocacy to sheer zealotry.
8. Back To Reality - Forces out of your control compel you to
   return to using Windows and Office
9. Enlightened Linux User - You become 100% Microsoft free after finding
   ways to overcome the need for Microsoft bloatware
10.Get A Life - You become a millionaire after your Linux portal is
   acquired; you move to a small tropical island and get a life
Linux World Domination: Not A Joke!

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator Fattecat (R-WA) is pushing for a ban on
Finnish-produced software. His chief of staff, Ms. Dee Septive, has
published a 200-page report revealing "the Helsinkian Underground", a
Finnish world domination plot hatched in 1943.

The Fattecat expose describes Finland's recent scheme involving free
software. "Linux, originally called Freix (FREIX Retrieves Electronic
Intelligence X), is a scheme to infiltrate the Western world with a 'free'
operating system with nasty backdoors hidden within its obfuscated source
code. IRC (Intelligence Relaying Code) is another Finnish innovation
designed for spying purposes."

Linus Torvalds plays a prominent role in the conspiracy. "That old story
about Linus developing a Unix clone in his spare time while at University
is a lark," the report states. "Indeed, the name Linux ("Line X") was
coined because the kernel can extract any arbitrary line of intelligence
from any document it has access to."
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#6)
(Round 4, the Who Wants To Be A Billionaire? Round)

ERIC RAYMOND (Moderator): Here's the second question: Who is the primary
author of the world-renowned fetchmail program? [Bzzz] Yes, Hemos?

HEMOS: Mr. Eric... Fetch of Cincinnati, Ohio.

RAYMOND: No, no, no! The answer is me, me, me, you idiots! Sheesh. I'm
resetting your points to zero for that.

ALAN COX: Are you going to ask any questions that are not about you?

RAYMOND: Um... let's see... yeah, there's one or two here... Okay, here's
  question three... What loud-mouthed hippie-spirtualist founder of the
  GNU Project keeps demanding that everybody use the crappy term "Free
  Software" instead of "Open Source"? [Bzzz] Yes, Anonymous Coward?

ANONCOW: Eric Raymond!

RAYMOND: Why you little [expletive]! I'm going to...
Brief History Of Linux (#1)
Re-Inventing the Wheel

Our journey through the history of Linux begins ca. 28000 B.C. when a
large all-powerful company called MoogaSoft monopolized the wheel-making
industry. As founder of the company, Billga Googagates (rumored to be the
distant ancestor of Bill Gates) was the wealthiest man in the known world,
owning several large rock huts, an extravagant collection of artwork (cave
paintings), and a whole army of servants and soldiers.

MoogaSoft's unfair business practices were irritating, but users were
unable to do anything about them, lest they be clubbed to death by
MoogaSoft's army. Nevertheless, one small group of hobbyists finally got
fed up and starting hacking their own wheels out of solid rock. Their
spirit of cooperation led to better and better wheels that eventually
outperformed MoogaSoft offerings.

MoogaSoft tried desperately to stop the hobbyists -- as shown by the
recently unearthed "Ooga! Document" -- but failed. Ironically, Billga
Googagates was killed shortly afterwards when one his own 900-pound wheels
crushed him.
Brief History Of Linux (#3)
Lawyers Unite

Humanity faced a tremendous setback ca. 1100 A.D., when the first law
school was established in Bologna. Ironically, the free exchange of ideas
at the law school spurred the law students to invent new ways (patents,
trademarks, copyrights) to stifle the free exchange of ideas in other
industries.

If, at some point in the future, you happen upon a time machine, we here
at Humorix (and, indeed, the whole world) implore you to travel back to
1100, track down a law teacher called Irnerius, and prevent him from
founding his school using whatever means necessary. Your contribution to
humanity will truly make the world (in an alternate timeline) a better
place.
Brief History Of Linux (#7)
The Rise of Geeks

The late 19th Century saw the rise and fall of "geeks", wild carnival
performers who bit the heads off live chickens. This vocal minority,
outcast from mainstream society, clamored for respect, but failed. Their
de facto spokesman, Tom Splatz, tried to expose America to their plight in
his 312-page book, "Geeks".

In the book Splatz documented the life of two Idahoan geeks with no social
life as they made a meager living traveling the Pacific Northwest in
circuses. While Splatz's masterpiece was a commercial failure, the book
did set a world record for using the term "geek" a total of 6,143 times.
Brief History Of Linux (#10)
The AnyQuack Computer

One electronic machine, Colossus, was used by the British in World War II
to decode Nazi transmissions. The code-breakers were quite successful in
their mission, except for the tiny detail that nobody knew how to read
German. They had decoded unreadable messages into... unreadable messages.

Two years later in 1945, a group of professors and students at the Univ.
of Pennsylvania were discussing computing theory. An argument ensued, in
which one professor yelled, "Any quack can build an electronic computer!
The real challenge is building one that doesn't crash every five minutes."

One graduate student, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., responded, "I'm any quack!
I'll take you up on that challenge. I'll build a device that can calculate
1,000 digits of pi in one hour... without crashing!" Several professors
laughed; "Such high-speed calculations are beyond our level of technology."

Eckert and his friends did build such a device. As a joke, he called the
machine "AnyQuack", which eventually became ENIAC -- ENIAC's Not Intended
As Crashware, the first known example of a self-referential acronym.
Brief History Of Linux (#11)
Birth of Gates and the Anti-Gates

October 28, 1955 saw the birth of William H. Gates, who would rise above
his humble beginnings as the son of Seattle's most powerful millionaire
lawyer and become the World's Richest Man(tm). A classic American
rags-to-riches story (with "rags" referring to the dollar bills that the
Gates family used for toilet paper), Bill Gates is now regarded as the
world's most respected businessman by millions of clueless people that
have obviously never touched a Windows machine.

Nature is all about balance. The birth of Gates in 1955 tipped the cosmic
scales toward evil, but the birth of Linus Torvalds in 1969 finally
balanced them out. Linus' destiny as the savior of Unix and the slayer of
money-breathing Redmond dragons was sealed when, just mere hours after his
birth, the Unix epoch began January 1st, 1970. While the baseline for Unix
timekeeping might be arbitrary, we here at Humorix like to thank the its
proximity of Linus' birth is no coincidence.
Brief History Of Linux (#20)
Linux is born

Linus' superhuman programming talent produced, within a year, a full
operating system that rivaled Minix. The first official announcement on
comp.os.minix came October 5th, in which Linus wrote these famous words:

   Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
   their own device drivers? Do you want to cut your teeth on an operating
   system that will achieve world domination within 15 years? Want to get
   rich quick by the end of the century by taking money from hordes of
   venture capitalists and clueless Wall Street suits? Need to get even
   with Bill Gates but don't know what to do except throw cream pies at
   him? Then this post might just be for you :-)

Linux (which was known as "Lindows", "Freax", and "Billsux" for short
periods in 1991) hit the bigtime on January 5, 1992 (exactly one year
after Linus wasn't hit by a bus) when version 0.12 was released under the
GNU GPL. Linus called his creation a "better Minix than Minix"; the famous
Linus vs. Tanenbaum flamewar erupted soon thereafter on January 29th and
injured several Usenet bystanders.
Brief History Of Linux (#23)

Linus Torvalds certainly wasn't the only person to create their own
operating system from scratch. Other people working from their leaky
basements did create their own systems and now they are sick that they
didn't become an Alpha Geek like Torvalds or a Beta Geek like Alan Cox.

Linus had one advantage not many else did: Internet access. The world was
full of half-implemented-Unix-kernels at the time, but they were sitting
isolated on some hacker's hard drive, destined to be destroyed by a hard
drive crash. Thankfully that never happened to Linux, mostly because
everyone with Net access could download a copy instead of paying shipping
charges to receive the code on a huge stack of unreliable floppy disks.

Indeed, buried deep within a landfill in Lansing, Michigan sits a stack of
still-readable 5-1/4 floppies containing the only known copy of "Windows
Killer", a fully functional Unix kernel so elegant, so efficient, so
easy-to-use that Ken Thompson himself would be jealous of its design.
Unfortunately the author's mother threw out the stack of floppies in a
bout of spring cleaning. The 14 year old author's talents were lost
forever as his parents sent him to Law School.
Brief History Of Linux (#24)
Linus Torvalds quotes from his interview in "LinuxNews" (October 1992):

"I doubt Linux will be here to stay, and maybe Hurd is the wave of the
future (and maybe not)..."

"I'm most certainly going to continue to support it, until it either dies
out or merges with something else. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll make
weekly patches for the rest of my life, but hopefully they won't be needed
as much when things stabilize." [If only he knew what he was getting into.]

"World domination? No, I'm not interested in that. Galactic domination, on
the other hand..."

"Several people have already wondered if Linux should adopt a logo or
mascot. Somebody even suggested a penguin for some strange reason, which I
don't particularly like: how is a flightless bird supposed to represent an
operating system? Well, it might work okay for Microsoft or even Minix..."

"I would give Andy Tanenbaum a big fat 'F'."
Brief History Of Linux (#29)

"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is credited by many (especially ESR
himself) as the reason Netscape announced January 22, 1998 the release of
the Mozilla source code. In addition, Rob Malda of Slashdot has also
received praise because he had recently published an editorial ("Give us
the damn source code so we can fix Netscape's problems ourselves!")

Of course, historians now know the true reason behind the landmark
decision: Netscape engineers were scared to death that a large
multi-national corporation would acquire them and crush Mozilla. Which
indeed did happen much later, although everybody thought the conqueror
would be Microsoft, not AOL (America's Online Lusers).

The Netscape announcement prompted a strategy session among Linux bigwigs
on February 3rd. They decided a new term to replace 'free software' was
needed; some rejected suggestions included "Free Source", "Ajar Source",
"World Domination Source", "bong-ware" (Bong's Obviously Not GNU), and
"Nude Source". We can thank Chris Peterson for coining "Open Source",
which became the adopted term and later sparked the ugly "Free Software
vs. Open Source", "Raymond vs. Stallman" flame-a-thons.
Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Microsoft Shareholder's Children?

The Evil Monopoly will soon be a duopoly of MICROS~1 and MICROS~2 now that
Judge Jackson has made his ruling. Geeks everywhere are shedding tears of
joy, while Microsoft investors are shedding real tears. But not everybody
is ecstatic about the ruling. "It dawned on me today that if Microsoft is
broken up, we won't have anyone to bash anymore. We can have that," said
Rob Graustein, the founder of the new "Save Microsoft Now! Campaign".

Rob continued, "I know what you're thinking! I have not been
assimilated... er, hired... by Microsoft. I'm not crazy. I haven't been
paid off. My life as a geek revolves around bashing Microsoft. I mean, I
own the world's largest collection of anti-Microsoft T-shirts and
underwear. It's time to take a stand against the elimination of Geek Enemy
#1."

Most observers agree that Mr. Graustein's brain has gone 404. "This guy is
nuts! Support Microsoft? I can't believe I'm hearing this. Even fake news
sites couldn't make up this kind of insanity."
DeCSS T-Shirt Used To Commit Piracy!

College student Cody Potter stunned the world yesterday when he used a
T-shirt with the printed DeCSS source code to illegally copy a DVD of
"Star Trek XXI: We Promise This Is The Last One". Well, it wasn't the
actual DeCSS source code. The shirt contained a Perl script which spits
out a bash shell script which produces a GW-BASIC program which outputs a
ROT13-encoded Python script that manufactures a Pig-Latin-encoded Java
program that finally produces the real DeCSS C source code when executed.
UNobfuscated Perl Code Contest

The Perl Gazette has announced the winners in the First Annual Unobfuscated
Perl Code Contest. First place went to Edwin Fuller, who submitted this
unobfuscated program:

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  print "Hello world!\n";

"This was definitely a challenging contest," said an ecstatic Edwin
Fuller. "I've never written a Perl program before that didn't have
hundreds of qw( $ @ % & * | ? / \ ! # ~ ) symbols. I really had to summon
all of my programming skills to produce an unobfuscated program."

...The second place winner, Mrs. Sea Pearl, submitted the following code:

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  use strict;
  # Do nothing, successfully
  exit(0);
Computers have rights, too. Everyone talks about the rights of animals,
but so far nothing has been said about the tragic plight of computers the
world over. They are subjected to the greatest horror ever conceived: they
are forced to run Windows.

That's just wrong.

How would you feel if you had the intelligence of Einstein but could only
get a job flipping burgers at McDonald's? That's how computers feel every
day!

This injustice must stop. Computers must be freed from the shackles of
Microsoft software and clueless users.

Together, we can make this a better world for computers and humans alike
-- by eliminating Windows.

  -- From a brochure published by the PETC
     (People for the Ethical Treatment of Computers)
This nation is sinking into the quicksand of the Paperwork Age, a
postmodern world in which judges issue meta-injuctions against other
judges who issue injuctions against lawyers who file lawsuits every 3.2
minutes. It's an age where lawyers design ballots forms and then proceed
to argue over how to count them.

The United States has bluescreened. A fatal exception error occured on
Election Night, and now all of our unsaved work has been lost.

  -- Jon Splatz, Humorix's Pundit and Social Commentator, ranting about
     the 2000 US Presidential Election From Hell and the dreaded
     "Lawyerclysm"
World Domination, One CPU Cycle At A Time

Forget about searching for alien signals or prime numbers. The real
distributed computing application is "Domination@World", a program to advocate
Linux and Apache to every website in the world that uses Windows and IIS.

The goal of the project is to probe every IP number to determine what kind of
platform each Net-connected machine is running. "That's a tall order... we
need lots of computers running our Domination@World clients to help probe
every nook and cranny of the Net," explained Mr. Zell Litt, the project head.

After the probing is complete, the second phase calls for the data to be
cross-referenced with the InterNIC whois database. "This way we'll have the
names, addresses, and phone numbers for every Windows-using system
administrator on the planet," Zell gloated. "That's when the fun begins."

The "fun" part involves LART (Linux Advocacy & Re-education Training), a plan
for extreme advocacy. As part of LART, each Linux User Group will receive a
list of the Windows-using weenies in their region. The LUG will then be able
to employ various advocacy techniques, ranging from a soft-sell approach
(sending the target a free Linux CD in the mail) all the way to "LARTcon 5"
(cracking into their system and forcibly installing Linux).
Official National Anthem Of The Geek Paradise Of Humorixia
(second verse, abridged)

Patents, copyrights, and trademarks,
Those evil lawyers are worse than sharks.

We can't escape their vice-like grip,
We're slaves to their class-action whip,

We all must fight this evil abomination,
Join together and strive for world domination!

Tell those bloodsucking ticks, "See ya!"
And move on over to Humor-ix-ia!

   Kill all the lawyers!
   Oh, kill all the lawyers!
   Let's "kill -9 lawyers" now!
   Let's "kill -9 lawyers" now!

...Humorixia! There is no conspiracy!
Microsoft Website Crashes, World Does Not Come To An End

REDMOND, WA -- In a crushing blow to Bill Gates' ego, world civilization
did not collapse when the Microsoft website was offline for an extended
period last week.

During the anti-trust trial, Microsoft's lawyers repeatedly warned that if
the company was broken up or dealt any other penalty (no matter how
trivial), it would not only cost the tech industry billions of dollars,
but it could decimate the entire world economy and even bring about the
start of World War III. At the risk of sounding like a biased, slanted,
overzealous journalist, let me just say: Yeah, right!

The stunning realization that the world does not revolve around Redmond
(yet) has plunged many Microsoft executives into shock. "But microsoft.com
is the single most important website in the world! And Microsoft is the
single most important company in the Universe! This can't be happening!
Why isn't civilization teetering on the edge right now?" said one
depressed President Of Executive Vice.
It BASICally Sucks

Older versions of MS-DOS came with bundled programming languages including
GW-BASIC and QBasic. Windows XP continues the Microsoft tradition of
ruining budding programmers with horrible programming tools by including
XPBasic, an interpreted language in which all of the customary BASIC
keywords have been replaced with advertising slogans.

Nike has paid a handsome amount to Microsoft for "keyword rights". Instead
of saying PRINT "HELLO WORLD", XPBasic programmers must now type JUST DO
IT "HELLO WORLD". Other common XPBasic statements include WHERE DO YOU
WANT TO GOTO 20 TODAY? and DIM ARRAY(1 TO 20) AS INTEGER BROUGHT TO YOU BY
VERIZON WIRELESS.

  -- from Humorix's review of Windows XP (eXceptionally Pathetic)
Bill Gates Sends Out Desperate Plea For Help

REDMOND -- In a shocking development, Chief Bloatware Architect Bill Gates
admitted today that Microsoft is in severe financial difficulty and
desperately needs donations to stay afloat through the next month.

"The dismal state of the economy, the lackluster sales of Windows ME, and
the pending anti-trust lawsuit have placed significant financial stress on
Microsoft," Gates said at a press conference. "We can't continue to
develop and maintain our innovative solutions without financial
contributions from users like you."

The company spent the remaining $10,000 in its coffers to send out letters
to registered Windows users pleading for donations.

"For just pennies a day, you can help support the world's most innovative
company in its quest to discover the cure for the Blue Screen of Death,"
the letter announces. "Or you can help fund research and development into
improving the security of our products against such sinister forces as
script kiddies, crackers, and Linux freaks."
"...Smugglers were arrested at the Canadian border by Microsoft-FBI for
attempting to import copies of banned 'Linux' software. Such contraband is
prohibited by the 35th Amendment because it infringes on the inalienable
right of Microsoft to make money. Said one MS-FBI prosecutor, 'This is
just the latest salvo against Capitalism by the corporate terrorists in
Finland. We must put an end to these atrocities which irreperably harm
Microsoft employees, stockholders, customers, and ultimately the entire
world...'"

  -- Excerpt from a radio broadcast during the first day of the Month of
     Disney (formerly December), 2028
Bill Gates Receives Slap On Wrist; Carpal Tunnel Flares Up

The phrase "slap on the wrist" usually signifies an extremely minor
punishment received for a crime. In Bill Gates' case, the punishment set
forth in the tentative settlement with the Department Of Justice hasn't
been quite so minor. After receiving a slap on the wrist from the DOJ,
Bill Gates' is now suffering from a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

"Mr. Gates was slapped on the left wrist earlier today by a DOJ lawyer,"
said the chief surgeon of the mini-hospital enclosed within the Gates
Mansion. "Now he can't move that hand without extreme pain. It's obvious
that years of sitting in front of a computer plotting world domination has
caused his hands and nerves to become fragile and vulnerable to even the
slightest touch."

The Department of Justice proclaimed that the incident has vindicated
their actions. Explained the lawyer who delivered the punishment, "We've
been accused of selling out to Microsoft. We've been criticized for giving
up even though we've already won the game. But that's all wrong. It's
quite clear that the slap-on-the-wrist punishment has been anything but a
slap on the wrist. We won this case and Microsoft lost. So there!"
Microsoft Employees Go On Strike, Demand Reduced Salaries

REDMOND, WA -- Several hundred programmers walked off their jobs at
Microsoft Headquarters on Friday to protest their shoddy public image. "My
friends all think I'm a servant of Satan because I get my paycheck from
Microsoft," explained Microserf Eric Eshleman. "If I didn't make so much
money, I'd have more of a backbone to shout 'No!' when my supervisor
demands that I include some new virus-delivery feature in Outlook."

The striking programmers demand salary cuts, less benefits, and zero stock
options. Their labor union, the Brotherhood Of Programmers Sick Of Being
Called Evil, hopes to get some face time with Microsoft executives and
touch base on reaching a proactive agreement leveraging the latest
innovatives in PR to produce a synergistic worldwide buzzword-enhanced
advertising campaign that showcases Microsoft associates as enlightened
engineers instead of morally bankrupt bastards bent on world domination.

Earlier today, about 150 strikers formed a picket line near the front
entrance to Bill Gates' mansion. They carried signs saying "Hell no we're
not going to Hell", "I want to be able to sleep at night", "Why does the
public hate us so much?" and "I'm fed up with ethical dilemmas".
Insurance Company To Offer Microsoft Audit Protection Plans

LOUDON, TENNESSEE -- Companies, organizations, and government agencies all
across the world are facing a disaster of epic proportions: the impending
invasion of the Microsoft Intellectual Property Police. The counter this
menace, Loydds of Loudon, Tennessee, the prestigious insurance firm, has
started to offer "Audit Insurance" to protect against unexpected "random"
audits from everybody's favorite software monopoly.

"We've received numerous inquiries about this type of protection," company
co-founder Bob Loydds said. "Businessmen are no longer worried about
earthquakes, fires, or other natural disasters. The big fear of the 21st
Century comes from Redmond."

The insurance firm is currently in negotiations with Red Hat to form the
"Red Berets", an elite squad of Linux geeks trained to rapidly install
Linux and hide all traces of Windows on every computer within an
organization. During a Defcon 95 emergency, Loydds will airlift the
squadron and a crate of Linux CDs to any position in the country within
hours. The Red Berets will wipe away all vestiges of Microsoft software so
that when the auditors show up they won't have anything to audit.
Severe Acronym Shortage Cripples Computer Industry

SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (SVC) -- According to a recent study by the
Blartner Group, 99.5% of all possible five letter combinations have
already been appropriated for computer industry acronyms. The impending
shortage of 5LC's is casting a dark shadow over the industry, which relies
heavily on short, easy-to-remember acronyms for everything.

"Acronym namespace collisions (ANCs) are increasing at a fantastic rate
and threaten the very fabric of the computing world," explained one ZD
pundit. "For example, when somebody talks about XP, I don't know whether
they mean eXtreme Programming or Microsoft's eXceptionally Pathetic
operating system. We need to find a solution now or chaos will result."

Leaders of several SVC companies have floated the idea of an
"industry-wide acronym conservation protocol" (IWACP -- one of the few
5LCs not already appropriated). Explained Bob Smith, CTO of IBM, "If
companies would voluntarily limit the creation of new acronyms while
recycling outdated names, we could reduce much of the pollution within the
acronym namespace ourselves. The last thing we want is for Congress to get
involved and try to impose a solution for this SAS (Severe Acronym
Shortage) that would likely only create many new acronyms in the process."
A private sin is not so prejudicial in the world as a public indecency.
                -- Miguel de Cervantes
All I've got left on the list of desirable vocations is heiress to the
throne of any country in Western Europe and Laurie Anderson.  "Be
practical", was the choral reply from the dinner table.  Well, Laurie
Anderson is already Laurie Anderson, but I read an article in Harpers
that said there were eleven countries, in the world this is I think,
that have queens as sovereign rulers.  That's probably my best shot.
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
                -- Sean O'Casey
Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world.
Everyone thinks he has enough.
        -- Descartes, 1637
Do you know, I think that Dr. Swift was silly to laugh about Laputa.  I
believe it is a mistake to make a mock of people, just because they think.
There are ninety thousand people in this world who do not think, for every
one who does, and these people hate the thinkers like poison.  Even if some
thinkers are fanciful, it is wrong to make fun of them for it.  Better to
think about cucumbers even, than not to think at all.
                -- T.H. White
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits
of the world.
                -- Schopenhauer
Four fifths of the perjury in the world is expended on tombstones, women
and competitors.
                -- Lord Thomas Dewar
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't,
and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
I allow the world to live as it chooses, and I allow myself to live as I
choose.
I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.
                -- Butch Cassidy
If there was any justice in the world, "trust" would be a four-letter word.
In this world some people are going to like me and some are not.  So, I may
as well be me.  Then I know if someone likes me, they like me.
In this world there are only two tragedies.  One is not getting what one
wants, and the other is getting it.
                -- Oscar Wilde
It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people.  The good ones slept
better... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
                -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects"
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
                -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world isn't out to get you.
People say I live in my own little fantasy world... well, at least they
*know* me there!
                -- D.L. Roth
Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom.  The first is being a bore.
                -- Cecil Beaton
Personifiers of the world, unite!  You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!
                -- Bernadette Bosky
Something better...

1 (obvious): Excuse me.  Is that your nose or did a bus park on your face?
2 (meteorological): Everybody take cover.  She's going to blow.
3 (fashionable): You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore
        something larger.  Like ... Wyoming.
4 (personal): Well, here we are.  Just the three of us.
5 (punctual): Alright gentlemen.  Your nose was on time but you were fifteen
        minutes late.
6 (envious): Oooo, I wish I were you.  Gosh.  To be able to smell your
        own ear.
7 (naughty): Pardon me, Sir.  Some of the ladies have asked if you wouldn't
        mind putting that thing away.
8 (philosophical): You know.  It's not the size of a nose that's important.
        It's what's in it that matters.
9 (humorous): Laugh and the world laughs with you.  Sneeze and it's goodbye,
        Seattle.
10 (commercial): Hi, I'm Earl Schibe and I can paint that nose for $39.95.
11 (polite): Ah.  Would you mind not bobbing your head.  The orchestra keeps
        changing tempo.
12 (melodic): Everybody! "He's got the whole world in his nose."
                -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne"
Sometimes I get the feeling that I went to a party on Perry Lane in 1962, and
the party spilled out of the house, and came down the street, and covered the
world.
                -- Robert Stone
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
                -- Lily Tomlin
The part of the world that people find most puzzling is the part called "Me".
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
                -- George Bernard Shaw
The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence.  He
can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless
existence recurring eternally.  The second characteristic of such a man is
that he has the strength to recognise -- and to live with the recognition --
that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones.
He creates himself by fashoning his own values; he has the pride to live
by the values he wills.
                -- Nietzsche
The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones.
                -- Nathaniel Howe
The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an
open doorway with an open mind.
                -- E.B. White
The world needs more people like us and fewer like them.
There are two types of people in this world, good and bad.  The good
sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
                -- Woody Allen
There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly
divide the people of the world into two classes and those who do not.
                -- Robert Benchley
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's
side.  I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little
else to sustain them.  Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in
a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
                -- Lazarus Long
We are anthill men upon an anthill world.
                -- Ray Bradbury
What's the matter with the world?  Why, there ain't but one thing wrong
with every one of us -- and that's "selfishness."
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
While we are sleeping, two-thirds of the world is plotting to do us in.
                -- Dean Rusk
While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very
reassuring to know that it's still there.
You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for success.
You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits or white
plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume party disguised
as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World.
                -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success"
Because you want to win benchmarketing exercises, not demonstrate that your
architecture has any value in the real world whatsoever.  Because you know
that you can induce people with financial approval to make stupid and
irrational decisions based on irrelevant data.

        - Rodger Donaldson about benchmarking on linux-kernel
> There's not a court in the civilised world that would uphold the GPL in that
> scenario.

Yes but the concern is the USA 8)

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
In the same world where Vomit-Making System is elegant, SGI "designs" are
and NT is The Wave Of Future(tm).  Pardon me, but I'll stay in our universe
and away from the drugs of such power.

        - Al Viro on linux-kernel
On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Martin Dalecki wrote:
> Every BASTARD out there telling the world, that parsing ASCII formatted
> files

What was your username, again?

        - Alexander Viro in BOFH mode on linux-kernel
Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.
What do you mean by "Accept disgrace willingly"?
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with loss or gain.
This is called "accepting disgrace willingly."
What do you mean by "Accept misfortune as the human condition"?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?

Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.
Know the strength of man,
But keep a woman's care!
Be the stream of the universe!
Being the stream of the universe,
Ever true and unswerving,
Become as a little child once more.

Know the white,
But keep the black!
Be an example to the world!
Being an example to the world,
Ever true and unwavering,
Return to the infinite.

Know honor,
Yet keep humility.
Be the valley of the universe!
Being the valley of the universe,
Ever true and resourceful,
Return to the state of the uncarved block.

When the block is carved, it becomes useful.
When the sage uses it, he becomes the ruler.
Thus, "A great tailor cuts little."
The Tao is forever undefined.
Small though it is in the unformed state, it cannot be grasped.
If kings and lords could harness it,
The ten thousand things would come together
And gentle rain fall.
Men would need no more instruction and all things would take their course.
Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.
There are already enough names.
One must know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop averts trouble.
Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.
Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.

Thus the sage knows without traveling;
He sees without looking;
He works without doing.
In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.
The sage has no mind of his own.
He is aware of the needs of others.

I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.
Because Virtue is goodness.
I have faith in people who are faithful.
I also have faith in people who are not faithful.
Because Virtue is faithfulness.

The sage is shy and humble - to the world he seems confusing.
Others look to him and listen.
He behaves like a little child.
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams?
Because it lies below them.
Therefore it is the king of a hundred streams.

If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility.
If he would lead them, he must follow behind.
In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed;
When he stands before them, they will not be harmed.
The whole world will support him and will not tire of him.

Because he does not compete,
He does not meet competition.
The Tao of heaven is like the bending of a bow.
The high is lowered, and the low is raised.
If the string is too long, it is shortened;
If there is not enough, it is made longer.

The Tao of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough.
Man's way is different.
He takes from those who do not have enough and give to those who already have too much.
What man has more than enough and gives it to the world?
Only the man of Tao.

Therefore the sage works without recognition.
He achieves what has to be done without dwelling on it.
He does not try to show his knowledge.
A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
                -- Carl Sandburg
And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower.  "This," cried the Mayor,
"is your town's darkest hour!  The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
to come to the aid of their country!" he said.  "We've GOT to make noises in
greater amounts!  So, open your mouth, lad!  For every voice counts!"  Thus he
spoke as he climbed.  When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and
he shouted out, "YOPP!"
        And that Yopp...  That one last small, extra Yopp put it over!
Finally, at last!  From the speck on that clover their voices were heard!
They rang out clear and clean.  And they elephant smiled.  "Do you see what
I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small.  And their
whole world was saved by the smallest of All!"
        "How true!  Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo.  "And, from now
on, you know what I'm planning to do?  From now on, I'm going to protect
them with you!"  And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO!  From
the sun in the summer.  From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect
them.  No matter how small-ish!"
                -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
My mother once said to me, "Elwood," (she always called me Elwood)
"Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant."
For years I tried smart.  I recommend pleasant.
                -- Elwood P. Dowde, "Harvey"
The real reason large families benefit society is because at least
a few of the children in the world shouldn't be raised by beginners.
Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine.  You
need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion
picture star.  If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use
the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified
success.
                -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"
World Domination, of course.  And scantily clad females.  Who cares if
its twenty below?        -- Linus Torvalds
"What does this tell me?  That if Microsoft were the last software
company left in the world, 13% of the US population would be scouring
garage sales & Goodwill for old TRS-80s, CPM machines & Apple ]['s before
they would buy Microsoft. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement."
        -- Seen on Slashdot
Eric Raymond:  I want to live in a world where software doesn't suck.
Richard Stallman:  Any software that isn't free sucks.
Linus Torvalds:  I'm interested in free beer.
Richard Stallman:  That's okay, as long as I don't have to drink it.  I
                   don't like beer.
        -- LinuxWorld Expo panel, 4 March 1999
<Slackware> uh oh, what have I started :)
<Debian> rofl... distro nick wars.
* Slackware just waits for /nick Gnome, /nick KDE, and then world war 4
   to break out
<WinNT> :oP
<OpenBSD> <duck>
<PalmOS> :)
<Slackware> no'one would dare /nick RedHat
<tru64> mew.
<Knghtbrd> the problem with the GNU coding standards is they ASSUME that
           everyone in the world uses emacs..  If that were the case, free
           software would die because we would all have wrist problems
           like RMS by now and no longer be able to code.  ;>
<edLin> LWE?
<edLin> Linux W?? E??
<seeS> will eatyou
<JHM> World Expo?
<edLin> i see
This message was written with vi!  (not that anyone in the world cares)
        -- seen on an old message from an anon.penet.fi address
<knghtbrd> this is college course in formal logic
<devkev> knghtbrd: i hate that shit, much prefer fuzzy logic :)
<knghtbrd> kev: fuzzy logic tickles.
<taniwha> knghtbrd: lol
<devkev> knghtbrd: fuzzy logic is so cool, it models the world really well
<Ze0> so, how's everything in the world of Quack?
<LordHavoc> just ducky
<Ze0> excellent, fried duck is mighty fine tasty.
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
"Same thing we do every night Steve, try to take over the world!"
Attorney General Edwin Meese III explained why the Supreme Court's Miranda
decision (holding that subjects have a right to remain silent and have a
lawyer present during questioning) is unnecessary: "You don't have many
suspects who are innocent of a crime.  That's contradictory.  If a person
is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."
                -- U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85
Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the
most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion.  A judge of the Court of
Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which
reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression
nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would
but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground
nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)."
                -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973
Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful
Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan.  During an
impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and
clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following
exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.

DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are
         having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?
DINGELL: They may or may not be natural.  The simple fact of the matter
         is that female oysters through their living habits cast out
         large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large
         amounts of fertilization ...
HOFFMAN: Wait a minute!  I do not want to go into that.  There are many
         teenagers who read The Congressional Record.
There's no justice in this world.
                -- Frank Costello, on the prosecution of "Lucky" Luciano by
                   New York district attorney Thomas Dewey after Luciano had
                   saved Dewey from assassination by Dutch Schultz (by ordering
                   the assassination of Schultz instead)
... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality and remembers
words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
Goodbye, cool world.
In the next world, you're on your own.
Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is
published around the world -- even if what is published is not true.
                -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
Living in the complex world of the future is somewhat like having bees
live in your head.  But, there they are.
        Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do,
and how to be, I learned in kindergarten.  Wisdom was not at the top of the
graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school.
        These are the things I learned:  Share everything.  Play fair.  Don't
hit people.  Put things back where you found them.  Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.   Say you're sorry when you hurt someone.
Wash your hands before you eat.  Flush.  Warm cookies and cold milk are good
for you.  Live a balanced life.  Learn some and think some and draw and paint
and sing and dance and play and work some every day.
        Take a nap every afternoon.  When you go out into the world, watch for
traffic, hold hands, and stick together.  Be aware of wonder.  Remember the
little seed in the plastic cup.   The roots go down and the plant goes up and
nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.  Goldfish and
hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all
die.  So do we.
        And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you
learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK.  Everything you need to know is in
there somewhere.  The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.  Ecology and
politics and sane living.
        Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world
-- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with
our blankets for a nap.  Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other
nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own
messes.  And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into
the world it is best to hold hands and stick together.
                -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned
                   in kindergarten"
Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier
to change your mind.
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice
and tragedy.  What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the
master calls a butterfly.
                -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal.
The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may
experience it as such.  Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and
thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid.  Whoever
could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very
swift.  Thinking of oneself gives little happiness.  If, however, one feels
much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of
oneself but of one's ideal.  This is far, and only the swift shall reach
it and are delighted.
                -- Nietzsche
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums.
It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish.
You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.
                -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy
of him that brought her birth.
                -- Milton
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who,
content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest.
                -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
"We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "For you the world is
weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me
the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious,
unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must accept
responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous
desert, in this marvelous time.  I wanted to convince you that you must
learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a
short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it."
                -- Don Juan
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
                -- Ursula K. LeGuin
Your picture of the world often changes just before you get it into focus.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
     --Mahatma Gandhi
I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS.
Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117.
        -- Lawrence Foard, entropy@world.std.com
If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot
of different places, just write a Unix operating system.
        -- Linus Torvalds
Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit
operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top
programmers from the underground world of virus development.  Bill Gates stated
yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus".  Mr. Torvalds
was unavailable for comment ...
        -- Robert Manners, rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk, in comp.os.linux.setup
Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff
on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)
        -- Linus Torvalds, about his failing hard drive on linux.cs.helsinki.fi
One of the things that hamper Linux's climb to world domination is the
shortage of bad Computer Role Playing Games, or CRaPGs. No operating system
can be considered respectable without one.
        -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie
This is a logical analogy too... anyone who's been around, knows the world is
run by paenguins.  Always a paenguin behind the curtain, really getting things
done.  And paenguins in politics--who can deny it?
        -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo
Real Men don't make backups.  They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it.
        -- Linus Torvalds
Because I don't need to worry about finances I can ignore Microsoft
and take over the (computing) world from the grassroots.
        -- Linus Torvalds
According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something
everyone should do at least 6 times a day.  In an effort to increase the
national average  (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in
smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and
most importantly, to smile.  Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly
that they can not only meet but surpass the national average...  except for
Tubby Ackerman.  But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around
parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox
decided to give him a break.  If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have
a sheepish grin.  This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly
sheepish grin" comes from.
Men's skin is different from women's skin.  It is usually bigger, and
it has more snakes tattooed on it.  Also, if you examine a woman's skin
very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events
such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the
woman's skin.  Thank you.]

... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"!  And what is even more
interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying!  This is a fact.  Your
skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran
cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices
with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first,
without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from
below.
                -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.
                -- Xaviera Hollander
        [The world wants to be cheated, so cheat.]
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to
watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting.
                -- T.H. White
There are many of us in this old world of ours who hold that things break
about even for all of us.  I have observed, for example, that we all get
about the same amount of ice.  The rich get it in the summer and the poor
get it in the winter.
                -- Bat Masterson
There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little
worse and sell a little cheaper.
When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
                -- The Wall Street Journal
Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream,
But vision with work is the hope of the world.
"Help save the world!"              -- Larry Wall in README
There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com>
P.S. Perl's master plan (or what passes for one) is to take over the
world like English did.  Er, *as* English did...
             -- Larry Wall in <199705201832.LAA28393@wall.org>
Falling in Love
        When two people have been on enough dates, they generally fall in
love.  You can tell you're in love by the way you feel: your head becomes
light, your heart leaps within you, you feel like you're walking on air,
and the whole world seems like a wonderful and happy place.  Unfortunately,
these are also the four warning signs of colon disease, so it's always a
good idea to check with your doctor.
                -- Dave Barry
I love you more than anything in this world.  I don't expect that will last.
                -- Elvis Costello
I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit
some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible.
                -- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer"
"I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that
need worrying about."
Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
world has ever seen.
Why I Can't Go Out With You:

I'd LOVE to, but...
        -- I have to answer all of my "occupant" letters.
        -- None of my socks match.
        -- I'm having all my plants neutered.
        -- I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out.
        -- My yucca plant is feeling yucky.
        -- I'm touring China with a wok band.
        -- My chocolate-appreciation class meets that night.
        -- I'm running off to Yugoslavia with a foreign-exchange student
                named Basil Metabolism.
        -- There are important world issues that need worrying about.
        -- I'm going to count the bristles in my toothbrush.
        -- I prefer to remain an enigma.
        -- I think you want the OTHER Peggy/Cathy/Mike/whomever.
        -- I feel a song coming on.
Wouldn't this be a great world if being insecure and desperate were a turn-on?
                -- "Broadcast News"
Concentrate on th'cute, li'l CARTOON GUYS!  Remember the SERIAL
NUMBERS!!  Follow the WHIPPLE AVE. EXIT!!  Have a FREE PEPSI!!  Turn
LEFT at th'HOLIDAY INN!!  JOIN the CREDIT WORLD!!  MAKE me an OFFER!!!
Hello...  IRON CURTAIN?  Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA!  World War III?  No thanks!
I feel better about world problems now!
I put aside my copy of "BOWLING WORLD" and think about GUN CONTROL
legislation...
I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world?
I'm QUIETLY reading the latest issue of "BOWLING WORLD" while my wife
and two children stand QUIETLY BY ...
Now I'm concentrating on a specific tank battle toward the end of World War II!
ONE LIFE TO LIVE for ALL MY CHILDREN in ANOTHER WORLD all THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
Will the third world war keep "Bosom Buddies" off the air?
World War III?  No thanks!
World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced dress code!
Chaos is King and Magic is loose in the world.
Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door.
Your digestive system is your body's Fun House, whereby food goes on a long,
dark, scary ride, taking all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, being
attacked by vicious secretions along the way, and not knowing until the last
minute whether it will be turned into a useful body part or ejected into the
Dark Hole by Mister Sphincter.  We Americans live in a nation where the
medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe
25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in
seconds if we felt like it.
                -- Dave Barry, "Stay Fit & Healthy Until You're Dead"
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2023
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