Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Mos Eisley Spaceport; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy... -- Obi-wan Kenobi, "Star Wars" | |
Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up! -- Harlan Ellison | |
"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can* you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] | |
Chihuahuas drive me crazy. I can't stand anything that shivers when it's warm. | |
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Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator. (By jdege@winternet.com, Jeff Dege) | |
I've heard a Jew and a Muslim argue in a Damascus cafe with less passion than the emacs wars." -- Ronald Florence <ron@18james.com> in <ueu1c4mbrc.fsf@auda.18james.com> | |
Communications satellite used by the military for star wars. | |
A star wars satellite accidently blew up the WAN. | |
Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the right road: a man like Alf Romeo. -- Rachel Sheeley, winner The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never see her little dog Pritzi again. -- Claudia Fields, runner-up It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it was determined that Byron was simply a jerk. -- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. The contest is named after the author of the immortal lines: "It was a dark and stormy night." The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the worst possible novel. | |
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know. -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. | |
[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made in Japan]: The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT MATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is featured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality against low cost," "diversified functions with compact design," "flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00 Dot/Head," "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agile operating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc. And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help achieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by HOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being. | |
X windows: Something you can be ashamed of. 30% more entropy than the leading window system. The first fully modular software disaster. Rome was destroyed in a day. Warn your friends about it. Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. An accident that couldn't wait to happen. Don't wait for the movie. Never use it after a big meal. Need we say less? Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. It'll make your day. Don't get frustrated without it. Power tools for power losers. A software disaster of Biblical proportions. Never had it. Never will. The software with no visible means of support. More than just a generation behind. Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. X windows. | |
May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full mooon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door. | |
"Ahead warp factor 1" - Captain Kirk | |
"And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the basement: 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the head with an axe! 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your underwear. 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" -- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th | |
New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise machines, sweating rainmakers. On the corners stand witchdoctors and headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives. And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens, and then fires flower to ward off monsters. Careful: the streets are sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a bit jungle-wise. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ | |
"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the things we know that ain't so." -- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farrar Brown | |
Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What should I do? A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the correction. And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform the whole net right away! -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born. -- Francois Fenelon | |
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 am not a politician and my other habits are also good. -- A. Ward | |
I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother. -- Artemus Ward | |
Peace is much more precious than a piece of land... let there be no more wars. -- Mohammed Anwar Sadat, 1918-1981 | |
The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, "How's the President?" -- Will Rogers The vice-presidency ain't worth a pitcher of warm spit. -- Vice President John Nance Garner | |
What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent? In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life. First, a base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done. Second, a period of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human activities must exist. Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses the national attention upon the direction to proceed. Finally, an articulate and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with words and action the great thing to be accomplished. The motivation of young Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of conditions. ... The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John Kennedys appear. We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they, and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward. -- Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt | |
Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #2 Given the incredible advances in sociocybernetics and telepsychology over the last few years, we are now able to completely understand everything that the author of an memo is trying to say. Thanks to modern developments in electrocommunications like notes, vnews, and electricity, we have an incredible level of interunderstanding the likes of which civilization has never known. Thus, the possibility of your misinterpreting someone else's memo is practically nil. Knowing this, anyone who accuses you of having done so is a liar, and should be treated accordingly. If you *do* understand the memo in question, but have absolutely nothing of substance to say, then you have an excellent opportunity for a vicious ad hominem attack. In fact, the only *inappropriate* times for an ad hominem attack are as follows: 1: When you agree completely with the author of an memo. 2: When the author of the original memo is much bigger than you are. 3: When replying to one of your own memos. | |
If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. | |
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
Symptom: Feet cold and wet, glass empty. Fault: Glass being held at incorrect angle. Action Required: Turn glass other way up so that open end points toward ceiling. Symptom: Feet warm and wet. Fault: Improper bladder control. Action Required: Go stand next to nearest dog. After a while complain to the owner about its lack of house training and demand a beer as compensation. -- Bar Troubleshooting | |
When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
Woody: What's the story, Mr. Peterson? Norm: The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery. Let's just cut to the happy ending. -- Cheers, Airport V Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you. Norm: I know, and if she calls, I'm not here. -- Cheers, Bar Wars II: The Woodman Strikes Back Sam: Beer, Norm? Norm: Have I gotten that predictable? Good. -- Cheers, Don't Paint Your Chickens | |
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, Jack Frost nipping at your nose? Norm: Yep, now let's get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh? -- Cheers, Feeble Attraction Sam: What are you up to Norm? Norm: My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall. -- Cheers, Bar Wars III: The Return of Tecumseh Woody: Nice cold beer coming up, Mr. Peterson. Norm: You mean, `Nice cold beer going *down* Mr. Peterson.' -- Cheers, Loverboyd | |
Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb? A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been given all light bulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission. | |
Eli and Bessie went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Bessie nudged Eli. "Please be so kindly and close the window. It's cold outside!" Half asleep, Eli murmured, "Nu ... so if I'll close the window, will it be warm outside?" | |
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. | |
The American nation in the sixth ward is a fine people; they love the eagle -- on the back of a dollar. -- Finlay Peter Dunne | |
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. | |
The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes', with a footnote to effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came'. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
The instruments of science do not in themselves discover truth. And there are searchings that are not concluded by the coincidence of a pointer and a mark. -- Fred Saberhagen, "The Berserker Wars" | |
... we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. I do not doubt that natural selection acted in building our oversized brains -- and I am equally confident that our brains became large as an adaptation for definite roles (probably a complex set of interacting functions). But these assumptions do not lead to the notion, often uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians, that all major capacities of the brain must arise as direct products of natural selection. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
We warn the reader in advance that the proof presented here depends on a clever but highly unmotivated trick. -- Howard Anton, "Elementary Linear Algebra" | |
For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to never have tasted the 'Great Chieftain O' the Pudden Race' (i.e. haggis) here is an easy to follow recipe which results in a dish remarkably similar to the above mentioned protected species. Ingredients: 1 Sheep's Pluck (heart, lungs, liver) and bag 2 teacupsful toasted oatmeal 1 teaspoonful salt 8 oz. shredded suet 2 small onions 1/2 teaspoonful black pepper Scrape and clean bag in cold, then warm, water. Soak in salt water overnight. Wash pluck, then boil for 2 hours with windpipe draining over the side of pot. Retain 1 pint of stock. Cut off windpipe, remove surplus gristle, chop or mince heart and lungs, and grate best part of liver (about half only). Parboil and chop onions, mix all together with oatmeal, suet, salt, pepper and stock to moisten. Pack the mixture into bag, allowing for swelling. Boil for three hours, pricking regularly all over. If bag not available, steam in greased basin covered by greaseproof paper and cloth for four to five hours. | |
MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers 2 cups water 2 cups sugar 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine Cinnamon Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box | |
"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins, "I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins. A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet! I'll try my teeth on thee now. Hee now! See now! I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins; I've a mind to dine on thee now." But just as he thought his dinner was caught, He found his hands had hold of naught. Before he could mind, Tom slipped behing And gave him the boot to larn him. Warn him! Darn him! A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thoguht, Would be the way to larn him. But harder than stone is the flesh and bone Of a troll that sits in the hills alone. As well set your boot to the mountain's root, For the seat of a troll don't feel it. Peel it! Heal it! Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan, And he knew his toes could feel it. Tom's leg is game, since home he came, And his bootless foot is lasting lame; But Troll don't care, and he's still there With the bone he boned from its owner. Doner! Boner! Troll's old seat is still the same, And the bone he boned from its owner! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda S-O-D-A soda I saw the little runt sitting there on a log I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I've been around but I ain't never seen A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda -- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of "Lola" by the Kinks | |
In high school in Brooklyn I was the baseball manager, proud as I could be I chased baseballs, gathered thrown bats handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own It was very important work but it was dark blue while for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything When the team got to me about my blue jacket; their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket got these jackets, and among all those green ones surely not a manager Even now, forty years after, I still recall that jacket and the memory goes on hurting. -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance" | |
It's just a jump to the left And then a step to the right. Put your hands on your hips And pull your knees in tight. It's the pelvic thrust That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN! -- Rocky Horror Picture Show | |
Nature to all things fixed the limits fit, And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. As on the land while here the ocean gains, In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; Thus in the soul while memory prevails, The solid power of understanding fails; Where beams of warm imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away. -- Alexander Pope (on runtime bounds checking?) | |
Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
When my fist clenches crack it open, Before I use it and lose my cool. When I smile tell me some bad news, Before I laugh and act like a fool. And if I swallow anything evil, Put you finger down my throat. And if I shiver please give me a blanket, Keep me warm let me wear your coat No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man. Behind blue eyes. No one knows what its like to be hated, to be fated, To telling only lies. -- The Who | |
Ahead warp factor one, Mr. Sulu. | |
She won' go Warp 7, Cap'n! The batteries are dead! | |
Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with. | |
We'll pivot at warp 2 and bring all tubes to bear, Mr. Sulu! | |
BOOK ...Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. | |
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons. Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted ... -- Douglas Admas "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy" | |
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If... 1. When a Microsoft program crashes for the millionth time, you say "Oh, well!" and reboot without any negative thoughts 2. The Windows 95 startup screen (the clouds) makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside 3. You fully understand why Windows 95's Shutdown Option has to be accessed from the Start Menu 4. You believe Internet Explorer's security flaws were slipped in by a crack team of Netscape programmers 5. You keep valuable papers near your fireplace. Therefore, you are comfortable with Windows 95's "may-delete-it-at-anytime" philosophy 6. You're the Bob that Microsoft Bob was named after 7. Instead of "I'd rather be fishing," your bumper sticker says, "I'd rather be writing buggy Microsoft code" 8. You know the technical difference between OLE 1.0 and OLE 2.0 9. You've ever completed your income taxes while waiting for Windows 95 to boot, and didn't think anything of it 10. You run Solitaire more than any other program, and therefore you consider your computer a Dedicated Solitaire Engine (DSE) | |
Examples of the output generated when running commonly typed commands under YODIX, the new Unix-like operating system for Star Wars fans (Submitted by Dave Finton): # pwd Know you not where you are. Show you I shall. # uptime When 900 years you be, look this good you will not. # cd /win95 Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny! # winnuke 192.168.1.0 That, my friend, will lead you to the dark side. Help you I will not. # rm -rf / Idiot you are. Yeeesss. # shutdown -h now Luke... there is... another... Sky... walker... | |
Jargon Coiner (#8) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * STAR SPINOFFS: Applying themes and ideas from "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" to contemporary events. Examples: "Let the Source be with you!", "Microsoft is the Evil Empire", "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated by Microsoft". * TRADEMARKIZATION(tm): Giving a phrase special meaning by appending a trademark symbol to it. Examples: "Think Free Speech, Not Free Beer(tm)", "Real Soon Now(tm)", "Blue Screen of Death(tm)" | |
Brief History Of Linux (#14) Military Intelligence: Not an oxymoron in 1969 It was the Department Of Defense that commissioned the ARPANET in 1969, a rare example of the US military breaking away from its official motto, "The Leading Edge Of Yesterday's Technology(tm)". In the years leading up to 1969, packet switching technology had evolved enough to make the ARPANET possible. Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. received the ARPA contract in 1968 for packet switching "Interface Message Processors". US Senator Edward Kennedy, always on the ball, sent a telegram to BBN praising them for their non-denominational "Interfaith" Message Processors, an act unsurpassed by elected representatives until Al Gore invented the Internet years later. While ARPANET started with only four nodes in 1969, it evolved rapidly. Email was first used in 1971; by 1975 the first mailing list, MsgGroup, was created by Steve Walker when he sent a "First post!" messages to it. In 1979 all productive use of ARPANET ceased when USENET and the first MUD were created. In 1983, when the network surpassed 1,000 hosts, a study showed that 90.4% of all traffic was devoted to email and USENET flame wars. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#25) By the mid-1990's the Linux community was burgeoning as countless geeks fled Redmond monopolistic oppression, Armonk cluelessness, and Cupertino click-and-drool reality distortion fields. By late 1991 there was an informal Linux User Group in Finland, although its primary focus was Linux advocacy, not drinking beer and telling Microsoft jokes as most do today. Kernel development continued at a steady clip, with more and more people joining in and hoping that their patches would be accepted by the Benevolent Dictator himself. To have a patch accepted by Linus was like winning the Nobel Prize, but to face rejection was like being rejected from Clown College. The reputation game certainly sparked some flame wars. One of the most memorable crisis was over the behavior of the delete and backspace keys. A certain faction of hackers wanted the Backspace key to actually backspace and the Delete key to actually delete. Linus wasn't too keen on the proposed changes; "It Works For Me(tm)" is all he said. Some observers now think Linus was pulling rank to get back at the unknown hacker who managed to slip a patch by him that replaced the "Kernel panic" error with "Kernel panic: Linus probably fscked it all up again". | |
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. | |
Clippit Charged With Attempted Murder Microsoft's Dancing Paper Clip turned violent last week and nearly killed a university student testing a new Windows-based human-computer interface. The victim is expected to make a full recovery, although psychiatrists warn that the incident may scar him emotionally for life. "You can bet this kid won't be using Windows or Office ever again," said one shrink. The victim had been alpha-testing CHUG (Computer-Human Unencumbered Groupware), a new interface in which the user controls the computer with force-feedback gloves and voice activation. "I was trying to write a term paper in Word," he said from his hospital bed. "But then that damned Dancing Paper Clip came up and started annoying me. I gave it the middle finger. It reacted by deleting my document, at which point I screamed at it and threatened to pull the power cord. I didn't get a chance; the force-feedback gloves started choking me." "We told Clippit it had the right to remain silent, and so on," said a campus police officer. "The paperclip responded, 'Hi, I'm Clippit, the Office Assistant. Would you like to create a letter?' I said, 'Look here, Mr. Paperclip. You're being charged with attempted murder.' At that point the computer bluescreened." | |
All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. -- Ashleigh Brilliant | |
Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of season, under every discouragement, by the power of truth -- that requires a heroism which is transcendent. -- Henry Ward Beecher | |
Nobody knows what goes between his cold toes and his warm ears. -- Roy Harper | |
People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to suggest that each is unique -- no two alike. This is quite patently not the case. People ... are simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariable and lamentable tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" | |
The Least Successful Defrosting Device The all-time record here is held by Mr. Peter Rowlands of Lancaster whose lips became frozen to his lock in 1979 while blowing warm air on it. "I got down on my knees to breathe into the lock. Somehow my lips got stuck fast." While he was in the posture, an old lady passed an inquired if he was all right. "Alra? Igmmlptk", he replied at which point she ran away. "I tried to tell her what had happened, but it came out sort of... muffled," explained Mr. Rowlands, a pottery designer. He was trapped for twenty minutes ("I felt a bit foolish") until constant hot breathing brought freedom. He was subsequently nicknamed "Hot Lips". -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. | |
You know it's going to be a long day when you get up, shave and shower, start to get dressed and your shoes are still warm. -- Dean Webber | |
Sysadmin and editors. The holy wars of UNIX. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
What the guy was doing was having a bad case of optical rectitus. That would be typical of a "reseller" (AKA Salesman). Most would not even have a CLUE that the cards were based on the tulip chipset / driver. - Michael Warf on linux-kernel | |
After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help. "No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a name for my baby." "But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds of first names and their meanings," said the orderly. "That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first name." | |
My ritual differs slightly. What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off of while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our dog, Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up powerful dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the bathroom and wants to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any one of which -- bear in mind that I am naked and, without my contact lenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury where you have to learn a whole new part if you want to sing the "Messiah," if you get my drift. Then I hop right back out, because Robert, with that uncanny sixth sense some children have -- you cannot teach it; they either have it or they don't -- has chosen exactly that moment to flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them. -- Dave Barry | |
Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. -- Lewis Lapham | |
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old. -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" | |
<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. | |
<Culus> Hhhmmmmmmmm <Culus> waterbeds for cows <Culus> eleet <cas> Culus: why would a cow need a waterbed? <Culus> cas: To be comfy warm | |
"Gentlemen of the jury," said the defense attorney, now beginning to warm to his summation, "the real question here before you is, shall this beautiful young woman be forced to languish away her loveliest years in a dark prison cell? Or shall she be set free to return to her cozy little apartment at 4134 Mountain Ave. -- there to spend her lonely, loveless hours in her boudoir, lying beside her little Princess phone, 962-7873?" | |
In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians. | |
A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed. | |
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" | |
Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator. -- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com | |
Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) would get the time/chance to. -- Atif Khan | |
> Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. > It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is > source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody > to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) > would get the time/chance to. I think this is one the really BIG reasons for the snowball/onslaught of Linux and the wealth of stuff available that gets enhanced faster than the real vendors can keep up. -- Norman | |
<Tazman> damn my office is cold. <Tazman> need a hot secretary to warm it up. -- Seen on #Linux | |
#Debian makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :) -- HippieGuy on #Debian | |
Bullwinkle: You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit. General: What does that make YOU? Bullwinkle: What else? An executive. -- Jay Ward | |
The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself. -- John Kenneth Galbraith, "Annals of an Abiding Liberal" | |
switch (ref $@) { OverflowError => warn "Dam needs to be drained"; DomainError => warn "King needs to be trained"; NuclearWarError => die; } -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org> | |
I want EARS! I want two ROUND BLACK EARS to make me feel warm 'n secure!! | |
I'm sitting on my SPEED QUEEN ... To me, it's ENJOYABLE ... I'm WARM ... I'm VIBRATORY ... | |
Mmmmmm-MMMMMM!! A plate of STEAMING PIECES of a PIG mixed with the shreds of SEVERAL CHICKENS!! ... Oh BOY!! I'm about to swallow a TORN-OFF section of a COW'S LEFT LEG soaked in COTTONSEED OIL and SUGAR!! ... Let's see ... Next, I'll have the GROUND-UP flesh of CUTE, BABY LAMBS fried in the MELTED, FATTY TISSUES from a warm-blooded animal someone once PETTED!! ... YUM!! That was GOOD!! For DESSERT, I'll have a TOFU BURGER with BEAN SPROUTS on a stone-ground, WHOLE WHEAT BUN!! |