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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

Wings of OS/400:
The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes
that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if
they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need,
though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour,
unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and
membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your
accounting department can call it overhead.
"Our journey toward the stars has progressed swiftly.

In 1926 Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket,
achieving an altitude of 41 feet.  In 1962 John Glenn orbited the earth.

In 1969, only 66 years after Orville Wright flew two feet off the ground
for 12 seconds, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and I rocketed to the moon
in Apollo 11."
-- Michael Collins
   Former astronaut and past Director of the National Air and Space Museum
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
Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers,
etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these
things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in.
Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a
kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock.  This
proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also
damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in
incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office.
                -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
"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"
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up along delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
                -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"
There once was a Sailor who looked through a glass
And spied a fair mermaid with scales on her... island.
Where seagulls flew over their nest.
She combed the long hair which hung over her... shoulders.
And caused her to tickle and itch.
The sailor cried out "There's a beautiful... mermaid.
A sittin' out there on the rocks."
The crew came a running, all grabbing their... glasses.
And crowded four deep to the rail.
All eager to share in this fine piece of... news.
...
"Throw out a line and we'll lasso her... flippers.
And soon we will certainly find
If mermaids are better before or be... brave
My dear fellows," The captain cried out.
And cursing with spleen.
This song may be dull, but it's certainly clean.
                -- "The Clean Song", Oscar Brandt
A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies.
Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured
him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and
quiet place in which to rest.  One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around
above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said,
"Come on down."  But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light
where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house."
So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other
flies.  He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said,
"Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper.  All those flies are trapped."  "Don't be
silly," said the fly, "they're dancing."  So he settled down and became stuck
to the flypaper with all the other flies.

Moral:  There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
                -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"
Brief History Of Linux (#17)
Terrible calamity

IBM chose Microsoft's Quick & Dirty Operating System instead of CP/M for
its new line of PCs. QDOS (along with the abomination known as EDLIN) had
been acquired from a Seattle man, Tim Paterson, for the paltry sum of
$50,000. "Quick" and "Dirty" were truly an accurate description of this
system, because IBM's quality assurance department discovered 300 bugs in
QDOS's 8,000 lines of assember code (that's about 1 bug per 27 lines --
which, at the time, was appalling, but compared with Windows 98 today, it
really wasn't that shabby).

Thanks in part to IBM's new marketing slogan, "Nobody Ever Got Fired For
Choosing IBM(tm)", and the release of the VisiCalc spreadsheet program
that everybody and their brother wanted, IBM PCs running DOS flew off the
shelves and, unfortunately, secured Microsoft's runaway success. Bill
Gates was now on his way to the Billionaire's Club; his days as a mediocre
programmer were long gone: he was now a Suit. The only lines of code he
would ever see would be the passcodes to his Swiss bank accounts.
Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver pie.
Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of meat from his
hand.  As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it, "Foolish bird!  You
have the liver, but what can you do with it without the recipe?"
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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