Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even worse. -- Avery | |
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. -- Oscar Wilde | |
"I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')" (By Olaf Kirch) | |
"...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* being struck by lightning." (By Matt Welsh) | |
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. -- George Washington, 1732-1799 | |
The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X | |
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: We will dump no core before its time. One good crash deserves another. A bad idea whose time has come. And gone. We make excuses. It didn't even look good on paper. You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later! A new concept in abuser interfaces. How can something get so bad, so quickly? It could happen to you. The art of incompetence. You have nothing to lose but your lunch. When uselessness just isn't enough. More than a mere hindrance. It's a whole new barrier! When you can't afford to be right. And you thought we couldn't make it worse. If it works, it isn't X windows. | |
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. | |
First as to speech. That privilege rests upon the premise that there is no proposition so uniformly acknowledged that it may not be lawfully challenged, questioned, and debated. It need not rest upon the further premise that there are no propositions that are not open to doubt; it is enough, even if there are, that in the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. Hence it has been again and again unconditionally proclaimed that there are no limits to the privilege so far as words seek to affect only the hearers' beliefs and not their conduct. The trouble is that conduct is almost always based upon some belief, and that to change the hearer's belief will generally to some extent change his conduct, and may even evoke conduct that the law forbids. [cf. Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1952; The Art and Craft of Judging: The Decisions of Judge Learned Hand, edited and annotated by Hershel Shanks, The MacMillian Company, 1968.] | |
Work was impossible. The geeks had broken my spirit. They had done too many things wrong. It was never like this for Mencken. He lived like a Prussian gambler -- sweating worse than Bryan on some nights and drunker than Judas on others. It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and these raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines. -- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_ | |
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. -- Mahatma Gandhi | |
Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. -- Jawaharlal Nehru | |
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) | |
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. | |
Cohen's Law: There is no bottom to worse. | |
Ehrman's Commentary: (1) Things will get worse before they get better. (2) Who said things would get better? | |
Finagle's First Law: To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start. Finagle's Second Law: Always keep a record of data -- it indicates you've been working. Finagle's Fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. Finagle's Fifth Law: Always draw your curves, then plot your readings. Finagle's Sixth Law: Don't believe in miracles -- rely on them. | |
Five rules for eternal misery: (1) Always try to exhort others to look upon you favorably. (2) Make lots of assumptions about situations and be sure to treat these assumptions as though they are reality. (3) Then treat each new situation as though it's a crisis. (4) Live in the past and future only (become obsessed with how much better things might have been or how much worse things might become). (5) Occasionally stomp on yourself for being so stupid as to follow the first four rules. | |
Issawi's Laws of Progress: The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. | |
Regression analysis: Mathematical techniques for trying to understand why things are getting worse. | |
The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. | |
There is always someone worse off than yourself. | |
There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse. | |
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? | |
The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. | |
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. | |
As I was going up Punch Card Hill, Feeling worse and worser, There I met a C.R.T. And it drop't me a cursor. C.R.T., C.R.T., Phosphors light on you! If I had fifty hours a day I'd spend them all at you. -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes | |
Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes | |
IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. | |
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) | |
Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Cleveland. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" | |
The Worst American Poet Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years. Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen. Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the formula was the same: Have you heard of the dreadful fate Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife? Of their death I will relate, And also others lost their life (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster, Where so many people died. Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems, the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded. Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do". -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate. | |
Communicate! It can't make things any worse. | |
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
Programming for money sucks... you have to deal with PHBs, 16 hour days, and spending the night in your cubicle half of the time to avoid the Commute From Hell... I minored in Journalism, so I tried to switch into a job as an IT pundit. You'd think they'd welcome a geek like me with open arms, but they didn't. Ziff-Davis wouldn't even give me an interview. I was "too qualified" they said. Apparently my technical acumen was too much for their organization, which employs Jesse Berst and the ilk. It gets worse. I tried to get an entry-level reporting job for a local-yokel paper. After the interview they gave me a "skills test": I had to compose an article using Microsoft Word 97. Since I've never touched a Windows box, I had no clue how to use it. When I botched the test, the personnel manager spouted, "Your resume said you were a computer programmer. Obviously you're a liar. Get out of my office now!" -- Excerpt from a horror story about geek discrimination during the Geek Grok '99 telethon | |
Right now hundreds of Anonymous Cowards are cheering the fact that only Windows boobs are victims of ILOVEYOU and other email viruses. I realize Outlook is so insecure that using it is like posting a sign outside your door saying, "DOOR UNLOCKED -- ROB ME!". However, Linux isn't immune. If I had a dollar for every pine buffer overflow uncovered, I could buy a truckload of fresh herring. I expect the next mass email virus to spread will be cross-platform. If the recipient is a Windows/Outlook luser, they'll get hit. If the recipient is a Linux/pine user, they'll find themselves staring at a self-executing bash script that's has just allocated 1 petabyte of memory and crashed the system (or worse). Either that or the next mass email virus will only damage Linux systems. I can just see Bill Gates assigning some junior programmer that very task. Be afraid. Be very afraid. -- A speech given at the First Annual Connecticut Conspiracy] Convention (ConConCon) by an anonymous creature said to be "wearing what appeared to be a tuxedo". | |
Brief History Of Linux (#9) Edison's most important invention One of Thomas Edison's most profound inventions was that of patent litigation. Edison used his many patents on motion pictures to monopolize the motion picture industry. One could argue that Edison was an early pioneer for the business tactics employed by Microsoft and the MPAA. Indeed, Edison's company, the Motion Picture Patent Company (MPPC), formed in 1908, bears a striking resemblance to the modern-day Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Similar initials, different people, same evil. The MPCC, with the help of hired thugs, ensured that all motion picture producers paid tribute to Edison and played by his rules. The MPAA, with the help of hired lawyers, ensures that all motion picture producers pay tribute and play by their rules. Ironically, filmmakers that found themselves facing Edison patent litigation (or worse) fled to Texas, California, and Mexico. Those same filmmakers outlasted Edison's monopoly and eventually banded together to form the MPAA! History has a tendency to repeat itself; so it seems likely that today's DVD lawsuit victims may well come to power in the future -- and soon become the evil establishment, thus completing another cycle. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#21) The GNU Project Meet Richard M. Stallman, an MIT hacker who would found the GNU Project and create Emacs, the operating-system-disguised-as-a-text-editor. RMS, the first member of the Three Initials Club (joined by ESR and JWZ), experienced such frustration with software wrapped in arcane license agreements that he embarked on the GNU Project to produce free software. His journey began when he noticed this fine print for a printer driver: You do not own this software. You own a license to use one copy of this software, a license that we can revoke at any time for any reason whatsoever without a refund. You may not copy, distribute, alter, disassemble, or hack the software. The source code is locked away in a vault in Cleveland. If you say anything negative about this software you will be in violation of this license and required to forfeit your soul and/or first born child to us. The harsh wording of the license shocked RMS. The computer industry was in it's infancy, which could only mean it was going to get much, much worse. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#22) RMS had a horrible, terrible dream set in 2020 in which all of society was held captive by copyright law. In particular, everyone's brain waves were monitored by the US Dept. of Copyrights. If your thoughts referenced a copyrighted idea, you had to pay a royalty. To make it worse, a handful of corporations held fully 99.9% of all intellectual property rights. Coincidentally, Bill Gates experienced a similar dream that same night. To him, however, it was not a horrible, terrible nightmare, but a wonderful utopian vision. The thought of lemmings... er, customers paying a royalty everytime they hummed a copyrighted song in their head or remembered a passage in a book was simply too marvelous for the budding monopolist. RMS, waking up from his nightmare, vowed to fight the oncoming Copyright Nightmare. The GNU Project was born. His plan called for a kernel, compiler, editor, and other tools. Unfortunately, RMS became bogged down with Emacs that the kernel, HURD, was shoved on the back burner. Built with LISP (Lots of Incomprehensible Statements with Parentheses), Emacs became bloated in a way no non-Microsoft program ever has. Indeed, for a short while RMS pretended that Emacs really was the GNU OS kernel. | |
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! | |
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. -- John Quincy Adams | |
Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat. -- Bill Musselman | |
Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes | |
If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you lack sufficient imagination. | |
Nezvannyi gost'--khuzhe tatarina. [An uninvited guest is worse than the Mongol invasion] -- Russian proverb | |
With the current ACPI code in my test boxes it seems to be no worse than APM, unfortunately it would be hard to be worse. - Alan Cox on the ACPI mailing list | |
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. -- Phyllis Diller There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse. -- Quentin Crisp | |
<dracus> Ctrl+Option+Command + P + R <Knghtbrd> dracus - YE GODS! That's worse than EMACS! <LauraDax> hehehehe <dracus> don't ask what that does :P | |
<Shinobi> There are worse things than Perl....ASP comes to mind | |
How do you insult a lawyer? You might as well not even try. Consider: of all the highly trained and educated professions, law is the only one in which the prime lesson is that *winning* is more important than *truth*. Once someone has sunk to that level, what worse can you say about them? | |
Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- Edgar A. Shoaff | |
Life may have no meaning, or, even worse, it may have a meaning of which you disapprove. | |
Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much. -- Augustine | |
I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts') -- Olaf Kirch | |
...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* being struck by lightning. -- Matt Welsh | |
Business will be either better or worse. -- Calvin Coolidge | |
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman? -- Woody Allen | |
There is hardly a thing in the world that some man can not make a little worse and sell a little cheaper. | |
There's nothing worse for your business than extra Santa Clauses smoking in the men's room. -- W. Bossert | |
XXXVI: The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea. XXXVII: Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much. XXXVIII: The early bird gets the worm. The early worm ... gets eaten. XXXIX: Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of the year -- in either direction. XL: Most projects start out slowly -- and then sort of taper off. -- Norman Augustine | |
A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is that you only have six weeks to live." "Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?" "Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since last Monday." |