Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
A hard-luck actor who appeared in one coloossal disaster after another finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact. Someone pointed out that it's the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week. | |
A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. "Hello?" his friend answers. "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! I'm doing *great*! How are you?" "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves." | |
A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" | |
A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the LWT export "Upstairs, Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not true. I'm very good in beds as well." | |
A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to Madonna, a young puppy. It hitched its waggin' to a star. | |
After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more advanced than the lichen family. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" | |
An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. | |
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. | |
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs. -- Christopher Hampton | |
Dustin Farnum: Why, yesterday, I had the audience glued to their seats! Oliver Herford: Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it! -- Brian Herbert, "Classic Comebacks" | |
Forms follow function, and often obliterate it. | |
FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #3 MIRACLE ON 42ND STREET: Santa Claus, in the off season, follows his heart's desire and tries to make it big on Broadway. Santa sings and dances his way into your heart. | |
Grig (the navigator): ... so you see, it's just the two of us against the entire space armada. Alex (the gunner): What?!? Grig: I've always wanted to fight a desperate battle against overwhelming odds. Alex: It'll be a slaughter! Grig: That's the spirit! -- The Last Starfighter | |
Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. -- Rex Reed | |
I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most. -- Bob Dylan | |
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 | |
I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! Can't prove anything! -- Bart Simpson | |
I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The curtain was up. | |
I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent of a prostate operation. -- Malcolm Muggeridge | |
I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. -- G. B. Shaw | |
I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" | |
I saw Lassie. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series? | |
I think... I think it's in my basement... Let me go upstairs and check. -- Escher | |
I was working on a case. It had to be a case, because I couldn't afford a desk. Then I saw her. This tall blond lady. She must have been tall because I was on the third floor. She rolled her deep blue eyes towards me. I picked them up and rolled them back. We kissed. She screamed. I took the cigarette from my mouth and kissed her again. | |
I watch television because you don't know what it will do if you leave it in the room alone. | |
I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth. -- Charlie Chaplin | |
I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't seem to work. -- Gallagher | |
If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse. -- Philip Hale, Boston music critic, 1837 | |
If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it. -- Bob Hope | |
If it ain't baroque, don't phiques it. | |
If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding- forth old bore who expected every hero-worshiping adenoidal little twerp of a student-poet to hang on to his every word I never saw. -- James Dickey | |
In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes the problems. -- Shelley Winters | |
In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it. -- Rex Reed | |
In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it's modern architecture. -- Nancy Banks Smith | |
In the Old West a wagon train is crossing the plains. As night falls the wagon train forms a circle, and a campfire is lit in the middle. After everyone has gone to sleep two lone cavalry officers stand watch over the camp. After several hours of quiet, they hear war drums starting from a nearby Indian village they had passed during the day. The drums get louder and louder. Finally one soldier turns to the other and says, "I don't like the sound of those drums." Suddenly, they hear a cry come from the Indian camp: "IT'S NOT OUR REGULAR DRUMMER." | |
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. | |
It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years. -- Tom Lehrer | |
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- Rod Serling | |
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" | |
It is up to us to produce better-quality movies. -- Lloyd Kaufman, producer of "Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator" | |
It just doesn't seem right to go over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's condo. | |
It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, flyboy! -- Princess Leia Organa | |
It proves what they say, give the public what they want to see and they'll come out for it. -- Red Skelton, surveying the funeral of Hollywood mogul Harry Cohn | |
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. -- Robert Benchley | |
It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. | |
It'll be just like Beggars' Canyon back home. -- Luke Skywalker | |
It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back. -- Mick Jagger | |
It's clever, but is it art? | |
It's difficult to see the picture when you are inside the frame. | |
It's from Casablanca. I've been waiting all my life to use that line. -- Woody Allen, "Play It Again, Sam" | |
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." -- Walt Disney | |
It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre. -- Sam Goldwyn | |
It's not easy, being green. -- Kermit the Frog | |
It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips. -- Garfield | |
IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful. V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A "wacky" character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 | |
Jane and I got mixed up with a television show -- or as we call it back east here: TV -- a clever contraction derived from the words Terrible Vaudeville. However, it is our latest medium -- we call it a medium because nothing's well done. It was discovered, I suppose you've heard, by a man named Fulton Berle, and it has already revolutionized social grace by cutting down parlour conversation to two sentences: "What's on television?" and "Good night". -- Goodman Ace, letter to Groucho Marx, in The Groucho Letters, 1967 | |
Jim, it's Grace at the bank. I checked your Christmas Club account. You don't have five-hundred dollars. You have fifty. Sorry, computer foul-up! -- "The Rockford Files" | |
Jim, it's Jack. I'm at the airport. I'm going to Tokyo and wanna pay you the five-hundred I owe you. Catch you next year when I get back! -- "The Rockford Files" | |
Jim, this is Janelle. I'm flying tonight, so I can't make our date, and I gotta find a safe place for Daffy. He loves you, Jim! It's only two days, and you'll see. Great Danes are no problem! -- "The Rockford Files" | |
Jim, this is Matty down at Ralph's and Mark's. Some guy named Angel Martin just ran up a fifty buck bar tab. And now he wants to charge it to you. You gonna pay it? -- "The Rockford Files" | |
Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the applications for. -- Dave Barry | |
Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar. -- S.J. Perelman | |
Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends. | |
Linus: Hi! I thought it was you. I've been watching you from way off... You're looking great! Snoopy: That's nice to know. The secret of life is to look good at a distance. | |
Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today. Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better. | |
Live from New York ... It's Saturday Night! | |
Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam dancing. -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83 | |
Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it! -- Monty Python | |
"Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been watching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks." | |
Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. -- Casablanca | |
Mr. Rockford? You don't know me, but I'd like to hire you. Could you call me at... My name is... uh... Never mind, forget it! -- "The Rockford Files" | |
My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it. -- The Dragon to Grendel, in John Gardner's "Grendel" | |
My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO! The WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a small but appreciative crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded OK. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake" | |
No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it. -- Frank Lloyd Wright | |
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead | |
"Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on urban crime. Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will put you through to our central base in Atlanta. Go ahead, call -- they'll confirm who I am. "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it." -- Captain Freedom | |
Oh, Aunty Em, it's so good to be home! | |
Oprah Winfrey has an incredible talent for getting the weirdest people to talk to. And you just HAVE to watch it. "Blind, masochistic minority, crippled, depressed, government latrine diggers, and the women who love them too much on the next Oprah Winfrey." | |
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. | |
Producers seem to be so prejudiced against actors who've had no training. And there's no reason for it. So what if I didn't attend the Royal Academy for twelve years? I'm still a professional trying to be the best actress I can. Why doesn't anyone send me the scripts that Faye Dunaway gets? -- Farrah Fawcett-Majors | |
Recently deceased blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan "comes to" after his death. He sees Jimi Hendrix sitting next to him, tuning his guitar. "Holy cow," he thinks to himself, "this guy is my idol." Over at the microphone, about to sing, are Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and the bassist is the late Barry Oakley of the Allman Brothers. So Stevie Ray's thinking, "Oh, wow! I've died and gone to rock and roll heaven." Just then, Karen Carpenter walks in, sits down at the drums, and says: "'Close to You'. Hit it, boys!" -- Told by Penn Jillette, of magic/comedy duo Penn and Teller | |
"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it." -- Dave Barry | |
Sir, it's very possible this asteroid is not stable. -- C3P0 | |
Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? -- Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" | |
Snoopy: No problem is so big that it can't be run away from. | |
Snow White has become a camera buff. She spends hours and hours shooting pictures of the seven dwarfs and their antics. Then she mails the exposed film to a cut rate photo service. It takes weeks for the developed film to arrive in the mail, but that is all right with Snow White. She clears the table, washes the dishes and sweeps the floor, all the while singing "Someday my prints will come." | |
So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and -- I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" | |
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 | |
Television has brought back murder into the home -- where it belongs. -- Alfred Hitchcock | |
Television is now so desperately hungry for material that it is scraping the top of the barrel. -- Gore Vidal | |
The big problem with pornography is defining it. You can't just say it's pictures of people naked. For example, you have these primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal saying goes: "N'wam k'honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of Northern Mali that you may be interested in." So it's not considered pornographic when National Geographic publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason naked, or whatever. But if National Geographic were to publish an article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography. But others would not. And still others, such as the Spectacularly Rev. Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" | |
The Great Movie Posters: An AVALANCHE of KILLER WORMS! -- Squirm (1976) Most Movies Live Less Than Two Hours. This Is One of Everlasting Torment! -- The New House on the Left (1977) WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU! -- Zombie (1980) It's not human and it's got an axe. -- The Prey (1981) | |
The Great Movie Posters: HOT STEEL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS! -- The Cycle Savages (1969) The Hand that Rocks the Cradle... Has no Flesh on It! -- Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) TWO GREAT BLOOD HORRORS TO RIP OUT YOUR GUTS! -- I Eat Your Skin & I Drink Your Blood (1971 double-bill) They Went In People and Came Out Hamburger! -- The Corpse Grinders (1971) | |
The Great Movie Posters: KATHERINE HEPBURN as the lying, stealing, singing, preying witch girl of the Ozarks... "Low down white trash"? Maybe so -- but let her hear you say it and she'll break your head to prove herself a lady! -- Spitfire (1934) Do Native Women Live With Apes? -- Love Life of a Gorilla (1937) JUNGLE KISS!! When she looked into his eyes, felt his arms around her -- she was no longer Tura, mysterious white goddess of the jungle tribes -- she was no longer the frozen-hearted high priestess under whose hypnotic spell the worshippers of the great crocodile god meekly bowed -- she was a girl in love! SEE the ravening charge of the hundred scared CROCODILES! -- Her Jungle Love (1938) LOVE! HATE! JOY! FEAR! TORMENT! PANIC! SHAME! RAGE! -- Intermezzo (1939) | |
The Great Movie Posters: SEE rebel guerrillas torn apart by trucks! SEE corpses cut to pieces and fed to dogs and vultures! SEE the monkey trained to perform nursing duties for her paralyzed owner! -- Sweet and Savage (1983) What a Guy! What a Gal! What a Pair! -- Stroker Ace (1983) It's always better when you come again! -- Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) You Don't Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre! -- Pieces (1983) | |
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: When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make Friends... -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966) Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels! -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST. -- A Taste of Blood (1967) | |
The human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. -- Sir George Jessel | |
"The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and has gills through which it can see." -- Monty Python | |
The key to building a superstar is to keep their mouth shut. To reveal an artist to the people can be to destroy him. It isn't to anyone's advantage to see the truth. -- Bob Ezrin, rock music producer | |
The only real advantage to punk music is that nobody can whistle it. | |
The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. | |
The sun never sets on those who ride into it. -- RKO | |
The Worst Musical Trio There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite unhampered by great musical talent. Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, "and it will be a sell out." Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and asked for someone to turn his pages. In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who volunteered and made his way to the stage. The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
There are two jazz musicians who are great buddies. They hang out and play together for years, virtually inseparable. Unfortunately, one of them is struck by a truck and killed. About a week later his friend wakes up in the middle of the night with a start because he can feel a presence in the room. He calls out, "Who's there? Who's there? What's going on?" "It's me -- Bob," replies a faraway voice. Excitedly he sits up in bed. "Bob! Bob! Is that you? Where are you?" "Well," says the voice, "I'm in heaven now." "Heaven! You're in heaven! That's wonderful! What's it like?" "It's great, man. I gotta tell you, I'm jamming up here every day. I'm playing with Bird, and 'Trane, and Count Basie drops in all the time! Man it is smokin'!" "Oh, wow!" says his friend. "That sounds fantastic, tell me more, tell me more!" "Let me put it this way," continues the voice. "There's good news and bad news. The good news is that these guys are in top form. I mean I have *never* heard them sound better. They are *wailing* up here." "The bad news is that God has this girlfriend that sings..." | |
There are two ways of disliking art. One is to dislike it. The other is to like it rationally. -- Oscar Wilde | |
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope. -- Oscar Wilde | |
There is nothing wrong with writing ... as long as it is done in private and you wash your hands afterward. | |
There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out. The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well. It's hard to recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along -- quite gracefully. -- Ellen Goodman | |
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- J.S. Bach | |
There's something the technicians need to learn from the artists. If it isn't aesthetically pleasing, it's probably wrong. | |
This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel. (If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?) -- Found on a door in the MSU music building | |
This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message; I'll get back to you. This is Maria, Liberty Bail Bonds. Your client, Todd Lieman, skipped and his bail is forfeit. That's the pink slip on your '74 Firebird, I believe. Sorry, Jim, bring it on over. This is Marilyn Reed, I wanta talk to you... Is this a machine? I don't talk to machines! [Click] -- "The Rockford Files" | |
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. -- Dorothy Parker | |
"Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word except in major motion pictures." -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" | |
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 | |
We'll know that rock is dead when you have to get a degree to work in it. | |
We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you. -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984 | |
We're only in it for the volume. -- Black Sabbath | |
"Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children." "Oh, so you don't like it?" "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it." -- The Killing Joke | |
"What are you watching?" "I don't know." "Well, what's happening?" "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." "Why are you watching it?" "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you." -- The Big Chill | |
"What do you do when your real life exceeds your wildest fantasies?" "You keep it to yourself." -- Broadcast News | |
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?" | |
When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years -- and I find I mind it less and less." -- Louise Andrews Kent | |
Why not? -- What? -- Why not? -- Why should I not send it? -- Why should I not dispatch it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I don't know why I shouldn't -- Well, then -- You will do me this favor. -- Why not? -- Why should you not do it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I shall do the same for you, when you want me to. Why not? Why should I not do it for you? Strange! Why not? -- I can't think why not. -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from a letter to his cousin Maria, "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele | |
Would it help if I got out and pushed? -- Princess Leia Organa | |
Zero Mostel: That's it baby! When you got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it! -- Mel Brooks, "The Producers" | |
A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to the bartender. "Hey, bartender, gimme a whiskey." The bartender ignores him. "Hey bartender, gimme a whiskey!" Still ignored. "HEY BARMAN!! GIMME A WHISKEY!!" The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain. Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots, jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns. He ambles slowly into the saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender, "I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw." | |
Auribus teneo lupum. [I hold a wolf by the ears.] [Boy, it *sounds* good. But what does it *mean*?] | |
Chihuahuas drive me crazy. I can't stand anything that shivers when it's warm. | |
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 love dogs, but I hate Chihuahuas. A Chihuahua isn't a dog. It's a rat with a thyroid problem. | |
If a can of Alpo costs 38 cents, would it cost $2.50 in Dog Dollars? | |
If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedication ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. -- Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" | |
It is not a good omen when goldfish commit suicide. | |
It was Penguin lust... at its ugliest. | |
It's no use crying over spilt milk -- it only makes it salty for the cat. | |
Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity. -- Snoopy | |
When man calls an animal "vicious", he usually means that it will attempt to defend itself when he tries to kill it. | |
When the fog came in on little cat feet last night, it left these little muddy paw prints on the hood of my car. | |
_/I\_____________o______________o___/I\ l * / /_/ * __ ' .* l I"""_____________l______________l___"""I\ l *// _l__l_ . *. l [__][__][(******)__][__](******)[__][] \l l-\ ---//---*----(oo)----------l [][__][__(******)][__][_(******)_][__] l l \\ // ____ >-( )-< / l [__][__][_l l[__][__][l l][__][] l l \\)) ._****_.(......) .@@@:::l [][__][__]l .l_][__][__] .l__][__] l l ll _(o_o)_ (@*_*@ l [__][__][/ <_)[__][__]/ <_)][__][] l l ll ( / \ ) / / / ) l [][__][ /..,/][__][__][/..,/_][__][__] l l / \\ _\ \_ / _\_\ l [__][__(__/][__][__][_(__/_][__][__][] l l______________________________l [__][__]] l , , . [__][__][] l [][__][_] l . i. '/ , [][__][__] l /\**/\ season's [__][__]] l O .\ / /, O [__][__][] l ( o_o )_) greetings _[][__][_] l__l======='=l____[][__][__] l_______,(u u ,),__________________ [__][__]]/ /l\-------/l\ [__][__][]/ {}{}{}{}{}{}<R> In Ellen's house it is warm and toasty while fuzzies play in the snow outside. | |
After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or speaker of intuitive likes". (Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac interface.) | |
And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies." (By Linus Torvalds, Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi) | |
"...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero outside" (By Linus Torvalds) | |
> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping > : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will > : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. > : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so > : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. > > It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there > really is a god. (A follow-up by alovell@kerberos.demon.co.uk, Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting) | |
As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. (Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 on the linux-kernel mailing list.) | |
But what can you do with it? -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner. (Submitted by Andy Pearce, ajp@hpopd.pwd.hp.com) | |
"How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only coded it." (Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting) | |
I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. (Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux) | |
Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). (Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device) | |
"I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of mice vs. trackballs...It was very silly." (By Matt Welsh) | |
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 the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work." (Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications) | |
"[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less abusive.')" (By Matt Welsh) | |
"It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God." (By Matt Welsh) | |
"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development." (By dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca) | |
"Note that if I can get you to \"su and say\" something just by asking, you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should look into it." (By Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes) | |
Now, it we had this sort of thing: yield -a for yield to all traffic yield -t for yield to trucks yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t ...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you wouldn't believe... (Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) | |
Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do a compile. (By ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu (Erik Troan) | |
> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I > > should use Linux over BSD? > > No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on > creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it > certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able > to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the > mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the > name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too > technical. (Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux) | |
"Problem solving under linux has never been the circus that it is under AIX." (By Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix) | |
Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. (Craig E. Groeschel) | |
The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. (Copyright notice for the chat program) | |
> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF > being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that > it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it > happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does > mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid > reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing > negative so far). > > Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: > I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented > that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. > If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me > on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so > far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something > better of it (*). > > Linus > > (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does > somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. (Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux) | |
The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first. (Arno Schaefer's .sig) | |
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. (Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.) | |
"Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM FOR THE 386." (Matt Welsh) | |
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." (Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam Linux Symposium) | |
We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. (Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu, paraphrasing a quote of Shakespeare) | |
It works the way the Wang did, what's the problem | |
The file system is full of it | |
Satan did it | |
Daemons did it | |
That's a great computer you have there; have you considered how it would work as a BSD machine? | |
it has Intel Inside | |
It's not plugged in. | |
Post-it Note Sludge leaked into the monitor. | |
We didn't pay the Internet bill and it's been cut off. | |
Of course it doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade. | |
Recursivity. Call back if it happens again. | |
The mainframe needs to rest. It's getting old, you know. | |
I'm not sure. Try calling the Internet's head office -- it's in the book. | |
It's those computer people in X {city of world}. They keep stuffing things up. | |
That function is not currently supported, but Bill Gates assures us it will be featured in the next upgrade. | |
Too many little pins on CPU confusing it, bend back and forth until 10-20% are neatly removed. Do _not_ leave metal bits visible! | |
It must have been the lightning storm we had (yesterdy) (last week) (last month) | |
Someone's tie is caught in the printer, and if anything else gets printed, he'll be in it too. | |
It's stuck in the Web. | |
It was OK before you touched it. | |
Traceroute says that there is a routing problem in the backbone. It's not our problem. | |
High altitude condensation from U.S.A.F prototype aircraft has contaminated the primary subnet mask. Turn off your computer for 9 days to avoid damaging it. | |
Hard drive sleeping. Let it wake up on it's own... | |
The Token fell out of the ring. Call us when you find it. | |
Your computer hasn't been returning all the bits it gets from the Internet. | |
Your Pentium has a heating problem - try cooling it with ice cold water.(Do not turn of your computer, you do not want to cool down the Pentium Chip while he isn't working, do you?) | |
Your processor has processed too many intructions. Turn it off emideately, do not type any commands!! | |
The ATM board has run out of 10 pound notes. We are having a whip round to refill it, care to contribute ? | |
We're on Token Ring, and it looks like the token got loose. | |
I'd love to help you -- it's just that the Boss won't let me near the computer. | |
It's union rules. There's nothing we can do about it. Sorry. | |
We are Microsoft. What you are experiencing is not a problem; it is an undocumented feature. | |
It's not RFC-822 compliant. | |
Browser's cookie is corrupted -- someone's been nibbling on it. | |
According to Microsoft, it's by design | |
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain | |
A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered. -- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901. | |
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" | |
As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously -- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. -- John Keats | |
But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" | |
Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and put him at the head of the procession. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly. -- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" 3,1 Here is a letter, read it at your leisure. -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" 5,1 [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to I/O system services.] | |
Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an overdose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center. -- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. | |
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain | |
Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say that she did it with her teeth. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to system overview.] | |
Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone by. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. -- Mark Twain | |
Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not advice, it is merely custom. -- Mark Twain | |
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
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" | |
I do desire we may be better strangers. -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" | |
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" | |
I reverently believe that the maker who made us all makes everything in New England, but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it. -- Mark Twain | |
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone! -- Charles Dickens | |
"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles." -- Bastian B. Bux | |
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. -- J.R.R. Tolkien | |
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. -- Oscar Wilde | |
If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it. -- Ernest Hemingway | |
In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. -- Mark Twain | |
In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and struggled and had lots of children. There was a Frenchman who talked funny and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to the crunch he was all courage. Those novels would make you retch. -- Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian novel. | |
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity" | |
It is a wise father that knows his own child. -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" | |
It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. -- Mark Twain | |
It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one day like any other day, only shorter. -- Samuel Beckett, "Malone Dies" | |
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain | |
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God. -- Mark Twain | |
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. | |
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. -- Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" | |
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. -- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House" | |
O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. -- Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", II, 2 | |
October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author -- Mark Twain, "Tom Sawyer" | |
Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" | |
Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come. -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" | |
So so is good, very good, very excellent good: and yet it is not; it is but so so. -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" | |
Sometimes I wonder if I'm in my right mind. Then it passes off and I'm as intelligent as ever. -- Samuel Beckett, "Endgame" | |
Stop! There was first a game of blindman's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. | |
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" | |
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. | |
The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last Days of Pompeii." Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse, beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford," written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. | |
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
The Least Perceptive Literary Critic The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to give a public reading of his latest poem. Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me." Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark the place and consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better turn." After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the lines," he said. "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event." Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem exactly as it was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of their edge. "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can be better." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
The Least Successful Collector Betsy Baker played a central role in the history of collecting. She was employed as a servant in the house of John Warburton (1682-1759) who had amassed a fine collection of 58 first edition plays, including most of the works of Shakespeare. One day Warburton returned home to find 55 of them charred beyond legibility. Betsy had either burned them or used them as pie bottoms. The remaining three folios are now in the British Museum. The only comparable literary figure was the maid who in 1835 burned the manuscript of the first volume of Thomas Carlyle's "The Hisory of the French Revolution", thinking it was wastepaper. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt. -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost" | |
"...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!" "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested. "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged Aged Man.'" "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself. "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!" "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered. "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is "A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention." --Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
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" | |
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. -- Ernest Hemingway | |
They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce. -- Mark Twain | |
Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it. -- Mark Twain | |
Wagner's music is better than it sounds. -- Mark Twain | |
We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stay there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. -- Mark Twain | |
We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. [...] I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...] "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee." The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day. -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition | |
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 was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. -- Mark Twain | |
When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes. -- Dylan Thomas | |
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain | |
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you. -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Norwood Builder" | |
You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" | |
A morgue is a morgue is a morgue. They can paint the walls with aggressively cheerful primary colors and splashy bold graphics, but it's still a holding place for the dead until they can be parted out to organ banks. Not that I would have cared normally but my viewpoint was skewed. The relentless pleasance of the room I sat in seemed only grotesque. -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers" | |
"What's this? Trix? Aunt! Trix? You? You're after the prize! What is it?" He picked up the box and studied the back. "A glow-in-the-dark squid! Have you got it out of there yet?" He tilted the box, angling the little colored balls of cereal so as to see the bottom, and nearly spilling them onto the table top. "Here it is!" He hauled out a little cream-colored, glitter-sprinkled squid, three-inches long and made out of rubbery plastic. -- James P. Blaylock, "The Last Coin" | |
"Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?" "Good afternoon. I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please." "A--? Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady. I mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I say they have a right to. But I think... I might... Let's have a look down here. I might have just the thing for you. Yes, here we are! Look at that, isn't it neat? Now that is a FrintArms product as well, but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call them. Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a tonne of iron around with you. We do a range of matching accessories, including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster. Wish I got to do the fitting for that! Ha -- just my little joke. And there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun, charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your next battery. Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free lessons at your local gun club or range. Or there's the *special* presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two* charged batteries and a night-sight, too. Here, feel that -- don't worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat? Feel how light it is? Smooth, see? No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and* beautifully balanced. And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's no recoil. Because it's shooting light, you see? Beautiful gun, beautiful gun; my wife has one. Really. That's not a line, she really has. Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for one-forty-nine." "I'll take the special." "Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice. Now, do--?" "And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is compatible?" "Aah... yes, And how does madam wish to pay?" She slapped her credit card on the counter. "Eventually." -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background" | |
4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a 575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the 575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the 130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... -- /etc/motd, cbosgd | |
A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! Fantastic! We'll be famous!" The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" | |
A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk was enlightened. From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, who passed it on to theirs. | |
A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers. Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the speed of light?" Computer: 186,282 miles per second. Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" Computer: George Washington. President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?" Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!" Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass. | |
A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail. -- Jerry Ogdin | |
A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". | |
A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer promptly replied. "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, how long will it take?" The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." The programmer agreed to this. Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. He had been programming all night. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the manager retained his job. The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward." The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" "It will take one year," said the master promptly. "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take it I assign ten programmers to it?" The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", he said, "may I examine it?" The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. "I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human." "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this mysterious setting?" The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master. "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. "It is," came the reply. "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. "It is even in a video game," said the master. "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally baffled. What is the reason for this?" The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the novice. "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. Why is this so?" The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an unnatural entity exist?" The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question. "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before replying. "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved enlightenment, several years later. Commentary: His Master is kind, Answering his FAQ quickly, With thought and sarcasm. | |
A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package. The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial. When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. "Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. | |
A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. -- Donald Knuth | |
A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity. A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least. A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances. If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire going to it is so large. Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] | |
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick. | |
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger Dijkstra | |
Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker. | |
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 | |
Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. -- Dijkstra | |
All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug." -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" | |
=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== CAR and CDR now return extra values. The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because it cold boots the machine so often. | |
=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT- INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. Note that LET *could* have been defined by: (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) ,LET))) `(LET ((LET ',LET)) ,LET)) This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or 3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from Itty Bitti Machines where he was writing COUGHBOL code) so to give him confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. | |
=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, (NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. | |
=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) (PROG (V P LP) (SETQ P (LOCF V)) L (SETQ LP LISTS) (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) (GO L1) L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) (SETQ LP (%POP)) (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) (GO L))) We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. | |
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. "I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 | |
AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway. | |
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones | |
Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. | |
APL hackers do it in the quad. | |
APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 | |
Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 | |
As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name. -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie | |
As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: how do I run C code received from sources Keywords: C sources Distribution: na I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that must be done? | |
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 | |
As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" | |
Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity and understanding of how computers work that it provides. -- D. Gries | |
At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving a computer problem?" "Remember the twin paradox?" After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the computer here, and accelerate the earth!" The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. | |
At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design" | |
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. | |
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth | |
Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.' -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style" | |
Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." | |
Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. | |
C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. -- Bjarne Stroustrup | |
Calm down, it's *____only* ones and zeroes. | |
Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information. | |
Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade, stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management. -- Dan Klein | |
Computer programmers do it byte by byte. | |
Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell at people to save their core images before logging them out? I'm sure the cattle prod would be effective in this regard. In any case, a traverse mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention being easier to stake. | |
Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence. | |
Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence. | |
Dear Emily, what about test messages? -- Concerned Dear Concerned: It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth by all USEnauts. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
Dear Emily: I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to summarize. What should I do? -- Editor Dear Editor: Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when summarizing a vote. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
Dear Emily: I recently read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." What should I do? -- Doubtful Dear Doubtful: Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by mail. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
Dear Emily: I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted to. How about an example? -- Still Confused Dear Still: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
Dear Emily: Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. What should I do? -- Forgetful Dear Forgetful: Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, "Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here it is." Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, (particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more about the signature anyway. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
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 not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. | |
Do not simplify the design of a program if a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. | |
Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. -- Dick Brandon | |
Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. | |
Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. | |
Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. -- P. Skelly | |
DOS Air: All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et cetera. | |
DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available. | |
Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 | |
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.] | |
"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits." -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet | |
Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers. | |
Feeling amorous, she looked under the sheets and cried, "Oh, no, it's Microsoft!" | |
Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add yours to the bottom of the list. Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's. Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor 1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and '\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear. -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80 | |
FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse using ad hoc techniques. -- D. Gries [What's good about it? Ed.] | |
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis | |
FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 | |
Good evening, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred ninety-five. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you would like, I could sing it for you. | |
Hacker's Guide To Cooking: 2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) 1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) 1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) 8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) "Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off the ceiling(3m). "Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. "...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. | |
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" | |
Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. | |
He's like a function -- he returns a value, in the form of his opinion. It's up to you to cast it into a void or not. -- Phil Lapsley | |
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs | |
How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey | |
Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!! Oh wait... I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out. Never mind. | |
I *____knew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just remember what it was. | |
I have a very small mind and must live with it. -- E. Dijkstra | |
I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. -- Rob Pike, on X. Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be gone in two years. He was half right. -- Dennis Ritchie Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong. -- Jim Gettys | |
I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" | |
I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. | |
I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to the point where it would not run at all. -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars" | |
I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!" Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. There was a computer in every doorknob. -- Danny Hillis | |
I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it was by the time I find it. I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe "The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left blank." -- Alex Crain | |
I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes. -- Dennie van Tassel | |
I've looked at the listing, and it's right! -- Joel Halpern | |
If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape at about 30 miles/second. -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming | |
If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will serve us right. -- Alistair Cooke | |
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. -- Isaac Newton In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand. -- Gerald Holton If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. -- Hal Abelson Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders. -- Gauss Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other's toes. -- Richard Hamming It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders. If this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and software engineers dig each other's graves. -- Unknown | |
If it happens once, it's a bug. If it happens twice, it's a feature. If it happens more than twice, it's a design philosophy. | |
If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. | |
If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. | |
If it's worth hacking on well, it's worth hacking on for money. | |
If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive Net Mail ... -- Casey Leedom | |
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 the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, paper folding, or something. -- C. Philip Wood | |
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. | |
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and no-one dare criticise it. -- Pierre Gallois | |
If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work together yet. -- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89. | |
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What's the first question that the computer community asks? "Is it PC compatible?" | |
In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network anyway. -- The 5th Wave | |
In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. | |
In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. How could it be otherwise? -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do you close your eyes?" "So that the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. | |
In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home. The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable ... -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 | |
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? | |
Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! | |
It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?" | |
It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. -- J. Sammet | |
It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network... -- DECWARS | |
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" | |
It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis | |
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. | |
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. | |
... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. | |
It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. | |
It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension should be used in its proper place. -- Christopher Strachey | |
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 | |
[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time. -- K&R | |
It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers. | |
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 | |
"It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory" -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 | |
It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never really needed in the first place. I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above. -- K.E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa | |
It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus. -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm. | |
It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. -- Dion, noted computer scientist | |
It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption. | |
It's multiple choice time... What is FORTRAN? a: Between thre and fiv tran. b: What two computers engage in before they interface. c: Ridiculous. | |
"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." -- Cal Keegan | |
It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? | |
Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac (and nobody cares about it). -- Bill Joy 6/21/85 | |
`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] | |
Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring... | |
Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window... -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" | |
Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. | |
Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide | |
Martin was probably ripping them off. That's some family, isn't it? Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software. -- Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" | |
Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaniful oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof to mouth... | |
MSDOS is not dead, it just smells that way. -- Henry Spencer | |
MVS Air Lines: The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. | |
My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again. | |
Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. | |
Never try to explain computers to a layman. It's easier to explain sex to a virgin. -- Robert Heinlein (Note, however, that virgins tend to know a lot about computers.) | |
Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value. | |
No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware until three software guys have signed off for it. -- Andy Tanenbaum | |
Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it. | |
Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... -- Richard Harter | |
Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad. -- Rob Pike | |
Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. "The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very *essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. "This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" | |
Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in the code over again, since I also removed the source. | |
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" | |
"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative." Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. -- Chuq Von Rospach | |
One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.] | |
Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 | |
OS/2 Skyways: The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. | |
"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'" "TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make any difference if it takes a while to fix it." -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988 | |
Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of juice. But only *__he* had a lollipop. He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?" Her reply: "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it means to be a programmer." | |
Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user! | |
PLUG IT IN!!! | |
Programmers do it bit by bit. | |
Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without giant listings; we would find it hard to use them. -- D.M. Ritchie | |
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 | |
Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA. | |
Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are so poor at I/O. | |
Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche. | |
Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it should be hard to understand. | |
Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how much good it did them. | |
Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program doesn't deliver it. | |
Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time. | |
Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J.F. Traub | |
Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. Kirk: Then it's of external origin? Spock: Affirmative. Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. | |
"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a multiline message byte. In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message must be sent passive true. The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: (1) The ANRS if DAV is false (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: (a) The LADS is active (b) Nor LACS is active" -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for Programmable Instrumentation | |
Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged rocks. They all got out of the car: The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it." The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it into town and have a specialist look at it." The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back in and see if it does it again." | |
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth ABSTRACT Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable functions. This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. | |
Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all the odd integers are prime." The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, "Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it does seem right." Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says "Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." | |
Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime! | |
skldfjkljklsR%^&(IXDRTYju187pkasdjbasdfbuil h;asvgy8p 23r1vyui135 2 kmxsij90TYDFS$$b jkzxdjkl bjnk ;j nk;<[][;-==-<<<<<';[, [hjioasdvbnuio;buip^&(FTSD$%*VYUI:buio;sdf}[asdf'] sdoihjfh(_YU*G&F^*CTY98y Now look what you've gone and done! You've broken it! | |
So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh? In reality all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have tomorrow, why, it already happened. You see, it's just a little universal recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of the instant. So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of eternity, the anti-time. So go to sleep... | |
Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker | |
Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is. The answer is: I don't know. Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast? | |
Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you only have to climb it once. | |
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" | |
Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? | |
***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration. | |
*** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning. | |
Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. -- Christopher Evans | |
TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. -- Gordon Bell | |
"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." -- J. Finnegan, USC. | |
The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete. For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*. -- Bart Miller | |
"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone with it." -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 | |
The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. | |
"The Computer made me do it." | |
The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Description: Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. Feathering: HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. Song: A rather plaintive "Is it up?" | |
The first time, it's a KLUDGE! The second, a trick. Later, it's a well-established technique! -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics | |
The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals: As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. . . . Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge of the hyper-cube. | |
The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it. | |
The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 | |
The IBM 2250 is impressive ... if you compare it with a system selling for a tenth its price. -- D. Cohen | |
The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). -- Doug Gwyn | |
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. | |
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. | |
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, DOGO DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as it travels across the screen. | |
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: C- This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. | |
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. | |
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can you find the time to try it again?" | |
The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence. "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?" The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said. "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?" "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased. Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?" "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. -- Lew Mammel, Jr. | |
The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the lower the mailing cost. -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" | |
The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that! -- James 'Kibo' Parry | |
The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night. | |
The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose" -- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982 | |
The proof that IBM didn't invent the car is that it has a steering wheel and an accelerator instead of spurs and ropes, to be compatible with a horse. -- Jac Goudsmit | |
The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why! -- Harry Skelton | |
The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both wins and losses. The Guru doesn't take sides; she welcomes both hackers and lusers. The Tao is like a stack: the data changes but not the structure. the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. Hold on to the root. | |
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities. It is masked but always present. I don't know who built to it. It came before the first kernel. | |
The tao that can be tar(1)ed is not the entire Tao. The path that can be specified is not the Full Path. We declare the names of all variables and functions. Yet the Tao has no type specifier. Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy. Yet magic and hierarchy arise from the same source, and this source has a null pointer. Reference the NULL within NULL, it is the gateway to all wizardry. | |
The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. -- Paul Licker | |
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- C.A.R. Hoare | |
There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names. For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read permissions for everyone, you could say #define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444) I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away from its uses. To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology -- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.) -- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review | |
There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door: "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found. On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" "An operating system," replied the programmer. The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?" The programmer made no reply. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" | |
Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! | |
This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, individually and in combination, isn't it a little <fill in the blank> to be limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective? | |
This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the power of computers: Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The results are that one should eat each day: 1/2 chicken 1 egg 1 glass of skim milk 27 heads of lettuce. -- Rev. Adrian Melott | |
This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow | |
This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does something child-like. -- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington | |
This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87. One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one computer language to another and has a built-in editing system which identifies errors in the original program. | |
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer | |
Thus spake the master programmer: "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
Thus spake the master programmer: "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
Thus spake the master programmer: "When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so. | |
To say that UNIX is doomed is pretty rabid, OS/2 will certainly play a role, but you don't build a hundred million instructions per second multiprocessor micro and then try to run it on OS/2. I mean, get serious. -- William Zachmann, International Data Corp | |
To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very secure ecological niche. -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" | |
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (10) Sorry, but that's too useful. (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent! (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell #pragma is for. (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too hard to write. (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar. (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here? (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!" (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this sucker. (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth. (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'. | |
Try `stty 0' -- it works much better. | |
Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. -- Amrom Katz | |
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly. | |
"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?" -- MacNelley, "Shoe" | |
Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years. BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was discontinued in favor of a lager. SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of stout or the sweetness of ale. | |
Unix Express: All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. All passengers believe they got there. | |
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 | |
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker | |
UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. | |
WARNING!!! This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need. A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the machine. The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional to the desperation of the operator. Threatening the machine with violence only aggravates the situation. Likewise, attempts to use another machine may cause it to malfunction. They belong to the same union. Keep cool and say nice things to the machine. Nothing else seems to work. See also: flog(1), tm(1) | |
We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise. -- Larry Wall | |
We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented. -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" | |
We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers. | |
"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, star of "The Muppet Show." [3] [3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol" | |
We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. -- Alan M. Turing | |
Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence Jane went to the store to buy bread should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) | |
"Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." "It means the Thing to Do." "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. [with apologies to A.A. Milne] | |
What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak. | |
What the hell is it good for? -- Robert Lloyd (engineer of the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM), to colleagues who insisted that the microprocessor was the wave of the future, c. 1968 | |
"What's that thing?" "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four." -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe" | |
When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences: It weighs less than 8 pounds.* And costs less than $1,300.** In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you might not be able to figure this out for yourself. ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if you really want to. Or less. -- Forbes | |
When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before -- except our fingertips will have been singed. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 | |
When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. | |
Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. | |
"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." | |
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. | |
Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew. | |
Windows Airlines: The terminal is very neat and clean, the attendants all very attractive, the pilots very capable. The fleet of Learjets the carrier operates is immense. Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 feet it explodes without warning. | |
Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars. | |
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. | |
Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it is itself the one hope for salvation. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 | |
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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
X windows: You'd better sit down. Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. Why do it right when you can do it wrong? Live the nightmare. Our bugs run faster. When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. There ARE no rules. You'll wish we were kidding. Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. Dissatisfaction guaranteed. There's got to be a better way. The next best thing to keypunching. Leave the thrashing to us. We wrote the book on core dumps. Even your dog won't like it. More than enough rope. Garbage at your fingertips. Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. X windows. | |
You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. -- Hepler, Systems Design 182 | |
You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it! | |
You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said. | |
You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one. | |
You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. | |
You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do. | |
Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory. | |
As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems: (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418): Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it. The post is by "redgekko" | |
"The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will never solve - politics." -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired by working on a large project beseiged by politics | |
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. | |
A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. | |
A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" | |
A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise against the wind, not with it. | |
A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown. When asked by her father why she had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today and I've been telling it to the Maureens." | |
A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure. | |
A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it. -- Stanley Baldwin | |
Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) -- Stafford Beer | |
An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths. -- Karl Kraus | |
Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. -- Solomon Short | |
Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune" | |
Anything is possible, unless it's not. | |
Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. | |
Better hope you get what you want before you stop wanting it. | |
Doing gets it done. | |
Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow. | |
Every silver lining has a cloud around it. | |
Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. | |
How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent. | |
If anything can go wrong, it will. | |
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. | |
If it heals good, say it. | |
If the shoe fits, it's ugly. | |
If you wish to be happy for one hour, get drunk. If you wish to be happy for three days, get married. If you wish to be happy for a month, kill your pig and eat it. If you wish to be happy forever, learn to fish. -- Chinese Proverb | |
If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. | |
It doesn't matter whether you win or lose -- until you lose. | |
It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. | |
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. -- Aeschylus | |
It is annoying to be honest to no purpose. -- Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) | |
It is bad luck to be superstitious. -- Andrew W. Mathis | |
It is better to have loved a short man than never to have loved a tall. | |
It is better to have loved and lost -- much better. | |
It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost. | |
It is better to wear out than to rust out. | |
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt | |
It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) | |
It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca | |
It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) | |
It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final. -- Roger Babson | |
It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) | |
It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black. | |
It's always darkest just before the lights go out. -- Alex Clark | |
It's better to burn out than it is to rust. | |
It's better to burn out than to fade away. | |
It's later than you think. | |
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame. | |
It's the thought, if any, that counts! | |
Kites rise highest against the wind -- not with it. -- Winston Churchill | |
Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. -- Russell Baker | |
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats | |
Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) | |
Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it. -- Homer | |
-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin. -- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. -- Surveillance should precede saltation. -- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. -- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lacteal fluid. -- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude. -- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. -- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. -- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Farenheit. | |
Seek simplicity -- and distrust it. -- Alfred North Whitehead | |
The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane. -- Phaedrus | |
There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. | |
To err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil, you're overdoing it a little. | |
To err is human; to admit it, a blunder. | |
Truth can wait; he's used to it. | |
We have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's out. | |
What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it. | |
Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts. -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) | |
When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will. | |
When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. | |
You buttered your bread, now lie in it. | |
You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. | |
You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first. | |
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. | |
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz | |
"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde | |
"IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" - John C. Dvorak | |
"It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted to my kind of fooling" - R. Frost | |
And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight...Then he [the Lord!] said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. [Ezek. 4:12-15 (KJV)] | |
I have stripped off my dress; must I put it on again? I have washed my feet; must I soil them again? When my beloved slipped his hand through the latch-hole, my bowels stirred within me [my bowels were moved for him (KJV)]. When I arose to open for my beloved, my hands dripped with myrrh; the liquid myrrh from my fingers ran over the knobs of the bolt. With my own hands I opened to my love, but my love had turned away and gone by; my heart sank when he turned his back. I sought him but I did not find him, I called him but he did not answer. The watchmen, going the rounds of the city, met me; they struck me and wounded me; the watchmen on the walls took away my cloak. [Song of Solomon 5:3-7 (NEB)] | |
Wear me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion cruel as the grave; it blazes up like blazing fire, fiercer than any flame. [Song of Solomon 8:6 (NEB)] | |
In the beginning, I was made. I didn't ask to be made. No one consulted with me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way through life's mournful jungle, then so be it. - Marvin the Paranoid Android, From Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts | |
No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capabe of. ... And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate. - C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark | |
The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. - Frank Zappa | |
The main thing is the play itself. I swear that greed for money has nothing to do with it, although heaven knows I am sorely in need of money. - Feodor Dostoyevsky | |
It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions. - Robert Bly | |
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. - Charles Anthony Richard Hoare | |
Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missle defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. - C. A. R. Hoare | |
"It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top." - Hunter S. Thompson | |
In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool -- programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they describe. - Fred Brooks, Jr. | |
The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. - Brian Kernighan | |
There you go man, Keep as cool as you can. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. Keep on being free! | |
"In the face of entropy and nothingness, you kind of have to pretend it's not there if you want to keep writing good code." -- Karl Lehenbauer | |
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.) -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 | |
As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. - Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" | |
Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. - Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" | |
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Futhermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. - Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" | |
The reason ESP, for example, is not considered a viable topic in contemoprary psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies conducted over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is now of little interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated phenomenon that needs explanation. -- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161 | |
"It's like deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra | |
A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure. Proverb | |
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats | |
Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man. -- Arthur Hays Sulzberger | |
It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. -- J. C. R. Licklider | |
It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack, and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy. -- B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System", Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20 | |
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark | |
It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. -- Abraham Lincoln | |
Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. -- Christopher Evans | |
I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. - Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher | |
How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? "Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem." | |
"This isn't brain surgery; it's just television." - David Letterman | |
"...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" | |
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. | |
"Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!" - Alex in "Clockwork Orange" | |
"There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a howling away at the sons of his father and going blurp blurp in between as if it were a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was." - Alex in "Clockwork Orange" | |
186,000 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW. | |
It is your destiny. - Darth Vader | |
How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 3: 1 to screw it in and 2 to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. | |
How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's a known problem... don't worry about it." | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - Francis Bellamy, 1892 | |
My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big sattelite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". -- Steven Wright | |
You can't have everything... where would you put it? -- Steven Wright | |
You know that feeling when you're leaning back on a stool and it starts to tip over? Well, that's how I feel all the time. -- Steven Wright | |
I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over for speeding. He asked me where I live... "Right here". -- Steven Wright | |
I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 | |
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 | |
"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 | |
I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 | |
If it's working, the diagnostics say it's fine. If it's not working, the diagnostics say it's fine. - A proposed addition to rules for realtime programming | |
It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself completely. . . .Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. - Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy | |
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 | |
Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship. "Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report. "A barrier of water vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library! A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not have..." It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes. - Startide Rising, by David Brin | |
...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. - Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46 | |
If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. - Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble | |
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. - Oscar Wilde | |
Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. -- Karl Lehenbauer | |
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 | |
"I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." - Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens" | |
"Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth." - Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry | |
"Largely because it is so tangible and exciting a program and as such will serve to keep alive the interest and enthusiasm of the whole spectrum of society...It is justified because...the program can give a sense of shared adventure and achievement to the society at large." - Dr. Colin S. Pittendrigh, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" | |
Could be you're crossing the fine line A silly driver kind of...off the wall You keep it cool when it's t-t-tight ...eyes wide open when you start to fall. - The Cars | |
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian | |
I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth. - Norman Cousins | |
And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgement of God upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of criminal at the bar of justice. - Tertullian, second-century Christian writer, misogynist | |
I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. - Joe Mullally, computer salesman | |
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored power tools. | |
How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue. | |
How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. | |
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. - Thomas Jefferson | |
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 would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. - Oliver North | |
The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. - H. L. Mencken | |
The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... - H. L. Mencken, 1930 | |
The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing beyond the grave. Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents.... - H. L. Mencken | |
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. - H. L. Mencken, 1930 | |
I'm sick of being trodden on! The Elder Gods say they can make me a man! All it costs is my soul! I'll do it, cuz NOW I'M MAD!!! - Necronomicomics #1, Jack Herman & Jeff Dee | |
On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader. "...stupid creatures unworthy of the name `sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof..." The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow deaths. - David Brin, Startide Rising | |
Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their religions. - Benjamin Spock | |
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. - Henry Spencer, University of Toronto Unix hack | |
There is a time in the tides of men, Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success. On the other hand, don't count on it. - T. K. Lawson | |
It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65) | |
Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced. - John Keats | |
Most people exhibit what political scientists call "the conservatism of the peasantry." Don't lose what you've got. Don't change. Don't take a chance, because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much as you need. Don't waste time. When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play the game as it must be played. - David Lammers, "Yakitori", Electronic Engineering Times, January 18, 1988 | |
"We can't schedule an orgy, it might be construed as fighting" --Stanley Sutton | |
Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit... - Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease | |
Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. - D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949 | |
... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidcence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. ... - Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215 | |
Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. ... Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory. - Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, "The Pre-Adamic Creation and Evolution" | |
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates. - Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 | |
...It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan. - Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 | |
... The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks attempts to expose sham paranormal studies; and (2) it is very well and plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple jeering. - Harry Eagar, reviewing "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael Talbot, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 200-201 | |
How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb ? Seven: One to install the new bulb, and six to determine what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years. | |
As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making it round this time. - Mike Dennison | |
A lot of the stuff I do is so minimal, and it's designed to be minimal. The smallness of it is what's attractive. It's weird, 'cause it's so intellectually lame. It's hard to see me doing that for the rest of my life. But at the same time, it's what I do best. - Chris Elliot, writer and performer on "Late Night with David Letterman" | |
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. - Albert Einstein | |
It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. - W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876 | |
Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant? Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only be incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map of our infintesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness... - Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876 | |
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature. - Voltaire | |
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire | |
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be.... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith | |
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. - Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson | |
However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." - Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981 | |
...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman | |
...it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. - Sidney Hook | |
As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman | |
If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and superficial answer is not far to seek.... The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival denomination would get an unfair advantage. - John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 | |
Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that every subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be submitted to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered samples of learning must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to common tests. It is the essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that any such "show-down" is sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic of religion, from their point of view, is that it is intellectually secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, not generall known; authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested in ordinary ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion is conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in religion in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics where the method of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" would be the last to be willing that either the history of the content of religion should be taught in this spirit; while those to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely a technical device, but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must protest against its being taught in any other spirit. - John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 | |
...I would go so far as to suggest that, were it not for our ego and concern to be different, the African apes would be included in our family, the Hominidae. - Richard Leakey | |
It is inconceivable that a judicious observer from another solar system would see in our species -- which has tended to be cruel, destructive, wasteful, and irrational -- the crown and apex of cosmic evolution. Viewing us as the culmination of *anything* is grotesque; viewing us as a transitional species makes more sense -- and gives us more hope. - Betty McCollister, "Our Transitional Species", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 | |
"Well, you see, it's such a transitional creature. It's a piss-poor reptile and not very much of a bird." - Melvin Konner, from "The Tangled Wing", quoting a zoologist who has studied the archeopteryz and found it "very much like people" | |
"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him." -Arthur C. Clarke | |
"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him." -Arthur C. Clarke | |
The Middle East is certainly the nexus of turmoil for a long time to come -- with shifting players, but the same game: upheaval. I think we will be confronting militant Islam -- particularly fallout from the Iranian revolution -- and religion will once more, as it has in our own more distant past -- play a role at least as standard-bearer in death and mayhem. - Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence, vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy director of Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC. | |
...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.] | |
"If Diet Coke did not exist it would have been neccessary to invent it." -- Karl Lehenbauer | |
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects, both. I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me. - Abraham Lincoln | |
"It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but the result's the same." - Mike Dennison | |
"Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise? -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 | |
It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and intimidation. | |
In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with the most popular of all neuro-mythologies -- the notion that we ordinarily use only 10 percent of our brains... This "cerebral spare tire" concept continues to nourish the clientele of "pop psychologists" and their many recycling self-improvement schemes. As a metaphor for the fact that few of us fully exploit our talents, who could deny it? As a refuge for occultists seeking a neural basis of the miraculous, it leaves much to be desired. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171 | |
Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time alloted it. | |
Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time alloted it. | |
It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and failed. - motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere | |
"An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments | |
"I've seen it. It's rubbish." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android | |
While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs [temporal-lobe epileptics] are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of the recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against invoking spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will suffice. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255 | |
"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on." - Samuel Goldwyn | |
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. | |
"There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction." -- John Cage, composer | |
I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy that they didn't rehearse at all. And so the first time when I found that out, I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece _Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed. The Dutch people were ashamed and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to rehearse. And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and again, they hadn't rehearsed. So they were no more prepared the second time than they had been the first. I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen." Can you believe it? -- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89 | |
"Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch." -- Robert Orben | |
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself. | |
"It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them." -- Alfred Adler | |
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller | |
"Is it really you, Fuzz, or is it Memorex, or is it radiation sickness?" -- Sonic Disruptors comics | |
"Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards." -- Soren F. Petersen | |
"The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." -- Walt West | |
"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 | |
It's great to be smart 'cause then you know stuff. | |
"Can't you just gesture hypnotically and make him disappear?" "It does not work that way. RUN!" -- Hadji on metaphyics and Mandrake in "Johnny Quest" | |
"Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse | |
"It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even *I* don't know how it works!" -- from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse | |
"If it's not loud, it doesn't work!" -- Blank Reg, from "Max Headroom" | |
"Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure that you're the one holding it" -- Captain Combat | |
"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah | |
Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. | |
Pig: An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
"I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness." -- Steve Martin | |
"There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again." -- Clint Eastwood | |
Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. | |
"In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago." -- Dennis Miller, SNL News | |
"I distrust a man who says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ | |
There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it 2) The rest of us | |
It was pity stayed his hand. "Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought Frito. -- _Bored_of_the_Rings_, a Harvard Lampoon parody of Tolkein | |
"If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and fire them all off, wouldn't you?" -- Garrison Keillor | |
"No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it." -- C. Schulz | |
"I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes." -- Dennie van Tassel | |
"It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underware." -- Norm, from _Cheers_ | |
"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." -- Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, _Robin Hood Daffy_ | |
"Now I've got the bead on you with MY disintegrating gun. And when it disintegrates, it disintegrates. (pulls trigger) Well, what you do know, it disintegrated." -- Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century | |
"It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your AI programs are?" -- Peter Oakley | |
"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." -- an analysis of neo-Nazis and such, Badger comics | |
"I saw _Lassie_. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series?" -- the alien guy, in _Explorers_ | |
"The pyramid is opening!" "Which one?" "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" -- The Firesign Theatre | |
Proboscis: The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk. -- 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 | |
Ill-chosen abstraction is particularly evident in the design of the ADA runtime system. The interface to the ADA runtime system is so opaque that it is impossible to model or predict its performance, making it effectively useless for real-time systems. -- Marc D. Donner and David H. Jameson. | |
Sex is like air. It's only a big deal if you can't get any. | |
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?" "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." -- Ambrose Bierce | |
"Emergency!" Sgiggs screamed, ejecting himself from the tub like it was a burning car. "Dial 'one'! Get room service! Code red!" Stiggs was on the phone immediately, ordering more rose blossoms, because, according to him, the ones floating in the tub had suddenly lost their smell. "I demand smell," he shrilled. "I expecting total uninterrupted smell from these f*cking roses." Unfortunately, the service captain didn't realize that the Stiggs situation involved fifty roses. "What am I going to do with this?" Stiggs sneered at the weaseling hotel goon when he appeared at our door holding a single flower floating in a brandy glass. Stiggs's tirade was great. "Do you see this bathtub? Do you notice any difference between the size of the tub and the size of that spindly wad of petals in your hand? I need total bath coverage. I need a completely solid layer of roses all around me like puffing factories of smell, attacking me with their smell and power-ramming big stinking concentrations of rose odor up my nostrils until I'm wasted with pleasure." It wasn't long before we got so dissatisfied with this incompetence that we bolted. -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, National Lampoon, October 1982 | |
When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. -- Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy | |
We decided it was night again, so we camped for twenty minutes and drank another six beers at a Young Life campsite. O.C. got into the supervisory adult's sleeping bag and ran around in it. "This is the judgment day and I'm a terrifying apparition," he screamed. Then the heat made O.C. ralph in the bag. -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, National Lampoon, October 1982 | |
This is, of course, totally uninformed specualation that I engage in to help support my bias against such meddling... but there you have it. -- Peter da Silva, speculating about why a computer program that had been changed to do something he didn't approve of, didn't work | |
"This knowledge I pursure is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath." -- Paolo Uccello, Renaissance artist, discoverer of the laws of perspective | |
The F-15 Eagle: If it's up, we'll shoot it down. If it's down, we'll blow it up. -- A McDonnel-Douglas ad from a few years ago | |
"It's my cookie file and if I come up with something that's lame and I like it, it goes in." -- karl (Karl Lehenbauer) | |
...the Soviets have the capability to try big projects. If there is a goal, such as when Gorbachev states that they are going to have nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the case is closed -- that is it. They will concentrate on the problem, do a bad job, and later pay the price. They really don't care what the price is. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 | |
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 | |
"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press. But so far, the whole country is like a concentration camp. The barbed wire on the fence around the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark. This openness that you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders. These leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or appease it. He will say: "Yes, we can do business!" This while his military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a population of 17 million. Can you imagine that? -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 | |
"Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and become a free, open society, forget it!" -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 | |
FORTRAN? The syntactically incorrect statement "DO 10 I = 1.10" will parse and generate code creating a variable, DO10I, as follows: "DO10I = 1.10" If that doesn't terrify you, it should. | |
HP had a unique policy of allowing its engineers to take parts from stock as long as they built something. "They figured that with every design, they were getting a better engineer. It's a policy I urge all companies to adopt." -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "Will Wozniak's class give Apple to teacher?" EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 | |
"If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. Certainly you get it as an anthitetical process, so you have to have an environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
Another goal is to establish a relationship "in which it is OK for everybody to do their best. There are an awful lot of people in management who really don't want subordinates to do their best, because it gets to be very threatening. But we have found that both internally and with outside designers if we are willing to have this kind of relationship and if we're willing to be vulnerable to what will come out of it, we get really good work." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
Mr. DePree believes participative capitalism is the wave of the future. The U.S. work force, he believes, "more and more demands to be included in the capitalist system and if we don't find ways to get the capitalist system to be an inclusive system rather than the exclusive system it has been, we're all in deep trouble. If we don't find ways to begin to understand that capitalism's highest potential lies in the common good, not in the individual good, then we're risking the system itself." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know how to raise bail." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 | |
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. -- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58, SIGPLAN Notices, Sept. 1982 | |
"What if" is a trademark of Hewlett Packard, so stop using it in your sentences without permission, or risk being sued. | |
The essential ideas of Algol 68 were that the whole language should be precisely defined and that all the pieces should fit together smoothly. The basic idea behind Pascal was that it didn't matter how vague the language specification was (it took *years* to clarify) or how many rough edges there were, as long as the CDC Pascal compiler was fast. -- Richard A. O'Keefe | |
"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere." I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? -- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) | |
"Pseudocode can be used to some extent to aid the maintenance process. However, pseudocode that is highly detailed - approaching the level of detail of the code itself - is not of much use as maintenance documentation. Such detailed documentation has to be maintained almost as much as the code, thus doubling the maintenance burden. Furthermore, since such voluminous pseudocode is too distracting to be kept in the listing itself, it must be kept in a separate folder. The result: Since pseudocode - unlike real code - doesn't have to be maintained, no one will maintain it. It will soon become out of date and everyone will ignore it. (Once, I did an informal survey of 42 shops that used pseudocode. Of those 42, 0 [zero!], found that it had any value as maintenance documentation." --Meilir Page-Jones, "The Practical Guide to Structured Design", Yourdon Press (c) 1988 | |
An Animal that knows who it is, one that has a sense of his own identity, is a discontented creature, doomed to create new problems for himself for the duration of his stay on this planet. Since neither the mouse nor the chimp knows what is, he is spared all the vexing problems that follow this discovery. But as soon as the human animal who asked himself this question emerged, he plunged himself and his descendants into an eternity of doubt and brooding, speculation and truth-seeking that has goaded him through the centures as reelentlessly as hunger or sexual longing. The chimp that does not know that he exists is not driven to discover his origins and is spared the tragic necessity of contemplating his own end. And even if the animal experimenters succeed in teaching a chimp to count one hundred bananas or to play chess, the chimp will develop no science and he will exhibit no appreciation of beauty, for the greatest part of man's wisdom may be traced back to the eternal questions of beginnings and endings, the quest to give meaning to his existence, to life itself. -- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 193 | |
A comment on schedules: Ok, how long will it take? For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month. For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month. For each unique end-user type add one month. For each unknown software package to be employed add two months. For each unknown hardware device add two months. For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month. For each type of communication channel add one month. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM system add 6 months. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM system add 9 months. Round up to the nearest half-year. --Brad Sherman By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all. | |
UNIX Shell is the Best Fourth Generation Programming Language It is the UNIX shell that makes it possible to do applications in a small fraction of the code and time it takes in third generation languages. In the shell you process whole files at a time, instead of only a line at a time. And, a line of code in the UNIX shell is one or more programs, which do more than pages of instructions in a 3GL. Applications can be developed in hours and days, rather than months and years with traditional systems. Most of the other 4GLs available today look more like COBOL or RPG, the most tedious of the third generation lanaguages. "UNIX Relational Database Management: Application Development in the UNIX Environment" by Rod Manis, Evan Schaffer, and Robert Jorgensen. Prentice Hall Software Series. Brian Kerrighan, Advisor. 1988. | |
"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus- sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fal- lacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them- selves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in what- ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too ear- nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties." -- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850 | |
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. | |
"If a computer can't directly address all the RAM you can use, it's just a toy." -- anonymous comp.sys.amiga posting, non-sequitir | |
"Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb. "You aren't nearly through this adventure yet," he added, and that was pretty true as well. -- Bilbo Baggins, "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien, Chapter XII | |
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. -- Machiavelli | |
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.] | |
The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. -- Thomas Jefferson in letter to James Madison, 20 December 1787 | |
"If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it..." -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Forbidden Tower_ | |
"Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything about it." -- Mark Twain | |
"How many teamsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?" "FIFTEEN!! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?" | |
"It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington." -- Admiral Grace Hopper | |
I ask only one thing. I'm understanding. I'm mature. And it isn't much to ask. I want to get back to London, and track her down, and be alone with my Selina -- or not even alone, damn it, merely close to her, close enough to smell her skin, to see the flecked webbing of her lemony eyes, the moulding of her artful lips. Just for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to put in one good, clean punch. That's all I ask. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ | |
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_ | |
Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the tip of the West Village. Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary level, living or dead. Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts, The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load. Nobody knows what goes on in these places. Only the heavy faggots know. Even Fielding seems somewhat vague on the question. You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time. The average patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock in two. And then the next night he shows up for more. They shackle themselves to racks, they bask in urinals. Their folks have a lot of explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums. Sorry to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere. A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed. In the meantime, Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks her tongue. Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy new diseases. She just isn't going to stand for it. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ | |
"You tried it just for once, found it alright for kicks, but now you find out you have a habit that sticks, you're an orgasm addict, you're always at it, and you're an orgasm addict." -- The Buzzcocks | |
"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_ | |
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." -- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT | |
"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 | |
"The Avis WIZARD decides if you get to drive a car. Your head won't touch the pillow of a Sheraton unless their computer says it's okay." -- Arthur Miller | |
"Data is a lot like humans: It is born. Matures. Gets married to other data, divorced. Gets old. One thing that it doesn't do is die. It has to be killed." -- Arthur Miller | |
"There is also a thriving independent student movement in Poland, and thus there is a strong possibility (though no guarantee) of making an EARN-Poland link, should it ever come about, a genuine link - not a vacuum cleaner attachment for a Bloc information gathering apparatus rationed to trusted apparatchiks." -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network) to Poland | |
"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do." -- Gregory Bateson | |
Ship it. | |
"When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail." -- Abraham Maslow | |
"It's no sweat, Henry. Russ made it back to Bugtown before he died. So he'll regenerate in a couple of days. It's just awful sloppy of him to get killed in the first place. Humph!" -- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics | |
"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 | |
"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it." -- Robert G. Ingersoll | |
egrep patterns are full regular expressions; it uses a fast deterministic algorithm that sometimes needs exponential space. -- unix manuals | |
"Life sucks, but it's better than the alternative." -- Peter da Silva | |
"An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt." -- a saying at RPI | |
How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb? Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does it need a C program? | |
"Perhaps I am flogging a straw herring in mid-stream, but in the light of what is known about the ubiquity of security vulnerabilities, it seems vastly too dangerous for university folks to run with their heads in the sand." -- Peter G. Neumann, RISKS moderator, about the Internet virus | |
"Buy land. They've stopped making it." -- Mark Twain | |
...Saure really turns out to be an adept at the difficult art of papryomancy, the ability to prophesy through contemplating the way people roll reefers - the shape, the licking pattern, the wrinkles and folds or absence thereof in the paper. "You will soon be in love," sez Saure, "see, this line here." "It's long, isn't it? Does that mean --" "Length is usually intensity. Not time." -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ | |
Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it will make you feel less responsible -- but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they are --" -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ | |
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_ | |
... 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_ | |
David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page. George Will: I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages. The comics are making no truth claim. Brinkley: Where would you put it? Will: I wouldn't put it in the newspaper. I think it's transparent rubbish. It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe. We are not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care. The star's alignment at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish. It is not funny to have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons. Sam Donaldson: This isn't something new. Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars said it was a propitious time. Will: They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities. They could apply to anyone and anything. Brinkley: When is the exact moment [of birth]? I don't think the nurse is standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad. Donaldson: If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie thing. People want to know. -- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988, excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan | |
The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much merriment. It is not funny. Astrological gibberish, which means astrology generally, has no place in a newspaper, let alone government. Unlike comics, which are part of a newspaper's harmless pleasure and make no truth claims, astrology is a fraud. The idea that it gets a hearing in government is dismaying. -- George Will, Washing Post Writers Group | |
Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology, phrenology, palmistry, alchemy, the reading of tea leaves, and the practice of divination by the entrails of a goat. No serious person will buy the notion that our lives are influenced individually by the movement of distant planets. This is the sawdust blarney of the carnival midway. -- James J. Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate | |
A serious public debate about the validity of astrology? A serious believer in the White House? Two of them? Give me a break. What stifled my laughter is that the image fits. Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward science. Facts, like numbers, roll off his back. And we've all come to accept it. This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually got equal time with evolutionists. The public was supposed to be open-minded to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense. The same people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of laetrile to eye of newt to the movment of planets. We lose the capacity to make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same. -- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers Group | |
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 | |
[Astrology is] 100 percent hokum, Ted. As a matter of fact, the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, written in 1771 -- 1771! -- said that this belief system is a subject long ago ridiculed and reviled. We're dealing with beliefs that go back to the ancient Babylonians. There's nothing there.... It sounds a lot like science, it sounds like astronomy. It's got technical terms. It's got jargon. It confuses the public....The astrologer is quite glib, confuses the public, uses terms which come from science, come from metaphysics, come from a host of fields, but they really mean nothing. The fact is that astrological beliefs go back at least 2,500 years. Now that should be a sufficiently long time for astrologers to prove their case. They have not proved their case....It's just simply gibberish. The fact is, there's no theory for it, there are no observational data for it. It's been tested and tested over the centuries. Nobody's ever found any validity to it at all. It is not even close to a science. A science has to be repeatable, it has to have a logical foundation, and it has to be potentially vulnerable -- you test it. And in that astrology is reqlly quite something else. -- Astronomer Richard Berendzen, President, American University, on ABC News "Nightline," May 3, 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 is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it." -- Henry Allen | |
"I turn on my television set. I see a young lady who goes under the guise of being a Christian, known all over the nation, dressed in skin-tight leather pants, shaking and wiggling her hips to the beat and rythm of the music as the strobe lights beat their patterns across the stage and the band plays the contemporary rock sound which cannot be differentiated from songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, or anyone else. And you may try to tell me this is of God and that it is leading people to Christ, but I know better. -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. | |
"Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." - Oscar Wilde | |
"We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to know what we do not know." -- Plato | |
"To undertake a project, as the word's derivation indicates, means to cast an idea out ahead of oneself so that it gains autonomy and is fulfilled not only by the efforts of its originator but, indeed, independently of him as well. -- Czeslaw Milosz | |
"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, "here and now," without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank." -- Ortega y Gasset | |
"When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest." -- Bullwinkle Moose | |
"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen." Madrak, in _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, by Roger Zelazny | |
"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc | |
...and before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the typewriter and threw it around the room and made it beg for mercy. At this point the typewriter pleaded for me to dress him in feminine attire but instead I pressed his margin release over and over again until the typewriter lost consciousness. Presently, I regained consciousness and realized with shame what I had done. My shame is gone and now I am looking for a submissive typewriter, any color, or model. No electric typewriters please! --Rick Kleiner | |
"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - H.L. Mencken | |
"Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an "ism" in the sense of a belief or dogma. It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is counterfeit and what is genuine. And a recognition of how costly it may be to fail to do so. To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own allegiances. To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim. -- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility," New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988 | |
"After one week [visiting Austria] I couldn't wait to go back to the United States. Everything was much more pleasant in the United States, because of the mentality of being open-minded, always positive. Everything you want to do in Europe is just, 'No way. No one has ever done it.' They haven't any more the desire to go out to conquer and achieve -- I realized that I had much more the American spirit." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger | |
Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak, include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some- thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti- ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on. -- Jeff G. Bone | |
So we get to my point. Surely people around here read things that aren't on the *Officially Sanctioned Cyberpunk Reading List*. Surely we don't (any of us) really believe that there is some big, deep political and philosophical message in all this, do we? So if this `cyberpunk' thing is just a term of convenience, how can somebody sell out? If cyberpunk is just a word we use to describe a particular style and imagery in sf, how can it be dead? Where are the profound statements that the `Movement' is or was trying to make? I think most of us are interested in examining and discussing literary (and musical) works that possess a certain stylistic excellence and perhaps a rather extreme perspective; this is what CP is all about, no? Maybe there should be a newsgroup like, say, alt.postmodern or somthing. Something less restrictive in scope than alt.cyberpunk. -- Jeff G. Bone | |
Life is full of concepts that are poorly defined. In fact, there are very few concepts that aren't. It's hard to think of any in non-technical fields. -- Daniel Kimberg | |
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 | |
As for the basic assumptions about individuality and self, this is the core of what I like about cyberpunk. And it's the core of what I like about certain pre-gibson neophile techie SF writers that certain folks here like to put down. Not everyone makes the same assumptions. I haven't lost my mind... it's backed up on tape. -- Peter da Silva | |
Who are the artists in the Computer Graphics Show? Wavefront's latest box, or the people who programmed it? Should Mandelbrot get all the credit for the output of programs like MandelVroom? -- Peter da Silva | |
Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following TETflame programme: 1) For a negotiated price (no quatloos accepted) one of our flaming representatives will flame the living shit out of the poster of your choice. The price is inversly proportional to how much of an asshole the target it. We cannot be convinced to flame Dennis Ritchie. Matt Crawford flames are free. 2) For a negotiated price (same arrangement) the TETflame programme is offering ``flame insurence''. Under this arrangement, if one of our policy holders is flamed, we will cancel the offending article and flame the flamer, to a crisp. 3) The TETflame flaming representatives include: Richard Sexton, Oleg Kisalev, Diane Holt, Trish O'Tauma, Dave Hill, Greg Nowak and our most recent aquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his kill file. Weemba by special arrangement. -- Richard Sexton | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 1 proof by example: The author gives only the case n = 2 and suggests that it contains most of the ideas of the general proof. proof by intimidation: 'Trivial'. proof by vigorous handwaving: Works well in a classroom or seminar setting. | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 2 proof by cumbersome notation: Best done with access to at least four alphabets and special symbols. proof by exhaustion: An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof is useful. proof by omission: 'The reader may easily supply the details' 'The other 253 cases are analogous' '...' | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 3 proof by obfuscation: A long plotless sequence of true and/or meaningless syntactically related statements. proof by wishful citation: The author cites the negation, converse, or generalization of a theorem from the literature to support his claims. proof by funding: How could three different government agencies be wrong? proof by eminent authority: 'I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP- complete.' | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 4 proof by personal communication: 'Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete [Karp, personal communication].' proof by reduction to the wrong problem: 'To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem.' proof by reference to inaccessible literature: The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883. proof by importance: A large body of useful consequences all follow from the proposition in question. | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 5 proof by accumulated evidence: Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample. proof by cosmology: The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God. proof by mutual reference: In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in reference A. proof by metaproof: A method is given to construct the desired proof. The correctness of the method is proved by any of these techniques. | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 6 proof by picture: A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well with proof by omission. proof by vehement assertion: It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the audience. proof by ghost reference: Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in the reference given. | |
HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 7 proof by forward reference: Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first. proof by semantic shift: Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed for the statement of the result. proof by appeal to intuition: Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here. | |
[May one] doubt whether, in cheese and timber, worms are generated, or, if beetles and wasps, in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, shellfish, snails, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed[?] To question this is to question reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants. A seventeenth century opinion quoted by L. L. Woodruff, in *The Evolution of Earth and Man*, 1929 | |
"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." -- Frank Zappa | |
"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." -- Cal Keegan | |
"Who alone has reason to *lie himself out* of actuality? He who *suffers* from it." -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
"Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes scientific. Moral: science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the *original* sin. *This alone is morality.* ``Thou shalt not know'' -- the rest follows." -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
>One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative. Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM | |
"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits." -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet | |
"It doesn't much signify whom one marries for one is sure to find out next morning it was someone else." -- Rogers | |
"The question is rather: if we ever succeed in making a mind 'of nuts and bolts', how will we know we have succeeded? -- Fergal Toomey "It will tell us." -- Barry Kort | |
"I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind." -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
"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 | |
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_ | |
Q: How can I choose what groups to post in? ... Q: How about an example? A: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do? A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that soiled clothing would when addressing an audience. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the Republican V.P. candidate. Should I post? A: Of course. The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days. It's the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the broadcast networks have covered them. As you are probably the only person to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." -- Bertrand Russell | |
"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his delight. A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with thy lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue." -- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture | |
How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it and one not to change it. | |
"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time someone writes `bible thumpers?' -- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu | |
"And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just because there are a few hunderd other people sharing your lunacy with you does not make you any saner. Doomed, eh?" -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU | |
"Obedience. A religion of slaves. A religion of intellectual death. I like it. Don't ask questions, don't think, obey the Word of the Lord -- as it has been conveniently brought to you by a man in a Rolls with a heavy Rolex on his wrist. I like that job! Where can I sign up?" -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU | |
"Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo." -- George Bernard Shaw | |
"Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it." -- Baskins | |
"It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius." -- Robert G. Ingersoll | |
"It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating us in a stupid way." -- J. W. Nienhuys | |
"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 | |
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." -- Alex Schure | |
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." --Matt Groening | |
"I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." -- Woody Allen | |
It's time to boot, do your boot ROMs know where your disk controllers are? | |
"Yes, I am a real piece of work. One thing we learn at Ulowell is how to flame useless hacking non-EE's like you. I am superior to you in every way by training and expertise in the technical field. Anyone can learn how to hack, but Engineering doesn't come nearly as easily. Actually, I'm not trying to offend all you CS majors out there, but I think EE is one of the hardest majors/grad majors to pass. Fortunately, I am making it." -- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM) "Being both an EE and an asshole at the same time must be a terrible burden for you. This isn't really a flame, just a casual observation. Makes me glad I was a CS major, life is really pleasant for me. Have fun with your chosen mode of existence!" -- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu) | |
THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other reader. Fun With Usenet postings are no exception. Since there are some who might question the rationale of some of the excerpts included therein, I have written up a list of guidelines that sum up the philosophy behind these postings. One. I never cut out words in the middle of a quote without a VERY good reason, and I never cut them out without including ellipses. For instance, "I am not a goob" might become "I am ... a goob", but that's too mundane to bother with. "I'm flame proof" might (and has) become "I'm ...a... p...oof" but that's REALLY stretching it. Two. If I cut words off the beginning or end of a quote, I don't put ellipses, but neither do I capitalize something that wasn't capitalized before the cut. "I don't think that the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place" would turn into "the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place". Imagine the posting as a tape-recording of the poster's thoughts. If I can set up the quote via fast-forwarding and stopping the tape, and without splicing, I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you don't think it's wonderful. ... -- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP) | |
"Stan and I thought that this experiment was so stupid, we decided to finance it ourselves." -- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?) | |
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." -- John Wooden | |
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_ | |
I bought the latest computer; it came fully loaded. It was guaranteed for 90 days, but in 30 was outmoded! - The Wall Street Journal passed along by Big Red Computer's SCARLETT | |
To update Voltaire, "I may kill all msgs from you, but I'll fight for your right to post it, and I'll let it reside on my disks". -- Doug Thompson (doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG) | |
"Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- The Tao of Programming | |
"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it came up and bit him on his Internet." -- Ross M. Greenberg | |
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present". When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | |
"If I ever get around to writing that language depompisifier, it will change almost all occurences of the word "paradigm" into "example" or "model." -- Herbie Blashtfalt | |
"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." -- Marvin the paranoid android | |
"There must be some mistake," he said, "are you not a greater computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?" "The Milliard Gargantubrain?" said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. "A mere abacus. Mention it not." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | |
"But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and Indefatigable?" "The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler," said Deep Thought, thoroughly rolling the r's, "could talk all four legs off an Arcturan Mega-Donkey -- but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | |
"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that >from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time." -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren | |
"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure." -- Albert Einstein | |
"And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions." -- David Jones @ Megatest Corporation | |
"Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we have tolerated the last eight years?" -- Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989 | |
"Don't think; let the machine do it for you!" -- E. C. Berkeley | |
"It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall." -- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" | |
"(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied mathematics, business data handling, or whatever." -- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_ | |
"It ain't over until it's over." -- Casey Stengel | |
"If anything can go wrong, it will." -- Edsel Murphy | |
"You must learn to run your kayak by a sort of ju-jitsu. You must learn to tell what the river will do to you, and given those parameters see how you can live with it. You must absorb its force and convert it to your users as best you can. Even with the quickness and agility of a kayak, you are not faster than the river, nor stronger, and you can beat it only by understanding it." -- Strung, Curtis and Perry, _Whitewater_ | |
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: 1. They want it quick. 2. They want it good. 3. They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware | |
"Well, it don't make the sun shine, but at least it don't deepen the shit." -- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban | |
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too." -- W. Somerset Maugham | |
"Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android | |
One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand hat was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ | |
> From MAILER-DAEMON@Think.COM Thu Mar 2 13:59:11 1989 > Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 255 "Dale, your address no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" -- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu) "Bill, Your brain no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" -- Karl A. Nyberg (nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu) | |
"Don't drop acid, take it pass-fail!" -- Bryan Michael Wendt | |
"The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine we own." -- H.G. Wells | |
"It's when they say 2 + 2 = 5 that I begin to argue." -- Eric Pepke | |
"None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible." -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work," p. 86 (1922): | |
"Irrigation of the land with sewater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'." -- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion | |
"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented." -- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948 | |
"You can have my Unix system when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." -- Cal Keegan | |
$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
A billion here, a billion there -- pretty soon it adds up to real money. -- Sen. Everett Dirksen, on the U.S. defense budget | |
A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of everything before he destroys it. | |
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai Stevenson | |
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. -- Barry Goldwater | |
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. -- Alexander Hamilton | |
A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain. -- Anatole France | |
A political man can have as his aim the realization of freedom, but he has no means to realize it other than through violence. -- Jean Paul Sartre | |
A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having his neighbour notice it. -- Trygve Lie | |
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark | |
America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar, and use it up in two weeks. | |
Anarchy may not be a better form of government, but it's better than no government at all. | |
Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. -- David Broder | |
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. -- Oscar Wilde, "Intentions" | |
Be it our wealth, our jobs, or even our homes; nothing is safe while the legislature is in session. | |
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! [It is magnificent, but it is not war] -- Pierre Bosquet, witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade | |
Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage. -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post | |
Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart | |
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper | |
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash. -- Winston Churchill | |
Don't vote -- it only encourages them! | |
Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a day. [and getting better! Soon it'll be down to a penny a day!] | |
Every country has the government it deserves. -- Joseph De Maistre | |
Gentlemen, Whilst marching from Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and thence by dispatch to our headquarters. We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty's Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence. Unfortunately the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion's petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as the the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance, since we are war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall. This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty's Government so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both: 1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or perchance: 2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain. -- Duke of Wellington, to the British Foreign Office, London, 1812 | |
God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to receive it. -- Austin O'Malley | |
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Don't overdo it. -- Lao Tsu | |
Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he doesn't know much. -- Will Rogers | |
Great Moments in History: #3 August 27, 1949: A Hall of Fame opened to honor outstanding members of the Women's Air Corp. It was a WAC's Museum. | |
Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down, and its salient virtuosi a gang of umitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickel the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment. -- H.L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe" | |
He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest benefactor the world has yet known. -- Sir Richard Burton | |
I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to run their own business. I know men that would make my wife a better husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em. -- The Best of Will Rogers | |
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses. -- Victor Hugo | |
I find this corpse guilty of carrying a concealed weapon and I fine it $40. -- Judge Roy Bean, finding a pistol and $40 on a man he'd just shot. | |
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. -- Augustus Caesar | |
I have always noticed that whenever a radical takes to Imperialism, he catches it in a very acute form. -- Winston Churchill, 1903 | |
I have never understood this liking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment. -- Alan Bennett | |
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing... -- Thomas Jefferson | |
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
I needed the good will of the legislature of four states. I formed the legislative bodies with my own money. I found that it was cheaper that way. -- Jay Gould | |
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. -- Francis Bellamy, 1892 | |
I used to be a rebel in my youth. This cause... that cause... (chuckle) I backed 'em ALL! But I learned. Rebellion is simply a device used by the immature to hide from his own problems. So I lost interest in politics. Now when I feel aroused by a civil rights case or a passport hearing... I realize it's just a device. I go to my analyst and we work it out. You have no idea how much better I feel these days. -- J. Feiffer | |
I was appalled by this story of the destruction of a member of a valued endangered species. It's all very well to celebrate the practicality of pigs by ennobling the porcine sibling who constructed his home out of bricks and mortar. But to wantonly destroy a wolf, even one with an excessive taste for porkers, is unconscionable in these ecologically critical times when both man and his domestic beasts continue to maraud the earth. Sylvia Kamerman, "Book Reviewing" | |
I was offered a job as a hoodlum and I turned it down cold. A thief is anybody who gets out and works for his living, like robbing a bank or breaking into a place and stealing stuff, or kidnapping somebody. He really gives some effort to it. A hoodlum is a pretty lousy sort of scum. He works for gangsters and bumps guys off when they have been put on the spot. Why, after I'd made my rep, some of the Chicago Syndicate wanted me to work for them as a hood -- you know, handling a machine gun. They offered me two hundred and fifty dollars a week and all the protection I needed. I was on the lam at the time and not able to work at my regular line. But I wouldn't consider it. "I'm a thief," I said. "I'm no lousy hoodlum." -- Alvin Karpis, "Public Enemy Number One" | |
I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved. -- Warren G. Harding | |
"I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones] | |
If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too. -- W. Somerset Maugham | |
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing. -- Bertrand Russell | |
If Karl, instead of writing a lot about Capital, had made a lot of Capital, it would have been much better. -- Karl Marx's Mother | |
If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation. | |
If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. -- Robert Frost | |
If the American dream is for Americans only, it will remain our dream and never be our destiny. -- Ren'e de Visme Williamson | |
If the government doesn't trust the people, why doesn't it dissolve them and elect a new people? | |
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) | |
If voting could change the system, it would be illegal. If not voting could change the system, it would be illegal. | |
If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom. -- Samuel Adams | |
If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it will always do it. -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin | |
If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep. -- The Best of Will Rogers | |
If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National." -- George Will | |
If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it, even if they don't know what it means. -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party" | |
If your hands are clean and your cause is just and your demands are reasonable, at least it's a start. | |
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
In war it is not men, but the man who counts. -- Napoleon | |
... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery. -- Stephen Crane | |
It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall. -- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" | |
It got to the point where I had to get a haircut or both feet firmly planted in the air. | |
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. | |
It is better to wear chains than to believe you are free, and weight yourself down with invisible chains. | |
It is difficult to legislate morality in the absence of moral legislators. | |
It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of attention, the harder the task. -- Sydney J. Harris | |
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. -- Alfred Adler | |
It is enough to make one sympathize with a tyrant for the determination of his courtiers to deceive him for their own personal ends... -- Russell Baker and Charles Peters | |
It is impossible to defend perfectly against the attack of those who want to die. | |
It is like saying that for the cause of peace, God and the Devil will have a high-level meeting. -- Rev. Carl McIntire, on Nixon's China trip | |
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
It is not the critic who counts, or how the strong man stumbled, or whether the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and who spends himself in a worthy cause, and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who never know either victory or defeat. -- Teddy Roosevelt | |
It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? -- Elizabeth Carpenter | |
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." -- Abraham Lincoln | |
It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier. -- Lazarus Long | |
It pays in England to be a revolutionary and a bible-smacker most of one's life and then come round. -- Lord Alfred Douglas | |
It seems a little silly now, but this country was founded as a protest against taxation. | |
It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. | |
It took a while to surface, but it appears that a long-distance credit card may have saved a U.S. Army unit from heavy casualties during the Grenada military rescue/invasion. Major General David Nichols, Air Force ... said the Army unit was in a house surrounded by Cuban forces. One soldier found a telephone and, using his credit card, called Ft. Bragg, N.C., telling Army officiers there of the perilous situation. The officers in turn called the Air Force, which sent in gunships to scatter the Cubans and relieve the unit. -- Aviation Week and Space Technology | |
"It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies." -- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way" | |
It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. -- Hunter S. Thompson | |
It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for. | |
It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. -- Harry S. Truman | |
"It's a summons." "What's a summons?" "It means summon's in trouble." -- Rocky and Bullwinkle | |
It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first thing a principle does -- if it really is a principle -- is to kill somebody. -- Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night" | |
It's important that people know what you stand for. It's more important that they know what you won't stand for. | |
It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair. -- George Burns | |
It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody not to. -- Franklin P. Jones | |
Jacek, a Polish schoolboy, is told by his teacher that he has been chosen to carry the Polish flag in the May Day parade. "Why me?" whines the boy. "Three years ago I carried the flag when Brezhnev was the Secretary; then I carried the flag when it was Andropov's turn, and again when Chernenko was in the Kremlin. Why is it always me, teacher?" "Because, Jacek, you have such golden hands," the teacher explains. -- being told in Poland, 1987 | |
Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called "Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses. | |
Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it; what is happening in America is that those parades are getting smaller and smaller -- and there are many more of them. -- John Naisbitt, "Megatrends" | |
Liberty don't work as good in practice as it does in speeches. -- The Best of Will Rogers | |
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick | |
Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out the right thing to do. Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing, but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the right thing to do and what is the right way to do it. That is the problem. But this economy of ours is not so simple that it obeys to the opinion of bias or the pronouncements of any particular individual, even to the President. This is an economy that is made up of 173 million people, and it reflects their desires, they're ready to buy, they're ready to spend, it is a thing that is too complex and too big to be affected adversely or advantageously just by a few words or any particular -- say, a little this and that, or even a panacea so alleged. -- D.D. Eisenhower, in response to: "Has the government been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to the recession?" | |
Love America -- or give it back. | |
Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. | |
Most people want either less corruption or more of a chance to participate in it. | |
Mr. Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he was wrong, "Up to a point." "Let me see, what's the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? Yokohama isn't it?" "Up to a point, Lord Copper." "And Hong Kong definitely belongs to us, doesn't it?" "Definitely, Lord Copper." -- Evelyn Waugh, "Scoop" | |
"My country, right or wrong" is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying "My mother, drunk or sober." -- G.K. Chesterton, "The Defendant" | |
My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on. -- J.F. Kennedy | |
My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable. ... We should be reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not we grapple with it. But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, slow march of intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities. -- James A. Michener | |
National security is in your hands - guard it well. | |
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt, 1783 | |
No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. -- Thomas Jefferson, to Joseph Cabell, 1816 | |
Nobody takes a bribe. Of course at Christmas if you happen to hold out your hat and somebody happens to put a little something in it, well, that's different. -- New York City Police Commissioner (Ret.) William P. O'Brien, instructions to the force. | |
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -- Andrew Young | |
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. "How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?" "Four." "And if the Party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?" "Four." The word ended in a gasp of pain. -- George Orwell | |
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 | |
Once there was a marine biologist who loved dolphins. He spent his time trying to feed and protect his beloved creatures of the sea. One day, in a fit of inventive genius, he came up with a serum that would make dolphins live forever! Of course he was ecstatic. But he soon realized that in order to mass produce this serum he would need large amounts of a certain compound that was only found in nature in the metabolism of a rare South American bird. Carried away by his love for dolphins, he resolved that he would go to the zoo and steal one of these birds. Unbeknownst to him, as he was arriving at the zoo an elderly lion was escaping from its cage. The zookeepers were alarmed and immediately began combing the zoo for the escaped animal, unaware that it had simply lain down on the sidewalk and had gone to sleep. Meanwhile, the marine biologist arrived at the zoo and procured his bird. He was so excited by the prospect of helping his dolphins that he stepped absentmindedly stepped over the sleeping lion on his way back to his car. Immediately, 1500 policemen converged on him and arrested him for transporting a myna across a staid lion for immortal porpoises. | |
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform. -- Sen. Roscoe Conkling Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -- Boies Penrose | |
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. -- Albert Einstein | |
People that can't find something to live for always seem to find something to die for. The problem is, they usually want the rest of us to die for it too. | |
People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed. | |
Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in power we would behave very differently from those who now hold it -- when, in truth, in order to get power we would have to become very much like them. (Lenin's fatal mistake, both in theory and in practice.) | |
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. -- John Kenneth Galbraith | |
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen. -- Winston Churchill | |
Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or help speed the change by breaking them? | |
"Remember, if it's being done correctly, here or abroad, it's ___not the U.S. Army doing it!" -- Good Morning VietNam | |
Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. | |
Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature. -- Samuel Johnson | |
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" | |
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that never comes again. San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost ___see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. -- Hunter S. Thompson | |
That's where the money was. -- Willie Sutton, on being asked why he robbed a bank It's a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night. -- Willie Sutton | |
... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use. -- Abraham Lincoln | |
The Constitution may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what we've got! | |
The Crown is full of it! -- Nate Harris, 1775 | |
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. -- Bertrand Russell, in "Marriage and Morals", 1929 | |
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. -- Abbie Hoffman | |
The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner workings of the U.S. Air Force. "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked. In his head he ran through his standard explanations. "It's not so," he thought. "It's a deterrent." Soon he came up with, "It's computerized, Senator. Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied. Try a cup." The Senator did. "Pfffttt! Tastes like jet fuel!" "It's not so," the General thought. "It's a deterrent." Then he remembered something. "We bought a lot of untested computer chips," the General answered. "They got into everything. Just a little mix-up. Nothing serious." Then he remembered something else. It was at the site of the mysterious B-1 crash. A strange smell in the fuel lines. It smelled like coffee. Smooth and full bodied... -- Another Episode of General's Hospital | |
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return. -- Gore Vidal | |
The government has just completed work on a missile that turned out to be a bit of a boondoggle; nicknamed "Civil Servant", it won't work and they can't fire it. | |
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr. -- Will Rogers | |
The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state, for styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions. ... The new style, gradually gaining a lodgement, quitely insinuates itself into manners and customs, and from it ... goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning everything. -- Plato, "Republic", 370 B.C. | |
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. -- Henry David Thoreau | |
The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school graduation. Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life." According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22, 1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm." Their "farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year. But as a "family farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year. Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers." You probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency. It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore. Now it's "chrono- logically experienced citizens." According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was just a case of "uncontained blade liberation." -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) | |
The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish to be addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But it is equally important to accept and tolerate different standards of courtesy, not expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own preferences. Only then can we hope to restore the insult to its proper social function of expressing true distaste. -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior" | |
The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties. -- H.L. Mencken, "Prejudice" | |
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. -- Thomas Macaulay, "History of England" | |
The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics" | |
The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to grey and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And, as some of the men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought." -- Alistair Cooke | |
The two party system ... is a triumph of the dialectic. It showed that two could be one and one could be two and had probably been fabricated by Hegel for the American market on a subcontract from General Dynamics. -- I.F. Stone | |
The universe is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering. -- Chinese proverb | |
"The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes, it's just a tired feeling:" | |
The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and incompetence... sort of like the Post Office with tanks. -- Emo Philips | |
The Worst Bank Robbery In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, sheepishly left the building. A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them. When they demanded 5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it was a practical joke. Then one of the men jumped over the counter, but fell to the floor clutching his ankle. The other two tried to make their getaway, but got trapped in the revolving doors again. | |
The Worst Prison Guards The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, near Lisbon in Portugal. During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were "covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back the next morning. "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the "legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
There is no education that is not political. An apolitical education is also political because it is purposely isolating. | |
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. -- G.B. Shaw | |
There is perhaps in every thing of any consequence, secret history, which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. -- James Boswell | |
They call them "squares" because it's the most complicated shape they can deal with. | |
"They make a desert and call it peace." -- Tacitus (55?-120?) | |
Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. -- G.K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday" | |
Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease. -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" | |
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 | |
To be excellent when engaged in administration is to be like the North Star. As it remains in its one position, all the other stars surround it. -- Confucius | |
To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco | |
True leadership is the art of changing a group from what it is to what it ought to be. -- Virginia Allan | |
Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the Captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow." "Is it steady or moving astern?" the Captain called out. Lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The Captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees." Back came a signal "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees." In reply, the Captain said, "Send: I'm a Captain, change course 20 degrees!" "I'm a seaman second class," came the reply, "You had better change course 20 degrees." By that time, the Captain was furious. He spit out, "Send: I'm a battleship, change course 20 degrees." Back came the flashing light: "I'm a lighthouse!" We changed course. -- The Naval Institute's "Proceedings" | |
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. -- J.K. Galbraith | |
Usually, when a lot of men get together, it's called a war. -- Mel Brooks, "The Listener" | |
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it. -- Desiderius Erasmus | |
War is like love, it always finds a way. -- Bertolt Brecht, "Mother Courage" | |
We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we've borrowed it from our children. | |
... we must not judge the society of the future by considering whether or not we should like to live in it; the question is whether those who have grown up in it will be happier than those who have grown up in our society or those of the past. -- Joseph Wood Krutch | |
Well, don't worry about it... It's nothing. -- Lieutenant Kermit Tyler (Duty Officer of Shafter Information Center, Hawaii), upon being informed that Private Joseph Lockard had picked up a radar signal of what appeared to be at least 50 planes soaring toward Oahu at almost 180 miles per hour, December 7, 1941. | |
Well, he didn't know what to do, so he decided to look at the government, to see what they did, and scale it down and run his life that way. -- Laurie Anderson | |
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 | |
What is status? Status is when the President calls you for your opinion. Uh, no... Status is when the President calls you in to discuss a problem with him. Uh, that still ain't right... STATUS is when you're in the Oval Office talking to the President, and the phone rings. The President picks it up, listens for a minute, and hands it to you, saying, "It's for you." | |
What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. | |
What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority. -- Robert Altman | |
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. -- R.A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love" | |
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow | |
When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes, it means that they want you to change first. | |
When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite. -- Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war | |
When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. -- Otto Von Bismarck | |
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. -- Abraham Lincoln | |
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 | |
... with liberty and justice for all ... who can afford it. | |
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 | |
You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last names. Here's the complete text: "(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT) (2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) (3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST NAME), that it pays to file the short form!" The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
You must include all income you receive in the form of money, property and services if it is not specifically exempt. Report property (goods) and services at their fair market values. Examples include income from bartering or swapping transactions, side commissions, kickbacks, rent paid in services, illegal activities (such as stealing, drugs, etc.), cash skimming by proprietors and tradesmen, "moonlighting" services, gambling, prizes and awards. Not reporting such income can lead to prosecution for perjury and fraud. -- Excerpt from Taxachussetts income tax forms | |
The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net paranoia quotient; it simply redirects it, drives it underground, where it festers into more dangerous hysterias. In the words of Justice Brandeis, "Men feared witches and burned women." -- Rodney Smolla, "Free Speech in an Open Society", p. 43. | |
"Even if you want no state, or a minimal state, then you still have to argue it point by point. Especially since most minimalists want to keep exactly the economic and police system that keeps them privileged. That's libertarians for you -- anarchists who want police protection from their slaves!" -- Coyote, in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Green Mars" | |
186,282 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! | |
A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. | |
A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan. | |
Advertising Rule: In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, that it is curable. | |
Amoebit: Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time. | |
Andrea's Admonition: Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, it isn't and he can. | |
Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. | |
Armstrong's Collection Law: If the check is truly in the mail, it is surely made out to someone else. | |
Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. | |
Basic Definitions of Science: If it's green or wiggles, it's biology. If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it doesn't work, it's physics. | |
BASIC, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. | |
Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. | |
Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. | |
boy, n: A noise with dirt on it. | |
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?" | |
brain-damaged, generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in Multics, adj: Obviously wrong; cretinous; demented. There is an implication that the person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he/she should have known better. Calling something brain-damaged is bad; it also implies it is unusable. | |
Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. | |
Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. | |
bug, n: An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect. The activity of "debugging", or removing bugs from a program, ends when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed. -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984 | |
Bunker's Admonition: You cannot buy beer; you can only rent it. | |
Burbulation: The obsessive act of opening and closing a refrigerator door in an attempt to catch it before the automatic light comes on. -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends | |
Burn's Hog Weighing Method: (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. -- Robert Burns | |
C, n: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard | |
Canada Bill Jones's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: A Smith and Wesson beats four aces. | |
Canonical, adj.: The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking. Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" Stallman: "What did he say?" Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way." | |
Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
Carson's Consolation: Nothing is ever a complete failure. It can always be used as a bad example. | |
Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. | |
Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. Grelb's Commentary: Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. | |
comment: A superfluous element of a source program included so the programmer can remember what the hell it was he was doing six months later. Only the weak-minded need them, according to those who think they aren't. | |
Committee Rules: (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner. (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise. (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others. (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for. | |
Conference, n.: A special meeting in which the boss gathers subordinates to hear what they have to say, so long as it doesn't conflict with what he's already decided to do. | |
Consent decree: A document in which a hapless company consents never to commit in the future whatever heinous violations of Federal law it never admitted to in the first place. | |
Consultant, n.: (1) Someone you pay to take the watch off your wrist and tell you what time it is. (2) (For resume use) The working title of anyone who doesn't currently hold a job. Motto: Have Calculator, Will Travel. | |
Crenna's Law of Political Accountability: If you are the first to know about something bad, you are going to be held responsible for acting on it, regardless of your formal duties. | |
Cruickshank's Law of Committees: If a committee is allowed to discuss a bad idea long enough, it will inevitably decide to implement the idea simply because so much work has already been done on it. | |
Death wish, n.: The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it to. | |
Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Drakenberg's Discovery: If you can't seem to find your glasses, it's probably because you don't have them on. | |
Economies of scale: The notion that bigger is better. In particular, that if you want a certain amount of computer power, it is much better to buy one biggie than a bunch of smallies. Accepted as an article of faith by people who love big machines and all that complexity. Rejected as an article of faith by those who love small machines and all those limitations. | |
Emerson's Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. | |
Epperson's law: When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably something his wife can beat him at. | |
Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." -- Mike Kellen | |
Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. | |
Experience, n.: Something you don't get until just after you need it. -- Olivier | |
Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules: NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and address -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) -- to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card (without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the the Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize. | |
Famous last words: (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." (2) "You and what army?" (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop." | |
Famous last words: (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- (4) We won't need reservations. (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded. (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. (8) Don't worry! Women love it! | |
feature, n: A surprising property of a program. Occasionaly documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author did not consider that case, and the program makes an unexpected, though not necessarily wrong response. See BUG. "That's not a bug, it's a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it. | |
Finagle's Eighth Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. Finagle's Ninth Law: No matter what results are expected, someone is always willing to fake it. Finagle's Tenth Law: No matter what the result someone is always eager to misinterpret it. Finagle's Eleventh Law: No matter what occurs, someone believes it happened according to his pet theory. | |
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. | |
Finagle's Second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory. | |
Finagle's Third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake Corollaries: (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately. | |
First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. | |
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. | |
Flon's Law: There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. | |
FORTUNE EXPLAINS WHAT JOB REVIEW CATCH PHRASES MEAN: #4 consistent: Reviewee hasn't gotten anything right yet, and it is anticipated that this pattern will continue throughout the coming year. an excellent sounding board: Present reviewee with any number of alternatives, and implement them in the order precisely opposite of his/her specification. a planner and organizer: Usually manages to put on socks before shoes. Can match the animal tags on his clothing. | |
Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. | |
Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not almost one, it is damn near zero. -- David Ellis | |
Frobnicate, v.: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a frob." See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. | |
Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over. | |
Fun experiments: Get a can of shaving cream, throw it in a freezer for about a week. Then take it out, peel the metal off and put it where you want... bedroom, car, etc. As it thaws, it expands an unbelievable amount. | |
Fun Facts, #14: In table tennis, whoever gets 21 points first wins. That's how it once was in baseball -- whoever got 21 runs first won. | |
Fun Facts, #63: The name California was given to the state by Spanish conquistadores. It was the name of an imaginary island, a paradise on earth, in the Spanish romance, "Les Serges de Esplandian", written by Montalvo in 1510. | |
Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. | |
Gold's Law: If the shoe fits, it's ugly. | |
Gold, n.: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
Gordon's first law: If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well. | |
Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. [I thought it was when your kids learned to drive. Ed.] | |
gurmlish, n.: The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof of his mouth. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
half-done, n.: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it? -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
hard, adj.: The quality of your own data; also how it is to believe those of other people. | |
Hawkeye's Conclusion: It's not easy to play the clown when you've got to run the whole circus. | |
Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization. | |
Herth's Law: He who turns the other cheek too far gets it in the neck. | |
Hlade's Law: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they will find an easier way to do it. | |
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account. | |
Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces. | |
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #15 Your pet rock snaps at you. | |
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you. | |
Hubbard's Law: Don't take life too seriously; you won't get out of it alive. | |
IBM: I've Been Moved Idiots Become Managers Idiots Buy More Impossible to Buy Machine Incredibly Big Machine Industry's Biggest Mistake International Brotherhood of Mercenaries It Boggles the Mind It's Better Manually Itty-Bitty Machines | |
IBM: It may be slow, but it's hard to use. | |
idiot box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
Iles's Law: There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it. Neither will Iles. | |
Immutability, Three Rules of: (1) If a tarpaulin can flap, it will. (2) If a small boy can get dirty, he will. (3) If a teenager can go out, he will. | |
incentive program, n.: The system of long and short-term rewards that a corporation uses to motivate its people. Still, despite all the experimentation with profit sharing, stock options, and the like, the most effective incentive program to date seems to be "Do a good job and you get to keep it." | |
Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require. | |
Information Processing: What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with it they won't let it be discussed in their presence. | |
insecurity, n.: Finding out that you've mispronounced for years one of your favorite words. Realizing halfway through a joke that you're telling it to the person who told it to you. | |
Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
intoxicated, adj.: When you feel sophisticated without being able to pronounce it. | |
It is fruitless: to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lactate fluid. to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. | |
"It's in process": So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless. | |
Jenkinson's Law: It won't work. | |
Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time. | |
Jones' Second Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. | |
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. | |
Kent's Heuristic: Look for it first where you'd most like to find it. | |
Knebel's Law: It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. | |
Laws of Computer Programming: (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. (6) The value of a program is proportional the weight of its output. (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. | |
learning curve, n.: An astonishing new theory, discovered by management consultants in the 1970's, asserting that the more you do something the quicker you can do it. | |
Lemma: All horses are the same color. Proof (by induction): Case n = 1: In a set with only one horse, it is obvious that all horses in that set are the same color. Case n = k: Suppose you have a set of k+1 horses. Pull one of these horses out of the set, so that you have k horses. Suppose that all of these horses are the same color. Now put back the horse that you took out, and pull out a different one. Suppose that all of the k horses now in the set are the same color. Then the set of k+1 horses are all the same color. We have k true => k+1 true; therefore all horses are the same color. Theorem: All horses have an infinite number of legs. Proof (by intimidation): Everyone would agree that all horses have an even number of legs. It is also well-known that horses have forelegs in front and two legs in back. 4 + 2 = 6 legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse to have! Now the only number that is both even and odd is infinity; therefore all horses have an infinite number of legs. However, suppose that there is a horse somewhere that does not have an infinite number of legs. Well, that would be a horse of a different color; and by the Lemma, it doesn't exist. | |
Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. | |
love, n.: When it's growing, you don't mind watering it with a few tears. | |
Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. | |
MAFIA, n: [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay. Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and entire nodal aggravations. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" | |
Magary's Principle: When there is a public outcry to cut deadwood and fat from any government bureaucracy, it is the deadwood and the fat that do the cutting, and the public's services are cut. | |
Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. | |
McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. | |
Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so. | |
memo, n.: An interoffice communication too often written more for the benefit of the person who sends it than the person who receives it. | |
Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped. | |
Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it. | |
Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. | |
meterologist, n.: One who doubts the established fact that it is bound to rain if you forget your umbrella. | |
Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end. | |
Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it. | |
Modesty: The gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. -- Oliver Herford | |
Molecule, n.: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. | |
Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job. | |
Murphy's Laws: (1) If anything can go wrong, it will. (2) Nothing is as easy as it looks. (3) Everything takes longer than you think it will. | |
Mustgo, n.: Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so long it has become a science project. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" | |
Nachman's Rule: When it comes to foreign food, the less authentic the better. -- Gerald Nachman | |
neutron bomb, n.: An explosive device of limited military value because, as it only destroys people without destroying property, it must be used in conjunction with bombs that destroy property. | |
Newlan's Truism: An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. | |
Newton's Law of Gravitation: What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where you can find it. Murphy's Law applies to Newton's. | |
no brainer: A decision which, viewed through the retrospectoscope, is "obvious" to those who failed to make it originally. | |
nolo contendere: A legal term meaning: "I didn't do it, judge, and I'll never do it again." | |
Occam's eraser: The philosophical principle that even the simplest solution is bound to have something wrong with it. | |
Old Japanese proverb: There are two kinds of fools -- those who never climb Mt. Fuji, and those who climb it twice. | |
Oliver's Law: Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. | |
One-Shot Case Study, n.: The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes green. | |
Optimism, n.: The belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, good, bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those accustomed to falling into adversity, and most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but not contagious. | |
pain, n.: One thing, at least it proves that you're alive! | |
Parkinson's Fifth Law: If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. | |
Pascal: A programming language named after a man who would turn over in his grave if he knew about it. -- Datamation, January 15, 1984 | |
Paul's Law: In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. | |
Pecor's Health-Food Principle: Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in it. | |
phosflink: To flick a bulb on and off when it burns out (as if, somehow, that will bring it back to life). -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends | |
Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. | |
Poorman's Rule: When you pull a plastic garbage bag from its handy dispenser package, you always get hold of the closed end and try to pull it open. | |
Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side. | |
Price's Advice: It's all a game -- play it to have fun. | |
program, n.: A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. tr.v. To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. | |
progress, n.: Medieval man thought disease was caused by invisible demons invading the body and taking possession of it. Modern man knows disease is caused by microscopic bacteria and viruses invading the body and causing it to malfunction. | |
Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity. SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs. (1) Horses have an even number of legs. (2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front. (3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of legs for a horse. (4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. (5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs. Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by: Intimidation Gesticulation (handwaving) "Try it; it works" Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...) Blatant assertion Changing all the 2's to _n's Mutual consent Lack of a counterexample, and "It stands to reason" | |
purpitation, n.: To take something off the grocery shelf, decide you don't want it, and then put it in another section. -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends | |
QOTD: "It's not the despair... I can stand the despair. It's the hope." | |
QOTD: "Do you smell something burning or is it me?" -- Joan of Arc | |
QOTD: "Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone." | |
QOTD: "East is east... and let's keep it that way." | |
QOTD: "Everything I am today I owe to people, whom it is now to late to punish." | |
QOTD: "I am not sure what this is, but an 'F' would only dignify it." | |
QOTD: "I drive my car quietly, for it goes without saying." | |
QOTD: "I sprinkled some baking powder over a couple of potatoes, but it didn't work." | |
QOTD: "I thought I saw a unicorn on the way over, but it was just a horse with one of the horns broken off." | |
QOTD: "I tried buying a goat instead of a lawn tractor; had to return it though. Couldn't figure out a way to connect the snow blower." | |
QOTD: "I'll listen to reason when it comes out on CD." | |
QOTD: "I'm not really for apathy, but I'm not against it either..." | |
QOTD: "I'm on a seafood diet -- I see food and I eat it." | |
QOTD: "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." | |
QOTD: "If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it." | |
QOTD: "It seems to me that your antenna doesn't bring in too many stations anymore." | |
QOTD: "It was so cold last winter that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets." | |
QOTD: "It wouldn't have been anything, even if it were gonna be a thing." | |
QOTD: "It's a cold bowl of chili, when love don't work out." | |
QOTD: "It's been Monday all week today." | |
QOTD: "It's been real and it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun." | |
QOTD: "It's hard to tell whether he has an ace up his sleeve or if the ace is missing from his deck altogether." | |
QOTD: "It's sort of a threat, you see. I've never been very good at them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective." | |
QOTD: "Of course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake?" | |
QOTD: "Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy." | |
QOTD: "Overweight is when you step on your dog's tail and it dies." | |
QOTD: "The baby was so ugly they had to hang a pork chop around its neck to get the dog to play with it." | |
QOTD: "When she hauled ass, it took three trips." | |
QOTD: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if real life supported control-Z?" | |
QOTD: I love your outfit, does it come in your size? | |
QOTD: If it's too loud, you're too old. | |
QOTD: Ludwig Boltzmann, who spend much of his life studying statistical mechanics died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn. -- Goodstein, States of Matter | |
QOTD: Money isn't everything, but at least it keeps the kids in touch. | |
QOTD: Talent does what it can, genius what it must. I do what I get paid to do. | |
Quigley's Law: Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will atttempt to use it. | |
Ralph's Observation: It is a mistake to let any mechanical object realise that you are in a hurry. | |
Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it. | |
Reporter, n.: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Research, n.: Consider Columbus: He didn't know where he was going. When he got there he didn't know where he was. When he got back he didn't know where he had been. And he did it all on someone else's money. | |
Responsibility: Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility. This is a lot of bunk. Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something goes wrong. When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it is to take the blame for your mistakes. If they're smart, that is. -- Cerebus, "On Governing" | |
Rhode's Law: When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe. | |
Ritchie's Rule: (1) Everything has some value -- if you use the right currency. (2) Paint splashes last longer than the paint job. (3) Search and ye shall find -- but make sure it was lost. | |
Rudd's Discovery: You know that any senator or congressman could go home and make $300,000 to $400,000, but they don't. Why? Because they can stay in Washington and make it there. | |
Rudin's Law: If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time. Rudin's Second Law: In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course. | |
Rules for Writers: Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. Don't use no double negatives. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't. Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed. No sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are unnecessary. Eschew dialect, irregardless. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens. Write all adverbial forms correct. Don't use contractions in formal writing. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'" | |
Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in. | |
Savage's Law of Expediency: You want it bad, you'll get it bad. | |
Scott's First Law: No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. Scott's Second Law: When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been wrong in the first place. Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation. | |
Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway. | |
Self Test for Paranoia: You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's your own fault. | |
Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. | |
Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. | |
Slous' Contention: If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it. | |
Slurm, n.: The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when it sits in the dish too long. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it. | |
Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization. | |
The Briggs-Chase Law of Program Development: To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units. | |
The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet. -- Michael Jackson | |
The Gordian Maxim: If a string has one end, it has another. | |
The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, although here the phases are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus: Retribution: I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother. Anticipation: I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother. Diplomacy: I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that your brother did it. | |
The Illiterati Programus Canto 1: A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and sometimes it blows. | |
The Modelski Chain Rule: (1) Look intently at the problem for several minutes. Scratch your head at 20-30 second intervals. Try solving the problem on your Hewlett-Packard. (2) Failing this, look around at the class. Select a particularly bright-looking individual. (3) Procure a large chain. (4) Walk over to the selected student and threaten to beat him severely with the chain unless he gives you the answer to the problem. Generally, he will. It may also be a good idea to give him a sound thrashing anyway, just to show you mean business. | |
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. | |
The three laws of thermodynamics: (1) You can't get anything without working for it. (2) The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. (3) You can only break even at absolute zero. | |
Theorem: All positive integers are equal. Proof: Sufficient to show that for any two positive integers, A and B, A = B. Further, it is sufficient to show that for all N > 0, if A and B (positive integers) satisfy (MAX(A, B) = N) then A = B. Proceed by induction: If N = 1, then A and B, being positive integers, must both be 1. So A = B. Assume that the theorem is true for some value k. Take A and B with MAX(A, B) = k+1. Then MAX((A-1), (B-1)) = k. And hence (A-1) = (B-1). Consequently, A = B. | |
theory, n.: System of ideas meant to explain something, chosen with a view to originality, controversialism, incomprehensibility, and how good it will look in print. | |
There are three ways to get something done: (1) Do it yourself. (2) Hire someone to do it for you. (3) Forbid your kids to do it. | |
Tip of the Day: Never fry bacon in the nude. [Correction: always fry bacon in the nude; you'll learn not to burn it] | |
Toni's Solution to a Guilt-Free Life: If you have to lie to someone, it's their fault. | |
transparent, adj.: Being or pertaining to an existing, nontangible object. "It's there, but you can't see it" -- IBM System/360 announcement, 1964. virtual, adj.: Being or pertaining to a tangible, nonexistent object. "I can see it, but it's not there." -- Lady Macbeth. | |
U.S. of A.: "Don't speak to the bus driver." Germany: "It is strictly forbidden for passengers to speak to the driver." England: "You are requested to refrain from speaking to the driver." Scotland: "What have you got to gain by speaking to the driver?" Italy: "Don't answer the driver." | |
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it. | |
University, n.: Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix it, and ... [Okay, okay, I'll leave it in, but I think you're destroying the credibility of the entire fortune program. Ed.] | |
Unnamed Law: If it happens, it must be possible. | |
vacation, n.: A two-week binge of rest and relaxation so intense that it takes another 50 weeks of your restrained workaday life-style to recuperate. | |
Volley Theory: It is better to have lobbed and lost than never to have lobbed at all. | |
Watson's Law: The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons watching it. | |
"We'll look into it": By the time the wheels make a full turn, we assume you will have forgotten about it, too. | |
Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. | |
White's Statement: Don't lose heart! Owen's Commentary on White's Statement: ...they might want to cut it out... Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary: ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search. | |
Wit, n.: The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery ... by leaving it out. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection: (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it. (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete. (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2) (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator. (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless. -- Rich Kulawiec | |
Worst Month of the Year: February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. -- Steve Rubenstein | |
Clique Maintenance: The need of one generation to see the generation following it as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do nothing. They're so apathetic. We used to go out and protest. All they do is shop and complain." -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Ethnomagnetism: The tendency of young people to live in emotionally demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't understand it there, mother -- they *hug* where I live now." -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Legislated Nostalgia: To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?" -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Squirming: Discomfort inflicted on young people by old people who see no irony in their gestures. "Karen died a thousand deaths as her father made a big show of tasting a recently manufactured bottle of wine before allowing it to be poured as the family sat in Steak Hut. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
QFD: Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD." -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
QFM: Quelle fashion mistake. "It was really QFM. I mean painter pants? That's 1979 beyond belief." -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile. | |
A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men gets out and goes into the office. "I need some four-by-two's," he says. "You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go check." Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be acceptable. "OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go check," he says. He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, "we're building a house". | |
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tennessee Williams | |
Agree with them now, it will save so much time. | |
Ahhhhhh... the smell of cuprinol and mahogany. It excites me to... acts of passion... acts of... ineptitude. | |
AMAZING BUT TRUE ... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. | |
Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. | |
An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways. -- Isaac Asimov | |
Before I knew the best part of my life had come, it had gone. | |
Blame Saint Andreas -- it's all his fault. | |
CF&C stole it, fair and square. -- Tim Hahn | |
"Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!" -- Mom | |
Did it ever occur to you that fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing? Or that we drive on parkways and park on driveways? | |
Dignity is like a flag. It flaps in a storm. -- Roy Mengot | |
Don't force it, get a larger hammer. -- Anthony | |
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac; you can always take something for it. | |
Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past. -- The Adventurer | |
Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. | |
Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different. | |
Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it. | |
Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the window. | |
"Fantasies are free." "NO!! NO!! It's the thought police!!!!" | |
Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. | |
Force it!!! If it breaks, well, it wasn't working anyway... No, don't force it, get a bigger hammer. | |
"Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly: "of course you know what 'it' means." "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck: "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?" | |
God, I ask for patience -- and I want it right now! | |
Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) | |
Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length. | |
"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path." -- Ronald Mabbitt | |
"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words." | |
I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into something else -- like a ravenous, two-headed, fire-breathing dragon. -- Willow | |
I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. | |
I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once. | |
I never did it that way before. | |
I want to reach your mind -- where is it currently located? | |
"I'm dying," he croaked. "My experiment was a success," the chemist retorted . "You can't really train a beagle," he dogmatized. "That's no beagle, it's a mongrel," she muttered. "The fire is going out," he bellowed. "Bad marksmanship," the hunter groused. "You ought to see a psychiatrist," he reminded me. "You snake," she rattled. "Someone's at the door," she chimed. "Company's coming," she guessed. "Dawn came too soon," she mourned. "I think I'll end it all," Sue sighed. "I ordered chocolate, not vanilla," I screamed. "Your embroidery is sloppy," she needled cruelly. "Where did you get this meat?" he bridled hoarsely. -- Gyles Brandreth, "The Joy of Lex" | |
I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear. -- John Foreman | |
"If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far." -- Paul White | |
If I love you, what business is it of yours? -- Johann van Goethe | |
If it doesn't smell yet, it's pretty fresh. -- Dave Johnson, on dead seagulls | |
If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. | |
If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. | |
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. | |
If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past is subject to change in times to come? | |
If the grass is greener on other side of fence, consider what may be fertilizing it. | |
If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. | |
If we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of an oncoming train. -- Robert Lowell | |
If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. | |
If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. | |
If you knew what to say next, would you say it? | |
In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it. | |
It has long been known that birds will occasionally build nests in the manes of horses. The only known solution to this problem is to sprinkle baker's yeast in the mane, for, as we all know, yeast is yeast and nest is nest, and never the mane shall tweet. | |
It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances. -- Emerson | |
It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? One in a million, perhaps. | |
It is better to be bow-legged than no-legged. | |
It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark. | |
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. -- Leonardo da Vinci | |
It is easier to run down a hill than up one. | |
It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind | |
It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the future. | |
It isn't easy being a Friday kind of person in a Monday kind of world. | |
It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. | |
It occurred to me lately that nothing has occurred to me lately. | |
"It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set foot." | |
It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was broken ... --- James Dent | |
It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its novelty. Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable man a lifetime. -- Thomas Aldrich | |
It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like the rose and the teeth were in the same glass. | |
It would save me a lot of time if you just gave up and went mad now. | |
It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished. | |
It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools. -- Danny Vermin | |
It's amazing how much better you feel once you've given up hope. | |
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. | |
It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. -- Kim Hubbard | |
Let he who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. | |
Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. | |
Life -- Love It or Leave It. | |
Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. -- Paul Gauguin | |
Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. | |
Love the sea? I dote upon it -- from the beach. | |
Moebius always does it on the same side. | |
Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not or that there is not space to list it all, etc. | |
No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. | |
No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day. -- Nietzsche | |
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. | |
Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. | |
Peace be to this house, and all that dwell in it. | |
Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it. | |
Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being hysterical at the same time. | |
Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. -- Ogden Nash | |
Progress was all right. Only it went on too long. -- James Thurber | |
Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or help speed the change by breaking them? | |
Quod erat demonstrandum. [Thus it is proven. For those who wondered WTF QED means.] | |
See, these two penguins walked into a bar, which was really stupid, 'cause the second one should have seen it. | |
Shirley MacLaine died today in a freak psychic collision today. Two freaks in a van [Oh no!! It's the Copyright Police!!] Her aura-charred body was laid to rest after a eulogy by Jackie Collins, fellow member of SAFE [Society of Asinine Flake Entertainers]. Excerpted from some of his more quotable comments: "Truly a woman of the times. These times, those times..." "A Renaissance woman. Why in 1432..." "A man for all seasons. Really..." After the ceremony, Shirley thanked her mourners and explained how delightful it was to "get it together" again, presumably referring to having her now dead body join her long dead brain. | |
Someday you'll get your big chance -- or have you already had it? | |
Someday, Weederman, we'll look back on all this and laugh... It will probably be one of those deep, eerie ones that slowly builds to a blood-curdling maniacal scream... but still it will be a laugh. -- Mister Boffo | |
Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it. | |
Take it easy, we're in a hurry. | |
The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo! now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. -- H.D. Thoreau | |
The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn | |
The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) | |
The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptizing it. -- George Meredith | |
The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its message and then disappears. | |
The last person who said that (God rest his soul) lived to regret it. | |
The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) | |
The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. -- Glaser and Way | |
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. | |
There are no rules for March. March is spring, sort of, usually, March means maybe, but don't bet on it. | |
There seems no plan because it is all plan. -- C.S. Lewis | |
There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse. | |
This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. -- Douglas Hofstadter | |
This sentence does in fact not have the property it claims not to have. | |
"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" | |
Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job -- it's the start of a brand new series of three. | |
We'll cross that bridge when we come back to it later. | |
What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"? | |
What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes. | |
"What time is it?" "I don't know, it keeps changing." | |
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" -- The Doctor | |
When a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far! | |
When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? | |
When pleasure remains, does it remain a pleasure? | |
When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it. -- Billy Sunday | |
When your memory goes, forget it! | |
Where will it all end? Probably somewhere near where it all began. | |
Whip it, whip it good! | |
Why is it called a funny bone when it hurts so much? | |
Why is it taking so long for her to bring out all the good in you? | |
[ ] Safeguard this message - it is an important historical document. [ ] Delete after reading -- Subversive Literature. [ ] Ignore and go back to what you were doing. | |
A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer, carries it to the bathroom and dumps it into a urinal. Over the course of the next few hours, he goes back to the bar and repeats this sequence -- several times. Finally the bartender got so curious that he leaned over the bar and asked him what he was doing. Replied the customer, "Avoiding the middleman." | |
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
Beer -- it's not just for breakfast anymore. | |
Best Beer: A panel of tasters assembled by the Consumer's Union in 1969 judged Coors and Miller's High Life to be among the very best. Those who doubt that beer is a serious subject might ponder its effect on American history. For example, New England's first colonists decided to drop anchor at Plymouth Rock instead of continuing on to Virginia because, as one of them put it, "We could not now take time for further consideration, our victuals being spent and especially our beer." -- Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst & Most Unusual | |
Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it? Jaka: Ugh! Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" | |
Climbing onto a bar stool, a piece of string asked for a beer. "Wait a minute. Aren't you a string?" "Well, yes, I am." "Sorry. We don't serve strings here." The determined string left the bar and stopped a passer-by. "Excuse, me," it said, "would you shred my ends and tie me up like a pretzel?" The passer-by obliged, and the string re-entered the bar. "May I have a beer, please?" it asked the bartender. The barkeep set a beer in front of the string, then suddenly stopped. "Hey, aren't you the string I just threw out of here?" "No, I'm a frayed knot." | |
Coach: How's it going, Norm? Norm: Daddy's rich and Momma's good lookin'. -- Cheers, Truce or Consequences Sam: What's up, Norm? Norm: My nipples. It's freezing out there. -- Cheers, Coach Returns to Action Coach: What's the story, Norm? Norm: Thirsty guy walks into a bar. You finish it. -- Cheers, Endless Slumper | |
Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 | |
Don't drink when you drive -- you might hit a bump and spill it. | |
Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying. | |
Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it's compounding a felony. -- Robert Benchley | |
ELECTRIC JELL-O 2 boxes JELL-O brand gelatin 2 packages Knox brand unflavored gelatin 2 cups fruit (any variety) 2+ cups water 1/2 bottle Everclear brand grain alcohol Mix JELL-O and Knox gelatin into 2 cups of boiling water. Stir 'til fully dissolved. Pour hot mixture into a flat pan. (JELL-O molds won't work.) Stir in grain alcohol instead of usual cold water. Remove any congealing glops of slime. (Alcohol has an unusual effect on excess JELL-O.) Pour in fruit to desired taste, and to absorb any excess alcohol. Mix in some cold water to dilute the alcohol and make it easier to eat for the faint of heart. Refrigerate overnight to allow mixture to fully harden. (About 8-12 hours.) Cut into squares and enjoy! WARNING: Keep ingredients away from open flame. Not recommended for children under eight years of age. | |
FORTUNE'S FAVORITE RECIPES: #8 Christmas Rum Cake 1 or 2 quarts rum 1 tbsp. baking powder 1 cup butter 1 tsp. soda 1 tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. lemon juice 2 large eggs 2 cups brown sugar 2 cups dried assorted fruit 3 cups chopped English walnuts Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Good, isn't it? Now select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It must be just right. Be sure the rum is of the highest quality. Pour one cup of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric mixer, beat one cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of tugar and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the rum teh absolutely highest quality. Sample another cup. Open second quart as necessary. Add 2 orge laggs, 2 cups of fried druit and beat untill high. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters, just pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the rum again, checking for toncisticity. Next sift 3 cups of baking powder, a pinch of rum, a seaspoon of toda and a cup of pepper or salt (it really doesn't matter). Sample some more. Sift 912 pint of lemon juice. Fold in schopped butter and strained chups. Add bablespoon of brown gugar, or whatever color you have. Mix mell. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees and rake until poothtick comes out crean. | |
Glogg (a traditional Scandinavian holiday drink): fifth of dry red wine fifth of Aquavit 1 and 1/2 inch piece of cinnamon 10 cardamom seeds 1 cup raisins 4 dried figs 1 cup blanched or flaked almonds a few pieces of dried orange peel 5 cloves 1/2 lb. sugar cubes Heat up the wine and hard stuff (which may be substituted with wine for the faint of heart) in a big pot after adding all the other stuff EXCEPT the sugar cubes. Just when it reaches boiling, put the sugar in a wire strainer, moisten it in the hot brew, lift it out and ignite it with a match. Dip the sugar several times in the liquid until it is all dissolved. Serve hot in cups with a few raisins and almonds in each cup. N.B. Aquavit may be hard to find and expensive to boot. Use it only if you really have a deep-seated desire to be fussy, or if you are of Swedish extraction. | |
Halley's Comet: It came, we saw, we drank. | |
Harry's bar has a new cocktail. It's called MRS punch. They make it with milk, rum and sugar and it's wonderful. The milk is for vitality and the sugar is for pep. They put in the rum so that people will know what to do with all that pep and vitality. | |
HOGAN'S HEROES DRINKING GAME -- Take a shot every time: -- Sergeant Schultz says, "I knoooooowww nooooothing!" -- General Burkhalter or Major Hochstetter intimidate/insult Colonel Klink. -- Colonel Klink falls for Colonel Hogan's flattery. -- One of the prisoners sneaks out of camp (one shot for each prisoner to go). -- Colonel Klink snaps to attention after answering the phone (two shots if it's one of our heroes on the other end). -- One of the Germans is threatened with being sent to the Russian front. -- Corporal Newkirk calls up a German in his phoney German accent, and tricks him (two shots if it's Colonel Klink). -- Hogan has a romantic interlude with a beautiful girl from the underground. -- Colonel Klink relates how he's never had an escape from Stalag 13. -- Sergeant Schultz gives up a secret (two shots if he's bribed with food). -- The prisoners listen to the Germans' conversation by a hidden transmitter. -- Sergeant Schultz "captures" one of the prisoners after an escape. -- Lebeau pronounces "colonel" as "cuh-loh-`nell". -- Carter builds some kind of device (two shots if it's not explosive). -- Lebeau wears his apron. -- Hogan says "We've got no choice" when someone claims that the plan is impossible. -- The prisoners capture an important German, and sneak him out the tunnel. | |
I distrust a man who says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does. -- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon" | |
I don't drink, I don't like it, it makes me feel too good. -- K. Coates | |
I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________horrifying* 20 minutes of my life! | |
I never take work home with me; I always leave it in some bar along the way. | |
I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am. It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. | |
I've always made it a solemn practice to never drink anything stronger than tequila before breakfast. -- R. Nesson | |
If you don't drink it, someone else will. | |
In 1967, the Soviet Government minted a beautiful silver ruble with Lenin in a very familiar pose -- arms raised above him, leading the country to revolution. But, it was clear to everybody, that if you looked at it from behind, it was clear that Lenin was pointing to 11:00, when the Vodka shops opened, and was actually saying, "Comrades, forward to the Vodka shops. It became fashionable, when one wanted to have a drink, to take out the ruble and say, "Oh my goodness, Comrades, Lenin tells me we should go. | |
In a whiskey it's age, in a cigarette it's taste and in a sports car it's impossible. | |
It has been said that Public Relations is the art of winning friends and getting people under the influence. -- Jeremy Tunstall | |
It's a brave man who, when things are at their darkest, can kick back and party! -- Dennis Quaid, "Inner Space" | |
It's gonna be alright, It's almost midnight, And I've got two more bottles of wine. | |
It's the same old story; boy meets beer, boy drinks beer... boy gets another beer. -- Cheers | |
It's useless to try to hold some people to anything they say while they're madly in love, drunk, or running for office. | |
Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way they can. I'm sick of the job. It's a thankless one and full of grief. -- Al Capone | |
Look at it this way: Your daughter just named the fresh turkey you brought home "Cuddles", so you're going out to buy a canned ham. And you're still drinking ordinary scotch? | |
Look at it this way: Your wife's spending $280 a month on meditation lessons to forget $26,000 of college education. And you're still drinking ordinary scotch? | |
"Mind if I smoke?" "Yes, I'd like to see that, does it come out of your ears or what?" | |
Never drink from your finger bowl -- it contains only water. | |
[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 | |
[Norm returns from the hospital.] Coach: What's up, Norm? Norm: Everything that's supposed to be. -- Cheers, Diane Meets Mom Sam: What's new, Normie? Norm: Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach. They're demanding beer. -- Cheers, The Heart is a Lonely Snipehunter Coach: What'll it be, Normie? Norm: Just the usual, Coach. I'll have a froth of beer and a snorkel. -- Cheers, King of the Hill | |
Norm: Gentlemen, start your taps. -- Cheers, The Coach's Daughter Coach: How's life treating you, Norm? Norm: Like it caught me in bed with his wife. -- Cheers, Any Friend of Diane's Coach: How's life, Norm? Norm: Not for the squeamish, Coach. -- Cheers, Friends, Romans, and Accountants | |
Not drinking, chasing women, or doing drugs won't make you live longer -- it just seems that way. | |
Police: Good evening, are you the host? Host: No. Police: We've been getting complaints about this party. Host: About the drugs? Police: No. Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns? Police: No, the noise. Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise? The neighbors? Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could ask the host to quiet things down? Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind down. | |
Recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster: (1) Take the juice from one bottle of Ol' Janx Spirit (2) Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V (Oh, those Santraginean fish!) (3) Allow 3 cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (properly iced or the benzine is lost.) (4) Allow four liters of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it. (5) Over the back of a silver spoon, float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract. (6) Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve. (7) Sprinkle Zamphuor. (8) Add an olive. (9) Drink... but... very carefully... | |
Sam: What do you know there, Norm? Norm: How to sit. How to drink. Want to quiz me? -- Cheers, Loverboyd Sam: Hey, how's life treating you there, Norm? Norm: Beats me. ... Then it kicks me and leaves me for dead. -- Cheers, Loverboyd Woody: How would a beer feel, Mr. Peterson? Norm: Pretty nervous if I was in the room. -- Cheers, Loverboyd | |
Sam: What's the good word, Norm? Norm: Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Sam: Oh no, not the Hungry Heifer... Norm: Yeah, yeah, yeah... Sam: One heartburn cocktail coming up. -- Cheers, I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday Sam: Whaddya say, Norm? Norm: Well, I never met a beer I didn't drink. And down it goes. -- Cheers, Love Thy Neighbor Woody: What's your pleasure, Mr. Peterson? Norm: Boxer shorts and loose shoes. But I'll settle for a beer. -- Cheers, The Bar Stoolie | |
Sam: What's going on, Normie? Norm: My birthday, Sammy. Give me a beer, stick a candle in it, and I'll blow out my liver. -- Cheers, Where Have All the Floorboards Gone Woody: Hey, Mr. P. How goes the search for Mr. Clavin? Norm: Not as well as the search for Mr. Donut. Found him every couple of blocks. -- Cheers, Head Over Hill | |
Sam: What's new, Norm? Norm: Most of my wife. -- Cheers, The Spy Who Came in for a Cold One Coach: Beer, Norm? Norm: Naah, I'd probably just drink it. -- Cheers, Now Pitching, Sam Malone Coach: What's doing, Norm? Norm: Well, science is seeking a cure for thirst. I happen to be the guinea pig. -- Cheers, Let Me Count the Ways | |
So, is the glass half empty, half full, or just twice as large as it needs to be? | |
Some people have no respect for age unless it's bottled. | |
The best way to preserve a right is to exercise it, and the right to smoke is a right worth dying for. | |
The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whiskey. By diligent effort, I learned to like it. -- Winston Churchill | |
To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. | |
Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic. -- E.F. Benson | |
When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality. -- Al Capone | |
When the cup is full, carry it level. | |
Wonderful day. Your hangover just makes it seem terrible. | |
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's up? Norm: The warranty on my liver. -- Cheers, Breaking In Is Hard to Do Sam: What can I do for you, Norm? Norm: Open up those beer taps and, oh, take the day off, Sam. -- Cheers, Veggie-Boyd Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? Norm: Another layer for the winter, Wood. -- Cheers, It's a Wonderful Wife | |
Woody: What's going on, Mr. Peterson? Norm: Let's talk about what's going *in* Mr. Peterson. A beer, Woody. -- Cheers, Paint Your Office Sam: How's life treating you? Norm: It's not, Sammy, but that doesn't mean you can't. -- Cheers, A Kiss is Still a Kiss Woody: Can I pour you a draft, Mr. Peterson? Norm: A little early, isn't it Woody? Woody: For a beer? Norm: No, for stupid questions. -- Cheers, Let Sleeping Drakes Lie | |
Woody: What's happening, Mr. Peterson? Norm: The question is, Woody, why is it happening to me? -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 1 Woody: What's going down, Mr. Peterson? Norm: My cheeks on this barstool. -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, can I pour you a beer? Norm: Well, okay, Woody, but be sure to stop me at one. ... Eh, make that one-thirty. -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 | |
Q: How do you catch a unique rabbit? A: Unique up on it! Q: How do you catch a tame rabbit? A: The tame way! | |
Q: How do you shoot a blue elephant? A: With a blue-elephant gun. Q: How do you shoot a pink elephant? A: Twist its trunk until it turns blue, then shoot it with a blue-elephant gun. | |
Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb? A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment of license fee (binary only). | |
Q: How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Two. One to assure everyone that everything possible is being done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet. | |
Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.) Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. | |
Q: How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Only one, but he gets three credits for it. | |
Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. Q: How long does it take? A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? A: They replace your generator. | |
Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the light bulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness. | |
Q: How many gradual (sorry, that's supposed to be "graduate") students does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: "I'm afraid we don't know, but make my stipend tax-free, give my advisor a $30,000 grant of the taxpayer's money, and I'm sure he can tell me how to do the shit work for him so he can take the credit for answering this incredibly vital question." | |
Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. We'll fix it in software. Q: How many system programmers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The application can work around it. Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. We'll document it in the manual. Q: How many tech writers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The user can figure it out. | |
Q: How many Harvard MBA's does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Just one. He grasps it firmly and the universe revolves around him. | |
Q: How many IBM 370's does it take to execute a job? A: Four, three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. | |
Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to do a logical right shift? A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. | |
Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks". | |
Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break the bulb in the first place. | |
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: One. Only it's his light bulb when he's done. | |
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership. | |
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: You won't find a lawyer who can change a light bulb. Now, if you're looking for a lawyer to screw a light bulb... | |
Q: How many marketing people does it take to change a light bulb? A: I'll have to get back to you on that. | |
Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: One and a half. | |
Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None: The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. | |
Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to the earlier joke. | |
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. | |
Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. | |
Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has to really want to change. | |
Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. | |
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools. [Surrealist jokes just aren't my cup of fur. Ed.] | |
Q: How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? A: One. | |
Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. | |
Q: How much does it cost to ride the Unibus? A: 2 bits. | |
Q: Minnesotans ask, "Why aren't there more pharmacists from Alabama?" A: Easy. It's because they can't figure out how to get the little bottles into the typewriter. | |
Q: What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean? A: It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews. | |
Q: What does it say on the bottom of Coke cans in North Dakota? A: Open other end. | |
Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe? A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe! Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they are removable! Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? A: Yes, up to isomorphism! Q: What is a compact city? A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted policemen! -- Peter Lax | |
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: He was giving it last rites. | |
Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road? A: Because it was on the other side. | |
Q: Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it? A: Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar. If they drink it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while visiting, they always take three. | |
Q: Why is it that Mexico isn't sending anyone to the '84 summer games? A: Anyone in Mexico who can run, swim or jump is already in LA. | |
Q: Why is it that the more accuracy you demand from an interpolation function, the more expensive it becomes to compute? A: That's the Law of Spline Demand. | |
Q: Why should you always serve a Southern Carolina football man soup in a plate? A: 'Cause if you give him a bowl, he'll throw it away. | |
Q: Why was Stonehenge abandoned? A: It wasn't IBM compatible. | |
A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating resource centers along the roads. -- The Underground Grammarian | |
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. -- John Ciardi | |
A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second language?" | |
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. | |
A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill his wellness potential." Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti- personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously sent him. -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) | |
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 | |
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. -- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" | |
Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with royal-blue chickens. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" | |
Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -- Clarence Darrow | |
Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. | |
Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton -- born 1608 of John Milton, who was born in 1608, is the combination of beauty and power. Few have excelled him in the use of the English language, or for that matter, in lucidity of verse form, 'Paradise Lost' being said to be the greatest single poem ever written." Current historians have come to Most of the problems that now doubt the complete advantageousness face the United States are of some of Roosevelt's policies... directly traceable to the bungling and greed of President Roosevelt. ... it is possible that we simply do Professor Mitchell is a not understand the Russian viewpoint... communist. | |
Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture. | |
"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable." | |
"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." -- English Professor | |
I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. -- Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University | |
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal | |
"I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage." -- English Professor, Providence College | |
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow. -- Franklin K. Dane | |
Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. | |
Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be so many people so resolutely pursuing it. | |
In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, Junior, what are you up to?" "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one will publish such rubbish!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves." "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody remnants of the wolf and the fox. The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. | |
Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. -- The Best of Will Rogers | |
It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that one can learn." -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman | |
It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum competence will be quite enough. -- The Underground Grammarian | |
It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. -- Alfred North Whitehead | |
It's grad exam time... COMPUTER SCIENCE Inside your desk you'll find a listing of the DEC/VMS operating system in IBM 1710 machine code. Show what changes are necessary to convert this code into a UNIX Berkeley 7 operating system. Prove that these fixes are bug free and run correctly. You should gain at least 150% efficiency in the new system. (You should take no more than 10 minutes on this question.) MATHEMATICS If X equals PI times R^2, construct a formula showing how long it would take a fire ant to drill a hole through a dill pickle, if the length-girth ratio of the ant to the pickle were 98.17:1. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Describe the Universe. Give three examples. | |
It's grad exam time... MEDICINE You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. (You have 15 minutes.) HISTORY Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious and philisophical impact upon Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. BIOLOGY Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had been created 500 million years ago or earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. | |
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News | |
My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot replace it." -- Erich Maria Remarque | |
One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette. -- Professor Charles P. Issawi | |
Periphrasis is the putting of things in a round-about way. "The cost may be upwards of a figure rather below 10m#." is a periphrasis for The cost may be nearly 10m#. "In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable news" is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris. "Rarely does the 'Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month" contains a periphrasis for November, and another for lingers. "The answer is in the negative" is a periphrasis for No. "Was made the recipient of" is a periphrasis for Was presented with. The periphrasis style is hardly possible on any considerable scale without much use of abstract nouns such as "basis, case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, nature, reference, regard, respect". The existence of abstract nouns is a proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory developments." -- Fowler's English Usage | |
Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for all I know. -- Prof. J.H. Finley '25 | |
Rules for Good Grammar #4. (1) Don't use no double negatives. (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents. (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should. (4) About them sentence fragments. (5) When dangling, watch your participles. (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects. (7) Just between you and i, case is important. (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read. (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary. (10) Try to not ever split infinitives. (11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly. (12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out. (13) Correct speling is essential. (14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with. (15) While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not become ensconsed in obscurity. In other words, eschew obfuscation. | |
The 'A' is for content, the 'minus' is for not typing it. Don't ever do this to my eyes again. -- Professor Ronald Brady, Philosophy, Ramapo State College | |
The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. -- Nelson Algren, "Writers at Work" | |
"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 brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. | |
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. -- Hector Berlioz | |
We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge. -- George Will | |
"We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 The New Yorker's comment: At Harvard they'd call it a noun. | |
What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a free meandering brook. -- Henry David Thoreau | |
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs. -- Audobon Society Magazine | |
And that's the way it is... -- Walter Cronkite | |
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. | |
I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction. -- Aneurin Bevan | |
If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it because I can't swim. -- Bob Stanfield | |
Isn't it conceivable to you that an intelligent person could harbor two opposing ideas in his mind? -- Adlai Stevenson, to reporters | |
Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. -- Oscar Wilde | |
Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it. | |
"No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper." -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch | |
Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed, and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under. Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that. No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car. -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" | |
The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. | |
This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. | |
Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game - it, and high taxes. -- The Best of Will Rogers | |
Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees along the block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, "Let's be wild! Let's ride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!" Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think you folks would like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think you'd like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, "Oh no, I don't believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it." Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care to a whole lot, but you folks go ahead and try it." Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: "Let's try it some other time, Carrie." She gave it up. -- Sinclair Lewis, "Main Street" | |
Climate and Surgery R C Gilchrist, who was shot by J Sharp twelve days ago, and who received a derringer ball in the right breast, and who it was supposed at the time could not live many hours, was on the street yesterday and the day before -- walking several blocks at a time. To those who design to be riddled with bullets or cut to pieces with Bowie-knives, we cordially recommend our Sacramento climate and Sacramento surgery. -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 11, 1861 | |
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?" | |
Fortune presents: USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #1. ^Cu vi parolas angle? Do you speak English? Mi ne komprenas. I don't understand. Vi estas la sola esperantisto kiun mi You're the only Esperanto speaker renkontas. I've met. La ^ceko estas enpo^stigita. The check is in the mail. Oni ne povas, ^gin netrovi. You can't miss it. Mi nur rigardadas. I'm just looking around. Nu, ^sajnis bona ideo. Well, it seemed like a good idea. | |
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" | |
"God gives burdens; also shoulders" Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why would he lie about a thing like that? -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
Have you seen the latest Japanese camera? Apparently it is so fast it can photograph an American with his mouth shut! | |
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 | |
I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado" | |
I shot an arrow in to the air, and it stuck. -- graffito in Los Angeles On a clear day, U.C.L.A. -- graffito in San Francisco There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all. -- Robert Orben | |
I'm going through my "I want to go back to New York" phase today. Happens every six months or so. So, I thought, perhaps unwisely, that I'd share it with you. > In New York in the winter it is million degrees below zero and the wind travels at a million miles an hour down 5th avenue. > And in LA it's 72. > In New York in the summer it is a million degrees and the humidity is a million percent. > And in LA it's 72. > In New York there are a million interesting people. > And in LA there are 72. | |
If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska. | |
Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the land He's trying to ignore. | |
In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't get parts. | |
In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. | |
In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations -- it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir. -- Stuart Keate | |
In California they don't throw their garbage away -- they make it into television shows. -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" | |
In Minnesota they ask why all football fields in Iowa have artificial turf. It's so the cheerleaders won't graze during the game. | |
Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations Sign on a cabin door of a Soviet Black Sea cruise liner: Helpsavering apparata in emergings behold many whistles! Associate the stringing apparata about the bosums and meet behind, flee then to the indifferent lifesaveringshippen obedicing the instructs of the vessel. On the door in a Belgrade hotel: Let us know about any unficiency as well as leaking on the service. Our utmost will improve it. -- Colin Bowles | |
Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations Sign on a cathedral in Spain: It is forbidden to enter a woman, even a foreigner if dressed as a man. Above the enterance to a Cairo bar: Unaccompanied ladies not admitted unless with husband or similar. On a Bucharest elevator: The lift is being fixed for the next days. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. -- Colin Bowles | |
Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there? -- Herb Caen | |
It's hard to argue that God hated Oklahoma. If He didn't, why is it so close to Texas? | |
It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either. -- Kevin White, Mayor of Boston | |
It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. -- Alexander Korda | |
It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case. -- Sydney J. Harris | |
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. | |
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. | |
Monterey... is decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place in California ... [it] is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling of all sorts, fandangos, and various kinds of amusements and knavery. -- Richard Henry Dama, "Two Years Before the Mast", 1840 | |
One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who fainted in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become disoriented and imagine they were in Topeka Kansas. | |
Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. -- Oscar Wilde | |
Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to exciting Camden, New Jersey. | |
San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. -- Herb Caen | |
Some 1500 miles west of the Big Apple we find the Minneapple, a haven of tranquility in troubled times. It's a good town, a civilized town. A town where they still know how to get your shirts back by Thursday. Let the Big Apple have the feats of "Broadway Joe" Namath. We have known the stolid but steady Killebrew. Listening to Cole Porter over a dry martini may well suit those unlucky enough never to have heard the Whoopee John Polka Band and never to have shared a pitcher of 3.2 Grain Belt Beer. The loss is theirs. And the Big Apple has yet to bake the bagel that can match peanut butter on lefse. Here is a town where the major urban problem is dutch elm disease and the number one crime is overtime parking. We boast more theater per capita than the Big Apple. We go to see, not to be seen. We go even when we must shovel ten inches of snow from the driveway to get there. Indeed the winters are fierce. But then comes the marvel of the Minneapple summer. People flock to the city's lakes to frolic and rejoice at the sight of so much happy humanity free from the bonds of the traditional down-filled parka. Here's to the Minneapple. And to its people. Our flair for style is balanced by a healthy respect for wind chill factors. And we always, always eat our vegetables. This is the Minneapple. | |
Someone did a study of the three most-often-heard phrases in New York City. One is "Hey, taxi." Two is, "What train do I take to get to Bloomingdale's?" And three is, "Don't worry. It's just a flesh wound." -- David Letterman | |
The Anglo-Saxon conscience does not prevent the Anglo-Saxon from sinning, it merely prevents him from enjoying his sin. --Salvador De Madariaga | |
The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song -- it's that they know them *___all*. -- Susan Dooley | |
The Czechs announced after Sputnik that they, too, would launch a satellite. Of course, it would orbit Sputnik, not Earth! | |
The egg cream is psychologically the opposite of circumcision -- it *pleasurably* reaffirms your Jewishness. -- Mel Brooks | |
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. -- G. B. Shaw | |
The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it. -- James Agate, British film and drama critic | |
There are people who find it odd to eat four or five Chinese meals in a row; in China, I often remind them, there are a billion or so people who find nothing odd about it. -- Calvin Trillin | |
There was this New Yorker that had a lifelong ambition to be an Texan. Fortunately, he had an Texan friend and went to him for advice. "Mike, you know I've always wanted to be a Texan. You're a *____real* Texan, what should I do?" "Well," answered Mike, "The first thing you've got to do is look like a Texan. That means you have to dress right. The second thing you've got to do is speak in a southern drawl." "Thanks, Mike, I'll give it a try," replied the New Yorker. A few weeks passed and the New Yorker saunters into a store dressed in a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, Levi jeans and a bandanna. "Hey, there, pardner, I'd like some beef, not too rare, and some of them fresh biscuits," he tells the counterman. The guy behind the counter takes a long look at him and then says, "You must be from New York." The New Yorker blushes, and says, "Well, yes, I am. How did you know?" "Because this is a hardware store." | |
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" | |
To know Edina is to reject it. -- Dudley Riggs, "The Year the Grinch Stole the Election" | |
We don't care how they do it in New York. | |
When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I think it was a Tuesday. | |
Yes, I've now got this nice little apartment in New York, one of those L-shaped ones. Unfortunately, it's a lower case l. -- Rita Rudner | |
You know you're in a small town when... You don't use turn signals because everybody knows where you're going. You're born on June 13 and your family receives gifts from the local merchants because you're the first baby of the year. Everyone knows whose credit is good, and whose wife isn't. You speak to each dog you pass, by name... and he wags his tail. You dial the wrong number, and talk for 15 minutes anyway. You write a check on the wrong bank and it covers you anyway. | |
1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's the law! | |
A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the monkey and its mother is thirty years. One half of the weight of the monkey, plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she she was half as old as the monkey will be when when it is as old as its mother will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana? | |
A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. -- Max Planck | |
A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in conciousness of this necessary reorganization of our lives. It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the ground. -- J.W.N. Sullivan | |
A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 | |
Actually, the probability is 100% that the elevator will be going in the right direction. Proof by induction: N=1. Trivially true, since both you and the elevator only have one floor to go to. Assume true for N, prove for N+1: If you are on any of the first N floors, then it is true by the induction hypothesis. If you are on the N+1st floor, then both you and the elevator have only one choice, namely down. Therefore, it is true for all N+1 floors. QED. | |
After the Children of Israel had wandered for thirty-nine years in the wilderness, Ferdinand Feghoot arrived to make sure that they would finally find and enter the Promised Land. With him, he brought his favorite robot, faithful old Yewtoo Artoo, to carry his gear and do assorted camp chores. The Israelites soon got over their initial fear of the robot and, as the months passed, became very fond of him. Patriarchs took to discussing abtruse theological problems with him, and each evening the children all gathered to hear the many stories with which he was programmed. Therefore it came as a great shock to them when, just as their journey was ending, he abruptly wore out. Even Feghoot couldn't console them. "It may be true, Ferdinand Feghoot," said Moses, "that our friend Yewtoo Artoo was soulless, but we cannot believe it. He must be properly interred. We cannot embalm him as do the Egyptians. Nor have we wood for a coffin. But I do have a most splendid skin from one of Pharoah's own cattle. We shall bury him in it." Feghoot agreed. "Yes, let this be his last rusting place." "Rusting?" Moses cried. "Not in this dreadful dry desert!" "Ah!" sighed Ferdinand Feghoot, shedding a tear, "I fear you do not realize the full significance of Pharoah's oxhide!" -- Grendel Briarton "Through Time & Space With Ferdinand Feghoot!" | |
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. | |
After this was written there appeared a remarkable posthumous memoir that throws some doubt on Millikan's leading role in these experiments. Harvey Fletcher (1884-1981), who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, at Millikan's suggestion worked on the measurement of electronic charge for his doctoral thesis, and co-authored some of the early papers on this subject with Millikan. Fletcher left a manuscript with a friend with instructions that it be published after his death; the manuscript was published in Physics Today, June 1982, page 43. In it, Fletcher claims that he was the first to do the experiment with oil drops, was the first to measure charges on single droplets, and may have been the first to suggest the use of oil. According to Fletcher, he had expected to be co-authored with Millikan on the crucial first article announcing the measurement of the electronic charge, but was talked out of this by Millikan. -- Steven Weinberg, "The Discovery of Subatomic Particles" Robert Millikan is generally credited with making the first really precise measurement of the charge on an electron and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923. | |
Air is water with holes in it. | |
All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists know it. -- Richard P. Feynman | |
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away. | |
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?" | |
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out. | |
Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. | |
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space" | |
An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, "Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --" Bohr chuckled. "I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not." | |
An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile." -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" | |
And the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres really did argue that black males are primitive because the distance between their navel and penis remains small (relative to body height) throughout life, while white children begin with a small separation but increase it during growth -- the rising belly button as a mark of progress. -- S.J. Gould, "Racism and Recapitulation" | |
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" | |
... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. -- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism" | |
At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow | |
Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons. Some military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks. Since in those days, only Western Electric made "data sets" (modems) the problems of terminology were all Bell System. We used to struggle with written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people (most phones were rotary then.) Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote the "pound sign." Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out. It never really caught on. | |
Bistromathics is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the behavior of numbers. Just as Einstein observed that space was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in space, and that time was not an absolute, but depended on the observer's movement in time, so it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants. -- Douglas Adams | |
But it does move! -- Galileo Galilei | |
Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" | |
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
"Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed. -- Randy Davis | |
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together ... -- Carl Zwanzig | |
Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it hasn't. -- Robert Orben | |
Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows why it would want to. The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
Entropy isn't what it used to be. | |
Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis. It makes sense, when you don't think about it. | |
Every paper published in a respectable journal should have a preface by the author stating why he is publishing the article, and what value he sees in it. I have no hope that this practice will ever be adopted. -- Morris Kline | |
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates. -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life". | |
Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidcence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. -- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 215 | |
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #14 What to do... if reality disappears? Hope this one doesn't happen to you. There isn't much that you can do about it. It will probably be quite unpleasant. if you meet an older version of yourself who has invented a time traveling machine, and has come from the future to meet you? Play this one by the book. Ask about the stock market and cash in. Don't forget to invent a time traveling machine and visit your younger self before you die, or you will create a paradox. If you expect this to be tricky, make sure to ask for the principles behind time travel, and possibly schematics. Never, NEVER, ask when you'll die, or if you'll marry your current SO. | |
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2 What to do... if you get a phone call from Mars: Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. if he, she or it doesn't speak English? Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before calling. if you get a phone call from Jupiter? Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the charges may have been reversed. | |
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #6 What to do... if a starship, equipped with an FTL hyperdrive lands in your backyard? First of all, do not run after your camera. You will not have any film, and, given the state of computer animation, noone will believe you anyway. Be polite. Remember, if they have an FTL hyperdrive, they can probably vaporize you, should they find you to be rude. Direct them to the White House lawn, which is where they probably wanted to land, anyway. A good road map should help. if you wake up in the middle of the night, and discover that your closet contains an alternate dimension? Don't walk in. You almost certainly will not be able to get back, and alternate dimensions are almost never any fun. Remain calm and go back to bed. Close the door first, so that the cat does not wander off. Check your closet in the morning. If it still contains an alternate dimension, nail it shut. | |
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with time travel, you never can tell." -- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara" | |
He: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. She: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. -- Walt Kelly | |
Heard that the next Space Shuttle is supposed to carry several Guernsey cows? It's gonna be the herd shot 'round the world. | |
Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson. It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. | |
I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is always different. -- Mrs. La Touche | |
I do not remember ever having seen a sustained argument by an author which, starting from philosophical premises likely to meet with general acceptance, reached the conclusion that a praiseworthy ordering of one's life is to devote it to research in mathematics. -- Sir Edmund Whittaker, "Scientific American", Vol. 183 | |
I had a feeling once about mathematics -- that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me -- the Byss and the Abyss. I saw -- as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show -- a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why tergiversation was inevitable -- but it was after dinner and I let it go. -- Winston Churchill | |
I have a theory that it's impossible to prove anything, but I can't prove it. | |
"I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. I think very probably he might be cured." "That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob. "His brain is affected," said the blind doctor. The elders murmured assent. "Now, what affects it?" "Ah!" said old Yacob. "This," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and his eyelids move, and cosequently his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction." "Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?" "And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical operation -- namely, to remove those irritant bodies." "And then he will be sane?" "Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen." "Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob. -- H.G. Wells, "The Country of the Blind" | |
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -- Poul Anderson | |
I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius -- one Earth orbit -- around the sun. If we have the mass of Jupiter to work with, and if we make it a thousand miles wide, we get a thickness of about a thousand feet for the base. And it has advantages. The Ringworld will be much sturdier than a Dyson sphere. We can spin it on its axis for gravity. A rotation speed of 770 m/s will give us a gravity of one Earth normal. We wouldn't even need to roof it over. Place walls one thousand miles high at each edge, facing the sun. Very little air will leak over the edges. Lord knows the thing is roomy enough. With three million times the surface area of the Earth, it will be some time before anyone complains of the crowding. -- Larry Niven, "Ringworld" | |
I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth. -- Neil Armstrong | |
I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain" | |
"I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3 because I couldn't remember the proof." -- Baker, Pure Math 351a | |
"I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors." -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club | |
I THINK THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING in science called the "reindeer effect." I don't know what it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say, "Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect." -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
I use technology in order to hate it more properly. -- Nam June Paik | |
I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. -- Carl Sagan | |
If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? | |
If for every rule there is an exception, then we have established that there is an exception to every rule. If we accept "For every rule there is an exception" as a rule, then we must concede that there may not be an exception after all, since the rule states that there is always the possibility of exception, and if we follow it to its logical end we must agree that there can be an exception to the rule that for every rule there is an exception. -- Bill Boquist | |
If I have not seen so far it is because I stood in giant's footsteps. | |
If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary. -- Samuel Clemens | |
If it smells it's chemistry, if it crawls it's biology, if it doesn't work it's physics. | |
If it wasn't for Newton, we wouldn't have to eat bruised apples. | |
If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn | |
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. | |
If you analyse anything, you destroy it. -- Arthur Miller | |
If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious. | |
If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled- up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and repeat the sequence. You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment? -- William S. Burroughs | |
If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research. -- Wilson Mizner | |
In order to dial out, it is necessary to broaden one's dimension. | |
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address | |
In the beginning there was nothing. And the Lord said "Let There Be Light!" And still there was nothing, but at least now you could see it. | |
In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to large numbers and prospered. One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. -- The Story of Babel | |
"In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day." "And are you?" "No. That's where it all falls down, of course." "Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good life-style otherwise." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? -- Kelvin Throop III | |
Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously? | |
"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only have wings by not being Walter's horse. I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me. -- A.N. Prior, "Time and Modality" | |
It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. | |
It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. -- Descartes | |
It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. -- Woody Allen | |
It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. | |
It is not every question that deserves an answer. -- Publilius Syrus | |
It is not for me to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence. -- The Earl of Birkenhead | |
It is not that polar co-ordinates are complicated, it is simply that cartesian co-ordinates are simpler than they have a right to be. -- Kleppner & Kolenhow, "An Introduction to Mechanics" | |
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. -- H.L. Mencken | |
It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for five straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But it takes Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you. | |
It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong. -- Chris Torek | |
It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level language named "research student". | |
"It's easier said than done." ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than done". | |
It's hard to think of you as the end result of millions of years of evolution. | |
It's later than you think, the joint Russian-American space mission has already begun. | |
It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. -- Phil White | |
It's not hard to admit errors that are [only] cosmetically wrong. -- J.K. Galbraith | |
Life is difficult because it is non-linear. | |
Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist! | |
Make it right before you make it faster. | |
Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek | |
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | |
Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. | |
Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only. ... It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. -- D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory", 1949 | |
"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" | |
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is most likely to be creamed? -- Solomon Short | |
Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. -- Fran Lebowitz | |
Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. -- R. A. Heinlein | |
Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it. -- Heisenberg | |
Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the smaller prime numbers. 2: The Odd Prime -- It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED. 3: The True Prime -- Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true." 31: The Arbitrary Prime -- Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most. However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all. 41: The Female Prime -- The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is prime for integer values from 1 to 40. 43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair. Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers. | |
One Bell System - it sometimes works. | |
One Bell System - it used to work before they installed the Dimension! | |
One Bell System - it works. | |
One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life." The mathematician thinks this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself. A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes, actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but there a number of details to be figured out. After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house, looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right track." At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by pounding on his door at three in the morning. He has dark circles under his eyes. His hair hasn't been combed for many days. He appears to be wearing the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. "WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!! And it's so EASY! First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple harmonic motion..." | |
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." -- Alex Schure | |
Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is always fatal. However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning. Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings in question. Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is too late. -- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956 | |
Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction. This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction techniques are very popular, even the military used them. SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction. We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just about _n. QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?") | |
Research is the best place to be: you work your buns off, and if it works you're a hero; if it doesn't, well -- nobody else has done it yet either, so you're still a valiant nerd. | |
Review Questions (1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH, and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship? (2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week? (3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice? | |
Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. -- William Buckley | |
Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. | |
So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate your current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and hurl it into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast array of 8-millimeter video equipment. ... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you were gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format that makes your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as toenail dirt. This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be made available until it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a format called "Elroy", so *order yours now*. -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics Revolution" | |
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | |
Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. -- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" | |
Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! | |
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. Seek simplicity and distrust it. -- Whitehead. | |
The astronomer Francesco Sizi, a contemporary of Galileo, argues that Jupiter can have no satellites: There are seven windows in the head, two nostrils, two ears, two eyes, and a mouth; so in the heavens there are two favorable stars, two unpropitious, two luminaries, and Mercury alone undecided and indifferent. From which and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven. [...] Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye and therefore can have no influence on the earth and therefore would be useless and therefore do not exist. | |
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 difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so little to recommend it. -- Allan Sherman | |
The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural for them to despise science fiction. -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction" | |
The Force is what holds everything together. It has its dark side, and it has its light side. It's sort of like cosmic duct tape. | |
The Greatest Mathematical Error The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28 July 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes' flight a booster engine would give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course corrections and after 100 days the craft would cirlce the unknown planet, scanning the mysterious cloud in which it is bathed. However, with an efficiency that is truly heartening, Mariner I plunged into the Atlantic Ocean only four minutes after takeoff. Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from the instructions fed into the computer. "It was human error", a launch spokesman said. This minus sign cost L4,280,000. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different." -- Franco Spisani | |
The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is Hubert Cecil Booth. However, he got the idea from a man who almost invented it. In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall. On the bill was an American inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets. The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on top. After watching the act -- which made everyone in the front six rows sneeze -- Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room. "It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the point. "Suck?", exclaimed the enraged inventor. "Your machine just moves the dust around the room," Booth informed him. "Suck? Suck? Sucking is not possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out. Booth proved that it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and sucking the back of an armchair. "I almost choked," he said afterwards. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader. | |
The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. | |
The more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain. | |
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov | |
The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing all those people. | |
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy... neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. | |
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 temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. -- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972 | |
The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken. | |
The universe is an island, surrounded by whatever it is that surrounds universes. | |
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 is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares" | |
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. -- H.L. Mencken, 1930 | |
There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor: Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. Proof: assume the opposite... | |
There was an old Indian belief that by making love on the hide of their favorite animal, one could guarantee the health and prosperity of the offspring conceived thereupon. And so it goes that one Indian couple made love on a buffalo hide. Nine months later, they were blessed with a healthy baby son. Yet another couple huddled together on the hide of a deer and they too were blessed with a very healthy baby son. But a third couple, whose favorite animal was a hippopotamus, were blessed with not one, but TWO very healthy baby sons at the conclusion of the nine month interval. All of which proves the old theorem that: The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides. | |
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" | |
This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly. -- Lancelot Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 1938 | |
This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. -- Alfred Bester, "The Stars My Destination" | |
Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
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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 are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough. -- Niels Bohr | |
We don't know who it was that discovered water, but we're pretty sure that it wasn't a fish. -- Marshall McLuhan | |
We have a equal opportunity Calculus class -- it's fully integrated. | |
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 | |
We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, but for some reason nobody's ever done it. -- Andy Rooney | |
What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things? -- J.M. Barrie | |
What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work. -- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet" | |
When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity. -- Albert Einstein | |
When some people discover the truth, they just can't understand why everybody isn't eager to hear it. | |
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of investigation of a topic, it is well to gave the answer firmly in hand, so that you can proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or swayed, directly to the goal. -- Amrom Katz | |
WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it's converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny's so long at the fair. | |
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. -- Christopher Morley | |
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" | |
Why do mathematicians insist on using words that already have another meaning? "It is the complex case that is easier to deal with." "If it doesn't happen at a corner, but at an edge, it nonetheless happens at a corner." | |
Xerox does it again and again and again and ... | |
"Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse. "What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either bury it or else throw it into the brook." "Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide." I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used... -- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno" | |
"Yo, Mike!" "Yeah, Gabe?" "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah." "I thought you fixed that last century!" "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere." "Blessit! Lemme look... <tappity clickity tappity> Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... <tappity clickity tap... save... compile> There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?" -- Cold Fusion, 1989 | |
You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat. -- The First Law Of Thermodynamics What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth. -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing. -- The Third Law Of Thermodynamics | |
You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi. | |
It is the theory which decides what can be observed. -- Albert Einstein | |
1893 The ideal brain tonic 1900 Drink Coca-Cola -- delicious and refreshing -- 5 cents at all soda fountains 1905 Is the favorite drink for LADIES when thirsty -- weary -- despondent 1905 Refreshes the weary, brightens the intellect and clears the brain 1906 The drink of QUALITY 1907 Good to the last drop 1907 It satisfies the thirst and pleases the palate 1907 Refreshing as a summer breeze. Delightful as a Dip in the Sea 1908 The Drink that Cheers but does not inebriate 1917 There's a delicious freshness to the taste of Coca-Cola 1919 It satisfies thirst 1919 The taste is the test 1922 Every glass holds the answer to thirst 1922 Thirst knows no season 1925 Enjoy the sociable drink -- Coca-Cola slogans | |
1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty 1929 The high sign of refreshment 1929 The pause that refreshes 1930 It had to be good to get where it is 1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing 1935 The pause that brings friends together 1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed 1938 The best friend thirst ever had 1939 Thirst stops here 1942 It's the real thing 1947 Have a Coke 1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING 1963 Things go better with Coke 1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand 1979 Have a Coke and a smile 1982 Coke is it! -- Coca-Cola slogans | |
A farm in the country side had several turkeys, it was known as the house of seven gobbles. | |
Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. | |
As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" | |
Carob works on the principle that, when mixed with the right combination of fats and sugar, it can duplicate chocolate in color and texture. Of course, the same can be said of dirt. | |
Consider the following axioms carefully: "Everything's better when it sits on a Ritz." and "Everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it." What happens if one spreads Blue Bonnet margarine on a Ritz cracker? The thought is frightening. Is this how God came into being? Try not to consider the fact that "Things go better with Coke". | |
Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat? Answer: Yes. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" | |
Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. | |
Eat as much as you like -- just don't swallow it. -- Harry Secombe's diet | |
Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. | |
Every time I lose weight, it finds me again! | |
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. | |
How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being carried by a waiter at a nice party? Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell what's inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then say: "This is cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it back on the tray and bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another cheese!" and so on. -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" | |
"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it." -- Clarence Darrow | |
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals. -- Thoreau | |
If you see an onion ring -- answer it! | |
It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears. -- Marcus Porcius Cato | |
IT MAKES ME MAD when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at Marineland says, "You can't throw that chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish." Sure they eat fish if that's all you give them! Man, wise up. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
It was a brave man that ate the first oyster. | |
It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat. -- Robert Fuoss | |
It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ... | |
It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you know someone's fingers have been all over it. -- Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine. | |
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. | |
Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to eat it nevertheless. -- Flaubert | |
"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it." | |
Life is like an egg stain on your chin -- you can lick it, but it still won't go away. | |
Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. -- Carl Sandburg | |
Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it. -- James Huneker | |
Lobster: Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call a memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipe at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot. Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be, too. -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and Utensils into Excuses and Apologies" | |
Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself the following questions: (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a food? (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like longer.) That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. | |
Put a pot of chili on the stove to simmer. Let it simmer. Meanwhile, broil a good steak. Eat the steak. Let the chili simmer. Ignore it. -- Recipe for chili from Allan Shrivers, former governor of Texas. | |
RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED (1) Never eat on an empty stomach. (2) Never leave the table hungry. (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry. (4) Enjoy your food. (5) Enjoy your companion's food. (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks? (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You can always eat it later. (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. (11) Avoid blue food. -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" | |
Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. -- James Thurber | |
The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage and tourist handouts. This bear has learned to open car doors in Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens of thousands of dollars a year. Campaigns to bearproof all garbage containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." | |
THE DAILY PLANET SUPERMAN SAVES DESSERT! Plans to "Eat it later" | |
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." | |
The most exquisite peak in culinary art is conquered when you do right by a ham, for a ham, in the very nature of the process it has undergone since last it walked on its own feet, combines in its flavor the tang of smoky autumnal woods, the maternal softness of earthy fields delivered of their crop children, the wineyness of a late sun, the intimate kiss of fertilizing rain, and the bite of fire. You must slice it thin, almost as thin as this page you hold in your hands. The making of a ham dinner, like the making of a gentleman, starts a long, long time before the event. -- W.B. Courtney, "Reflections of Maryland Country Ham", from "Congress Eate It Up" | |
The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose", which is also sometimes called "grape sugar," and also because "Grape Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil Food and Gravel," which is what it tastes like. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" | |
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour | |
... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable, too -- it really was -- to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite. -- Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit" | |
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. | |
While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove. -- Edward Stevenson | |
Why do so many foods come packaged in plastic? It's quite uncanny. | |
Why do they call a fast a fast, when it goes so slow? | |
You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years. The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" | |
You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name, another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money. If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit. In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his hemorrhoids. -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" | |
100 buckets of bits on the bus 100 buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FE buckets of bits on the bus ad infinitum... | |
99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... | |
A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon; The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. -- Robert W. Service | |
A cousin of mine once said about money, money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money. -- Gertrude Stein | |
A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and B is for biff, which reads all your mail. C is for cc, as hackers recall, while D is for dd, the command that does all. E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. G is for grep, a clever detective, while H is for halt, which may seem defective. I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and J is for join, which nobody uses. K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. M is for more, from which less was begot, and N is for nice, which it really is not. O is for od, which prints out things nice, while P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while T is for true, which does very little. U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and V is for vi, which is hard to abort. W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while X is, well, X, of dubious fame. Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and Z is for zcat, which handles compression. -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX | |
A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" -- Gopete Sherany | |
A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid. -- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter. -- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". | |
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; "My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose. -- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose" | |
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, "What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord, Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so," Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. -- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem" | |
After all my erstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Just because it perished? -- Edna St. Vincent Millay | |
Against Idleness and Mischief How doth the little busy bee How skillfully she builds her cell! Improve each shining hour, How neat she spreads the wax! And gather honey all the day And labours hard to store it well From every opening flower! With the sweet food she makes. In works of labour or of skill In books, or work, or healthful play, I would be busy too; Let my first years be passed, For Satan finds some mischief still That I may give for every day For idle hands to do. Some good account at last. -- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 | |
Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me, "How good, how good does it feel to be free?" And I answer them most mysteriously: "Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?" -- Bob Dylan | |
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. | |
All that you touch, And all you create, All that you see, And all you destroy, All that you taste, All that you do, All you feel, And all you say, And all that you love, All that you eat, And all that you hate, And everyone you meet, All you distrust, All that you slight, All you save, And everyone you fight, And all that you give, And all that is now, And all that you deal, And all that is gone, All that you buy, And all that's to come, Beg, borrow or steal, And everything under the sun is in tune, But the sun is eclipsed By the moon. There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark. -- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon" | |
All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg, It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen With all the words gone, They all had their day What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin' But of all the words written The bird is a strange one, And all the lines read, So small and so tender There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown, And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender. It reminds me of days of So what is this line Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown? I've read all the greats Both starving and fat, But none was as great as "I tot I taw a puddy tat." -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood" | |
All who joy would win Must share it -- Happiness was born a twin. -- Lord Byron | |
And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, I've worried and worried and worried away. Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, I've worried about it with all of my heart. "BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better - it's not. So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. "It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! "You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. And truffula trees are what everyone needs. Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care. Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!" | |
And if California slides into the ocean, Like the mystics and statistics say it will. I predict this motel will be standing, Until I've paid my bill. -- Warren Zevon, "Desperados Under the Eaves" | |
And if sometime, somewhere, someone asketh thee, "Who kilt thee?", tell them it 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy! | |
...and report cards I was always afraid to show Mama'd come to school and as I'd sit there softly cryin' Teacher'd say he's just not tryin' Got a good head if he'd apply it but you know yourself it's always somewhere else I'd build me a castle with dragons and kings and I'd ride off with them As I stood by my window and looked out on those Brooklyn roads -- Neil Diamond, "Brooklyn Roads" | |
And so it was, later, As the miller told his tale, That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale. -- Procol Harum | |
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 | |
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 | |
As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day, I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay, The words were torn and tattered, From the storm the night before, The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes, Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer, Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear, Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar, And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star. Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire, Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear, Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three, And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea. | |
As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape, The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape; It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field, An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel! Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie, Follow it through, me canny lad O; Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie, Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O! -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" | |
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list -- I've got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. -- Koko, "The Mikado" | |
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" | |
Bit off more than my mind could chew, Shower or suicide, what do I do? -- Julie Brown, "Will I Make it Through the Eighties?" | |
Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide, The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side, A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide, She wants to hit those bricks, 'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline, While the millionaires hide in Beekman place, The bag ladies throw their bones in my face, I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound, I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down... -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" | |
But I was there and I saw what you did, I saw it with my own two eyes. So you can wipe off that grin; I know where you've been-- It's all been a pack of lies! | |
But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. -- Hilaire Belloc | |
Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; Less dear than army ants in apple pies Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose They suck, and like the double-breasted suit Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. | |
By the yard, life is hard. By the inch, it's a cinch. | |
Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes, Calm down, it's only bits and bytes, Calm down, and speak to me in English, Please realize that I'm not one of your computerites. | |
Cecil, you're my final hope Of finding out the true Straight Dope For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat But none of my cats are at all like that. This unusual animal (so it is said) Is simultaneously alive and dead! What I don't understand is just why he Can't be one or the other, unquestionably. My future now hangs in between eigenstates. In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't. If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way And rescue my psyche from quantum decay. But if this queer thing has perplexed even you, Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams | |
Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? -- Ogden Nash | |
Christmas time is here, by Golly; Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens; Disapproval would be folly; Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens; Deck the halls with hunks of holly; Even though the prospect sickens, Fill the cup and don't say when... Brother, here we go again. On Christmas day, you can't get sore; Relations sparing no expense'll, Your fellow man you must adore; Send some useless old utensil, There's time to rob him all the more, Or a matching pen and pencil, The other three hundred and sixty-four! Just the thing I need... how nice. It doesn't matter how sincere Hark The Herald-Tribune sings, It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit; Advertising wondrous things. Sentiment will not endear it; God Rest Ye Merry Merchants, What's important is... the price. May you make the Yuletide pay. Angels We Have Heard On High, Let the raucous sleighbells jingle; Tell us to go out and buy. Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle, Sooooo... Driving his reindeer across the sky, Don't stand underneath when they fly by! -- Tom Lehrer | |
Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait! Catholic girls start much too late, Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate, I might as well be the one. Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray, Built you a temple and locked you away, Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid, The things that you might have done. So come on, Virginia, show me a sign, Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line, That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind, Never lets in the sun. Darling, only the good die young! -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" | |
Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it does run over, Tonight we will all merry be -- tomorrow we'll get sober. -- John Fletcher, "The Bloody Brother", II, 2 | |
Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse That no compunctious visiting of nature Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall the in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry `Hold, hold!' -- Lady MacBeth | |
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Confusion will be my epitaph as I walk a cracked and broken path If we make it we can all sit back and laugh but I fear that tomorrow we'll be crying. -- King Crimson, "In the Court of the Crimson King" | |
Didja' ever have to make up your mind, Pick up on one and leave the other behind, It's not often easy, and it's not often kind, Didja' ever have to make up your mind? -- Lovin' Spoonful | |
Disillusioned words like bullets bark, As human gods aim for their mark, Make everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored christs that glow in the dark. It's easy to see without looking too far That not much is really sacred. -- Bob Dylan | |
Don't be concerned, it will not harm you, It's only me pursuing something I'm not sure of, Across my dreams, with neptive wonder, I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love. | |
Don't lose Your head To gain a minute You need your head Your brains are in it. -- Burma Shave | |
Easy come and easy go, some call me easy money, Sometimes life is full of laughs, and sometimes it ain't funny You may think that I'm a fool and sometimes that is true, But I'm goin' to heaven in a flash of fire, with or without you. -- Hoyt Axton | |
Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? Hacker MacKensie Writing the code for a program that no one will run It's nearly done Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's nobody there. What does he care? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? Ah, look at all the lonely users. Ah, look at all the lonely users. | |
Ever since I was a young boy, I've hacked the ARPA net, From Berkeley down to Rutgers, He's on my favorite terminal, Any access I could get, He cats C right into foo, But ain't seen nothing like him, His disciples lead him in, On any campus yet, And he just breaks the root, That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Always has full SYS-PRIV's, Sure sends a mean packet. Never uses lint, That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Sure sends a mean packet. He's a UNIX wizard, There has to be a twist. The UNIX wizard's got Ain't got no distractions, Unlimited space on disk. Can't hear no whistles or bells, How do you think he does it? Can't see no message flashing, I don't know. Types by sense of smell, What makes him so good? Those crazy little programs, The proper bit flags set, That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Sure sends a mean packet. -- UNIX Wizard | |
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog just died. Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and long stem rose. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows. And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you. And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two. Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows. -- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows" | |
Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister -- Su Tung-p'o | |
Felix Catus is your taxonomic nomenclature, An endothermic quadroped, carnivorous by nature. Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses. I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations, A singular development of cat communications That obviates your basic hedonistic predelection For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection. A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents: You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance; And when not being utilitized to aid in locomotion, It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion. Oh Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array. And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend, I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. -- Lt. Cmdr. Data, "An Ode to Spot" | |
Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it. | |
"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 | |
Friends, Romans, Hipsters, Let me clue you in; I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him. The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes; If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, And, like, old Caesar really set them straight. Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat; So are they all, all cool cats, -- Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down. | |
Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe ... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" | |
God rest ye CS students now, The bearings on the drum are gone, Let nothing you dismay. The disk is wobbling, too. The VAX is down and won't be up, We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol Until the first of May. Can't tell false from true. The program that was due this morn, And now we find that we can't get Won't be postponed, they say. At Berkeley's 4.2. (chorus) (chorus) We've just received a call from DEC, And now some cheery news for you, They'll send without delay The network's also dead, A monitor called RSuX We'll have to print your files on It takes nine hundred K. The line printer instead. The staff committed suicide, The turnaround time's nineteen weeks. We'll bury them today. And only cards are read. (chorus) (chorus) And now we'd like to say to you CHORUS: Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, Before we go away, Comfort and joy, We hope the news we've brought to you Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. Won't ruin your whole day. You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way. (chorus) -- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen | |
Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields Sold in a market down in New Orleans Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright Hear him whip the women, just around midnight Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good? Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should Drums beating cold English blood runs hot Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop House boy knows that he's doing alright You should a heard him just around midnight. ... I bet your mama was tent show queen And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen I'm no school boy but I know what I like You should have heard me just around midnight. -- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar" | |
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack, I went out for a ride and never came back. Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going. Everybody's got a hungry heart. Everybody's got a hungry heart. Lay down your money and you play your part, Everybody's got a hungry heart. I met her in a Kingstown bar, We fell in love, I knew it had to end. We took what we had and we ripped it apart, Now here I am down in Kingstown again. Everybody needs a place to rest, Everybody wants to have a home. Don't make no difference what nobody says, Ain't nobody likes to be alone. -- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart" | |
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" | |
He thought he saw an albatross That fluttered 'round the lamp. He looked again and saw it was A penny postage stamp. "You'd best be getting home," he said, "The nights are rather damp." | |
Here I am again right where I know I shouldn't be I've been caught inside this trap too many times I must've walked these steps and said these words a thousand times before It seems like I know everybody's lines. -- David Bromberg, "How Late'll You Play 'Til?" | |
Hey, diddle, diddle the overflow pdl To get a little more stack; If that's not enough then you lose it all And have to pop all the way back. | |
History is curious stuff You'd think by now we had enough Yet the fact remains I fear They make more of it every year. | |
Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy, Burn that sausage just a match or two more done. Pour my black old coffee longer, While that smell is gettin' stronger A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want. Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me, With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun, If that coat'll fit you're wearin', The Lord'll bless your sharin' A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want. And let me halfway fall in love, For part of a lonely night, With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. Yes, I could halfway fall in deep-- Into a snugglin', lovin' heap, With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. -- Elroy Blunt | |
How doth the VAX's C-compiler Improve its object code. And even as we speak does it Increase the system load. How patiently it seems to run And spit out error flags, While users, with frustration, all Tear their clothes to rags. | |
I always will remember -- I was in no mood to trifle; 'Twas a year ago November -- I got down my trusty rifle I went out to shoot some deer And went out to stalk my prey -- On a morning bright and clear. What a haul I made that day! I went and shot the maximum I tied them to my bumper and The game laws would allow: I drove them home somehow, Two game wardens, seven hunters, Two game wardens, seven hunters, And a cow. And a cow. The Law was very firm, it People ask me how I do it Took away my permit-- And I say, "There's nothin' to it! The worst punishment I ever endured. You just stand there lookin' cute, It turns out there was a reason: And when something moves, you shoot." Cows were out of season, and And there's ten stuffed heads One of the hunters wasn't insured. In my trophy room right now: Two game wardens, seven hunters, And a pure-bred guernsey cow. -- Tom Lehrer, "The Hunting Song" | |
I don't need no arms around me... I don't need no drugs to calm me... I have seen the writing on the wall. Don't think I need anything at all. No! Don't think I need anything at all! All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. -- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III | |
I gave my love an Apple, that had no core; I gave my love a building, that had no floor; I wrote my love a program, that had no end; I gave my love an upgrade, with no cryin'. How can there be an Apple, that has no core? How can there be a building, that has no floor? How can there be a program, that has no end? How can there be an upgrade, with no cryin'? An Apple's MOS memory don't use no core! A building that's perfect, it has no flaw! A program with GOTOs, it has no end! I lied about the upgrade, with no cryin'! | |
I get up each morning, gather my wits. Pick up the paper, read the obits. If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, And think of the places my get-up has been. -- Pete Seeger | |
I knew Leo G. Carrol Was over a barrel When Tarantula took to the hills. ["Lick it!"] And I really got hot When I saw Jeanette Scott Fight a triffid that spits poison and kills. Science fiction, double feature Doctor X will build a creature. See androids fighting Brad and Janet Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh At the late night, double feature, picture show. -- The Rocky Horror Picture Show | |
I lately lost a preposition; It hid, I thought, beneath my chair And angrily I cried, "Perdition! Up from out of under there." Correctness is my vade mecum, And straggling phrases I abhor, And yet I wondered, "What should he come Up from out of under for?" -- Morris Bishop | |
I lay my head on the railroad tracks, Waitin' for the double E. The railroad don't run no more. Poor poor pitiful me. [chorus] Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me. These young girls won't let me be, Lord have mercy on me! Woe is me! Well, I met a girl, West Hollywood, Well, I ain't naming names. But she really worked me over good, She was just like Jesse James. She really worked me over good, She was a credit to her gender. She put me through some changes, boy, Sort of like a Waring blender. [chorus] I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar, She asked me if I'd beat her. She took me back to the Hyatt House, I don't want to talk about it. [chorus] -- Warren Zevon, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" | |
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 | |
I never saw a purple cow I never hope to see one But I can tell you anyhow I'd rather see than be one. -- Gellett Burgess I've never seen a purple cow I never hope to see one But from the milk we're getting now There certainly must be one -- Odgen Nash Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow" I'm sorry now I wrote it But I can tell you anyhow I'll kill you if you quote it. -- Gellett Burgess, many years later | |
I owe, I owe, It's off to work I go... | |
I really hate this damned machine I wish that they would sell it. It never does quite what I want But only what I tell it. | |
I saw a man pursuing the Horizon, 'Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this, I accosted the man, "It is futile," I said. "You can never--" "You lie!" He cried, and ran on. -- Stephen Crane | |
I see a bad moon rising. I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightnin' I see bad times today. Don't go 'round tonight, It's bound to take your life. There's a bad moon on the rise. -- J. C. Fogerty, "Bad Moon Rising" | |
I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear, I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear. The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud, They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud." The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff, "We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..." I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf, It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself. But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked "The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked, I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut, "Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But... "Is that all?" asked Alice. "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." | |
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 shot a query into the net. I haven't got an answer yet, A posted message called me rotten But seven people gave me hell For ignoring mail I'd never gotten; And said I ought to learn to spell; An angry message asked me, Please Don't send such drivel overseas; A lawyer sent me private mail And swore he'd slap my ass in jail -- One netter thought it was a hoax: I'd mentioned Un*x in my gem "Hereafter, post to net dot jokes!"; And failed to add the T and M; Another called my grammar vile And criticized my writing style. Each day I scan each Subject line In hopes the topic will be mine; I shot a query into the net. I haven't got an answer yet... -- Ed Nather | |
I stood on the leading edge, The eastern seaboard at my feet. "Jump!" said Yoko Ono I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried. Go on and give it a try, Why prolong the agony, all men must die. -- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" | |
"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!" "As a programmer, yes," she replied, "And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!" "You said you were blonde, but you lied!" Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too, They had so much in common, you'd say. They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks, And prompts that were cute or risque'. He sent her a picture of his brother Sam, She sent one from some past high school day, And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives, If they hadn't met in L.A. "Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust. He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!" And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest If you were not so totally weird!" If she had not said what he wanted to hear, And he had not done just the same, They'd have been far more honest, and never have met, And would not have had fun with the game. -- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of Electronic Mail" | |
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 | |
I'm N-ary the tree, I am, N-ary the tree, I am, I am. I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, She's traversed me seven times before. And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. N-ary the tree I am, I am, N-ary the tree I am. -- Stolen from Paul Revere and the Raiders | |
I'm So Miserable Without You It's Almost Like Having You Here -- Song title by Stephen Bishop. She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft -- Song title by Jerry Reed. When My Love Comes Back from the Ladies' Room Will I Be Too Old to Care? -- Song title by Lewis Grizzard. I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling -- Unattributed song title. Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life -- Unattributed song title. | |
I've been on this lonely road so long, Does anybody know where it goes, I remember last time the signs pointed home, A month ago. -- Carpenters, "Road Ode" | |
I/O, I/O, It's off to disk I go, A bit or byte to read or write, I/O, I/O, I/O... | |
IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. | |
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, ... it expects what never was and never will be. -- Thomas Jefferson | |
If a system is administered wisely, its users will be content. They enjoy hacking their code and don't waste time implementing labor-saving shell scripts. Since they dearly love their accounts, they aren't interested in other machines. There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp, but these don't access any hosts. There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware, but nobody ever uses them. People enjoy reading their mail, take pleasure in being with their newsgroups, spend weekends working at their terminals, delight in the doings at the site. And even though the next system is so close that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps, they are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it. | |
If I could read your mind, love, What a tale your thoughts could tell, Just like a paperback novel, The kind the drugstore sells, When you reach the part where the heartaches come, The hero would be me, Heroes often fail, You won't read that book again, because the ending is just too hard to take. I walk away, like a movie star, Who gets burned in a three way script, Enter number two, A movie queen to play the scene Of bringing all the good things out in me, But for now, love, let's be real I never thought I could act this way, And I've got to say that I just don't get it, I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone And I just can't get it back... -- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind" | |
If I could stick my pen in my heart, I would spill it all over the stage. Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, Would you think the boy was strange? Ain't he strange? ... If I could stick a knife in my heart, Suicide right on the stage, Would it be enough for your teenage lust, Would it help to ease the pain? Ease your brain? -- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll" | |
If I promised you the moon and the stars, would you believe it? -- Alan Parsons Project | |
If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker, It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock. Or some joker who is slicker, Will trick you of your liquor, If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock. | |
In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Find the fun and snap! The job's a game. And every task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, a lark, a spree; it's very clear to see. -- Mary Poppins | |
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" | |
In the early morning queue, With a listing in my hand. With a worry in my heart, There on terminal number 9, Waitin' here in CERAS-land. Pascal run all set to go. I'm a long way from sleep, But I'm waitin' in the queue, How I miss a good meal so. With this code that ever grows. In the early mornin' queue, Now the lobby chairs are soft, With no place to go. But that can't make the queue move fast. Hey, there it goes my friend, I've moved up one at last. -- Ernest Adams, "Early Morning Queue", to "Early Morning Rain" by G. Lightfoot | |
Into love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head? -- Dorothy Parker, "Theory" | |
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind starts and under hills, And empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter. | |
It hangs down from the chandelier Nobody knows quite what it does Its color is odd and its shape is weird It emits a high-sounding buzz It grows a couple of feet each day and wriggles with sort of a twitch Nobody bugs it 'cause it comes from a visiting uncle who's rich! -- To "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" | |
It happened long ago In the new magic land The Indians and the buffalo Existed hand in hand The Indians needed food They need skins for a roof They only took what they needed And the buffalo ran loose But then came the white man With his thick and empty head He couldn't see past his billfold He wanted all the buffalo dead It was sad, oh so sad. -- Ted Nugent, "The Great White Buffalo" | |
It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. -- Proverbs 19:2 | |
It used to be the fun was in The capture and kill. In another place and time I did it all for thrills. -- Lust to Love | |
It was one time too many One word too few It was all too much for me and you There was one way to go Nothing more we could do One time too many One word too few -- Meredith Tanner | |
It's faster horses, Younger women, Older whiskey and More money. -- Tom T. Hall, "The Secret of Life" | |
It's gonna be alright, It's almost midnight, And I've got two more bottles of wine. | |
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 | |
It's just apartment house rules, So all you 'partment house fools Remember: one man's ceiling is another man's floor. One man's ceiling is another man's floor. -- Paul Simon, "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor" | |
It's Like This Even the samurai have teddy bears, and even the teddy bears get drunk. | |
It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon. -- Tom Lehrer, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" | |
It's so confusing choosing sides in the heat of the moment, just to see if it's real, Oooh, it's so erotic having you tell me how it should feel, But I'm avoiding all the hard cold facts that I got to face, So ask me just one question when this magic night is through, Could it have been just anyone or did it have to be you? -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" | |
John the Baptist after poisoning a thief, Looks up at his hero, the Commander-in-Chief, Saying tell me great leader, but please make it brief Is there a hole for me to get sick in? The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly, Saying death to all those who would whimper and cry. And dropping a barbell he points to the sky, Saying the sun is not yellow, it's chicken. -- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues" | |
Just a song before I go, Going through security To whom it may concern, I held her for so long. Traveling twice the speed of sound She finally looked at me in love, It's easy to get burned. And she was gone. When the shows were over Just a song before I go, We had to get back home, A lesson to be learned. And when we opened up the door Traveling twice the speed of sound I had to be alone. It's easy to get burned. She helped me with my suitcase, She stands before my eyes, Driving me to the airport And to the friendly skies. -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Just a Song Before I Go" | |
`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair. 'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.' | |
`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair. `Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.' | |
Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone, Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you, I went out this morning and I wrote down this song, Just can't remember who to send it to... Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain, I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, But I always thought that I'd see you again. Thought I'd see you one more time again. -- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain" | |
K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining; Cobol's wordy and confining; KOBOLDS topple when you strike them; Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them. -- The Roguelet's ABC | |
Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps, Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants, I come before you to stand behind you To tell you of something I know nothing about. Next Thursday (which is good Friday), There will be a convention held in the Women's Club which is strictly for Men. Admission is free, pay at the door, Pull up a chair, and sit on the floor. It was a summer's day in winter, And the snow was raining fast, As a barefoot boy with shoes on, Stood sitting in the grass. Oh, that bright day in the dead of night, Two dead men got up to fight. Three blind men to see fair play, Forty mutes to yell "Hooray"! Back to back, they faced each other, Drew their swords and shot each other. A deaf policeman heard the noise, Came and arrested those two dead boys. | |
Latin is a language, As dead as can be. First it killed the Romans, And now it's killing me. | |
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. | |
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" -- T.S. Eliot, "Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" | |
Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has bought us. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won. -- James Weldon Johnson | |
Lighten up, while you still can, Don't even try to understand, Just find a place to make your stand, And take it easy. -- The Eagles, "Take It Easy" | |
Like corn in a field I cut you down, I threw the last punch way too hard, After years of going steady, well, I thought it was time, To throw in my hand for a new set of cards. And I can't take you dancing out on the weekend, I figured we'd painted too much of this town, And I tried not to look as I walked to my wagon, And I knew then I had lost what should have been found, I knew then I had lost what should have been found. And I feel like a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford I'm as low as a paid assassin is You know I'm cold as a hired sword. I'm so ashamed we can't patch it up, You know I can't think straight no more You make me feel like a bullet, honey, a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford. -- Elton John "I Feel Like a Bullet" | |
"Lines that are parallel meet at Infinity!" Euclid repeatedly, heatedly, urged. Until he died, and so reached that vicinity: in it he found that the damned things diverged. -- Piet Hein | |
Lizzie Borden took an axe, And plunged it deep into the VAX; Don't you envy people who Do all the things ___YOU want to do? | |
Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human kind. Logic, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can. -- Oliver Goldsmith | |
Louie Louie, me gotta go Louie Louie, me gotta go Fine little girl she waits for me Me catch the ship for cross the sea Me sail the ship all alone Three nights and days me sail the sea Me never thinks me make it home Me think of girl constantly (chorus) On the ship I dream she there I smell the rose in her hair Me see Jamaica moon above (chorus, guitar solo) It won't be long, me see my love I take her in my arms and then Me tell her I never leave again -- The real words to The Kingsmen's classic "Louie Louie" | |
Love in your heart wasn't put there to stay. Love isn't love 'til you give it away. -- Oscar Hammerstein II | |
Love, which is quickly kindled in a gentle heart, seized this one for the fair form that was taken from me-and the way of it afficts me still. Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, seized me so strongly with delight in him, that, as you see, it does not leave me even now. Love brought us to one death. -- La Divina Commedia: Inferno V, vv. 100-06 | |
Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, You, with your fresh thoughts Care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name Sorrow's springs are the same: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for. -- Gerard Manley Hopkins. | |
Mummy dust to make me old; To shroud my clothes, the black of night; To age my voice, an old hag's cackle; To whiten my hair, a scream of fright; A blast of wind to fan my hate; A thunderbolt to mix it well -- Now begin thy magic spell! -- Walter Disney, "Snow White" | |
My analyst told me that I was right out of my head, But I said, "Dear Doctor, I think that it is you instead. Because I have got a thing that is unique and new, To prove it I'll have the last laugh on you. 'Cause instead of one head -- I've got two. And you know two heads are better than one. | |
My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures, and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits. It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating decimal points for the sake of precision. Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes, I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me. It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers. It annoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are over. Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever. | |
My My, hey hey Rock and roll is here to stay The king is gone but he's not forgotten It's better to burn out This is the story of a Johnny Rotten Than to fade away It's better to burn out than it is to rust My my, hey hey The king is gone but he's not forgotten It's out of the blue and into the black Hey hey, my my They give you this, but you pay for that Rock and roll can never die And once you're gone you can never come back There's more to the picture When you're out of the blue Than meets the eye And into the black -- Neil Young "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps" | |
"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 pen is at the bottom of a page, Which, being finished, here the story ends; 'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done, But stories somehow lengthen when begun. -- Byron | |
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?) | |
Near the Studio Jean Cocteau On the Rue des Ecoles lived an old man with a blind dog Every evening I would see him guiding the dog along the sidewalk, keeping a firm grip on the leash so that the dog wouldn't run into a passerby Sometimes the dog would stop and look up at the sky Once the old man noticed me watching the dog and he said, "Oh, yes, this one knows when the moon is out, he can feel it on his face" -- Barry Gifford | |
Next, upon a stool, we've a sight to make you drool. Seven virgins and a mule, keep it cool, keep it cool. -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) | |
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" | |
No pig should go sky diving during monsoon For this isn't really the norm. But should a fat swine try to soar like a loon, So what? Any pork in a storm. No pig should go sky diving during monsoon, It's risky enough when the weather is fine. But to have a pig soar when the monsoon doth roar Cast even more perils before swine. | |
No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff -- He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough. Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame. (refrain) Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail. All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!" (refrain) Puff used more resources than DCS could spare. The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care. A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end, But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again! (refrain) Refrain: Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. | |
"No program is perfect," They said with a shrug. "The customer's happy-- What's one little bug?" But he was determined, Then change two, then three more, The others went home. As year followed year. He dug out the flow chart And strangers would comment, Deserted, alone. "Is that guy still here?" Night passed into morning. He died at the console The room was cluttered Of hunger and thirst With core dumps, source listings. Next day he was buried "I'm close," he muttered. Face down, nine edge first. Chain smoking, cold coffee, And his wife through her tears Logic, deduction. Accepted his fate. "I've got it!" he cried, Said "He's not really gone, "Just change one instruction." He's just working late." -- The Perfect Programmer | |
Nothing that's forced can ever be right, If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. That's what she said as she turned out the light, And we bent our backs as slaves of the night, Then she lowered her guard and showed me the scars She got from trying to fight Saying, oh, you'd better believe it. [...] Well nothing that's real is ever for free And you just have to pay for it sometime. She said it before, she said it to me, I suppose she believed there was nothing to see, But the same old four imaginary walls She'd built for livin' inside I said oh, you just can't mean it. [...] Well nothing that's forced can ever be right, If it doesn't come naturally, leave it. That's what she said as she turned out the light, And she may have been wrong, and she may have been right, But I woke with the frost, and noticed she'd lost The veil that covered her eyes, I said oh, you can leave it. -- Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It" | |
Now it's time to say goodbye To all our company... M-I-C (see you next week!) K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!) M-O-U-S-E. | |
Now of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It leaves me only fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow. -- A.E. Housman | |
Now what would they do if I just sailed away? Who the hell really compelled me to leave today? Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball, What would they do if I made no landfall?" -- Jimmy Buffet, "Landfall" | |
Now's the time to have some big ideas Now's the time to make some firm decisions We saw the Buddha in a bar down south Talking politics and nuclear fission We see him and he's all washed up -- Moving on into the body of a beetle Getting ready for a long long crawl He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all... Death and Money make their point once more In the shape of Philosophical assassins Mark and Danny take the bus uptown Deadly angels for reality and passion Have the courage of the here and now Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas When you think you got it paid in full You got nothing -- you got nothing at all... We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. We know his name and he mustn't get away. We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. It would take one shot -- to blow him away... -- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah" | |
O love, could thou and I with fate conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Might we not smash it to bits And mould it closer to our hearts' desire? -- Omar Khayyam, tr. FitzGerald | |
Oh give me your pity! I'm on a committee, We attend and amend Which means that from morning And contend and defend to night, Without a conclusion in sight. We confer and concur, We defer and demur, We revise the agenda And reiterate all of our thoughts. With frequent addenda And consider a load of reports. We compose and propose, We suppose and oppose, But though various notions And the points of procedure are fun; Are brought up as motions, There's terribly little gets done. We resolve and absolve; But we never dissolve, Since it's out of the question for us To bring our committee To end like this ditty, Which stops with a period, thus. -- Leslie Lipson, "The Committee" | |
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 4BSD? My friends all got sources, so why can't I see? Come all you moby hackers, come sing it out with me: To hell with the lawyers from AT&T! | |
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus Where the three-body problem is solved, Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K, And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus) We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high, Our ball bearings are perfectly round. Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed, And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus) If we run out of space for our burgeoning race No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart, If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus) I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space, And living up here is a bore. Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye 'Cause I'm moving next week to L4! (chorus) CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange, Where the space debris always collects, We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams: Solar power and zero-gee sex. -- to Home on the Range | |
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay I muck with indices and structs all day And when it works, I shout hoo-ray Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay | |
On the good ship Enterprise Every week there's a new surprise Where the Romulans lurk And the Klingons often go berserk. Yes, the good ship Enterprise There's excitement anywhere it flies Where Tribbles play And Nurse Chapel never gets her way. See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, Mr. Spock is at his side. The weekly menace, ooh-ooh It gets fried, scattered far and wide. It's the good ship Enterprise Heading out where danger lies And you live in dread If you're wearing a shirt that's red. -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics, "The Good Ship Enterprise," to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop" | |
Once again dread deed is done. Canon sleeps, his all-knowing eye shaded to human chance and circumstance. Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley, but Canon's sleep is troubled. Beware, scant days past the Ides of July. Impatient hands wait eagerly to grasp, to hold scant moments of time wrested from life in the full glory of Canon's power; held captive by his unblinking eye. Three golden orbs stand watch; one each to toll the day, hour, minute until predestiny decrees his reawakening. When that feared moment arives, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee." -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine Valley Pawn Shop today" | |
Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail, And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail, And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool, He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!) And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat, He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat, And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout! And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out! And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog, And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god, The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed, But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed! Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace, And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste, But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt", And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out! When the day is done and the moon comes out, And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count, When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey, And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay, You must mind the file protections and not snoop around, Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down! | |
One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple, By the Relief Office, I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling, This land was made for you and me. Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back, This land was made for you and me. As I went walking, I saw a sign there, And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing." But on the other side, it didn't say nothing, That side was made for you and me. -- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7) [If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't heard all of Woody's songs] | |
One good thing about music, Well, it helps you feel no pain. So hit me with music; Hit me with music now. -- Bob Marley, "Trenchtown Rock" | |
One thing about the past. It's likely to last. -- Ogden Nash | |
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder how the old folks are tonight, Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face, She left me not knowing what to do. Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you, Carefree Highway, you seen better days, The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes, Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you... Turning back the pages to the times I love best, I wonder if she'll ever do the same, Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied, With knowing I got noone left to blame. Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame... Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep, I wonder if the years have closed her mind, I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free, From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew. -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway" | |
Plagiarize, plagiarize, Let no man's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, Don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize. Only be sure to call it research. -- Tom Lehrer | |
Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches... -- Percy Bysshe Shelley | |
Proposed Country & Western Song Titles She Ain't Much to See, but She Looks Good Through the Bottom of a Glass If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, I Wonder Who's I'd Find On You I'm Ashamed to be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave It's Commode Huggin' Time In The Valley If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put It Next to My Ex-wife's Heart If You Get the Feeling That I Don't Love You, Feel Again I'm Ashamed To Be Here, But Not Ashamed Enough To Leave It's the Bottle Against the Bible in the Battle For Daddy's Soul My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Miss Him Don't Cut Any More Wood, Baby, 'Cause I'll Be Comin' Home With A Load I Loved Her Face, But I Left Her Behind For You | |
Put another password in, Bomb it out, then try again. Try to get past logging in, We're hacking, hacking, hacking. Try his first wife's maiden name, This is more than just a game. It's real fun, but just the same, It's hacking, hacking, hacking. -- To the tune of "Music, Music, Music?" | |
Reclaimer, spare that tree! Take not a single bit! It used to point to me, Now I'm protecting it. It was the reader's CONS That made it, paired by dot; Now, GC, for the nonce, Thou shalt reclaim it not. | |
Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Cleveland. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" | |
Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun, With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done. The deal was made in Denmark, on a dark and stormy day, So he set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray. Through sixty-six and seven, they fought the Congo war, With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore. Days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees, They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese. Roland the Thompson gunner... His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest, But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best. So the C.I.A decided, they wanted Roland dead, That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen, blew off Roland's head. Roland the headless Thompson gunner... Roland searched the continent, for the man who'd done him in. He found him in Mombasa, in a bar room drinking gin, Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word, But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg. The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night, Now it's ten years later, but he stills keeps up the fight. In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Berkeley, Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it. -- Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" | |
Say it with flowers, Or say it with mink, But whatever you do, Don't say it with ink! -- Jimmie Durante | |
Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. And we've also found Just flip one switch When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble in a flash. Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. -- To the tune of "As the Caissons go Rolling Along" | |
Seek for the Sword that was broken: In Imladris it dwells; There shall be counsels taken Stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token That Doom is near at hand, For Isildur's Bane shall waken, And the Halfling forth shall stand. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
She stood on the tracks Waving her arms Leading me to that third rail shock Quick as a wink She changed her mind She gave me a night That's all it was What will it take until I stop Kidding myself Wasting my time There's nothing else I can do 'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna I don't want anyone new 'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna There's nothing in it for you 'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna -- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses) | |
Some primal termite knocked on wood. And tasted it, and found it good. And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today. -- Ogden Nash | |
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" | |
Sometimes the light's all shining on me, Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me What a long strange trip it's been. -- The Grateful Dead, "American Beauty" | |
Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy Because he knows it teases. Wow! wow! wow! I speak severely to my boy, And beat him when he sneezes: For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases! Wow! wow! wow! -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" | |
Speak roughly to your little VAX, And boot it when it crashes; It knows that one cannot relax Because the paging thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow! I speak severely to my VAX, And boot it when it crashes; In spite of all my favorite hacks My jobs it always thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow! | |
Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror: With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair He throws the spinning disk drives in the air! And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds! Helpless users with projects due Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too! Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla! Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!" * VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. * DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc. -- Curtis Jackson | |
Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time, There's something wrong here, there can be no more denying, One of us is changing, or maybe we just stopped trying, And it's too late, baby, now, it's too late, Though we really did try to make it, Something inside has died and I can't hide and I just can't fake it... It used to be so easy living here with you, You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do Now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool. There'll be good times again for me and you, But we just can't stay together, don't you feel it too? But I'm glad for what we had and that I once loved you... But it's too late baby... It's too late, now darling, it's too late... -- Carol King, "Tapestry" | |
Strange things are done to be number one In selling the computer The Druids were entrepreneurs, IBM has their strategem And they built a granite box Which steadily grows acuter, It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons, And Honeywell competes like Hell, And forecast the equinox But the story's missing link Their price was right, their future Is the system old at Stonemenge sold bright, By the firm of Druids, Inc. The prototype was sold; From Stonehenge site their bits and byte Would ship for Celtic gold. The movers came to crate the frame; It weighed a million ton! The traffic folk thought it a joke The man spoke true, and thus to you (the wagon wheels just spun); A warning from the ages; "They'll nay sell that," the foreman Your stock will slip if you can't ship spat, What's in your brochure's pages. "Just leave the wild weeds grow; See if it sells without the bells "It's Druid-kind, over-designed, And strings that ring and quiver; "And belly up they'll go." Druid repute went down the chute Because they couldn't deliver. -- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge" | |
Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it. -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values | |
System/3! System/3! See how it runs! See how it runs! Its monitor loses so totally! It runs all its programs in RPG! It's made by our favorite monopoly! System/3! | |
Take a look around you, tell me what you see, A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key. If you can get close enough to look into her eyes There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides. And you're fair game, You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game, Just relax, enjoy the ride. Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool, But do it with a little class, disregard the rules. 'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date. The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate. (chorus) The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch. She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch. Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie, And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die. (chorus) -- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game" | |
Tan me hide when I'm dead, Fred, Tan me hide when I'm dead. So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, It's hanging there on the shed. All together now... Tie me kangaroo down, sport, Tie me kangaroo down. Tie me kangaroo down, sport, Tie me kangaroo down. | |
Terence, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer. But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, It gives a chap the belly-ache. The cow, the old cow, she is dead; It sleeps well the horned head: We poor lads, 'tis our turn now To hear such tunes as killed the cow. Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme Your friends to death before their time. Moping, melancholy mad: Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad. -- A.E. Housman | |
That money talks, I'll not deny, I heard it once, It said "Good-bye. -- Richard Armour | |
The bank called to tell me that I'm overdrawn, Some freaks are burning crosses out on my front lawn, And I *can't*believe* it, all the Cheetos are gone, It's just ONE OF THOSE DAYS! -- Weird Al Yankovic, "One of Those Days" | |
The carbonyl is polarized, The delta end is plus. The nucleophile will thus attack, The carbon nucleus. Addition makes an alcohol, Of types there are but three. It makes a bond, to correspond, From C to shining C. -- Prof. Frank Westheimer, to "America the Beautiful" | |
The good life was so elusive It really got me down I had to regain some confidence So I got into camouflage | |
The lights are on, but you're not home; Your will is not your own; Your heart sweats, Your teeth grind; Another kiss and you'll be mine... You like to think that you're immune to the stuff (Oh Yeah!) It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough; You know you're gonna have to face it, You're addicted to love!" -- Robert Palmer | |
The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in a position of negative need. He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area. He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous liquid. He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup. He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal prestige of His identity. It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena. Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood state. You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements. You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis. It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended time basis. | |
The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age, But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything. I know I keep you amused, But I feel I'm being used. Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face. You took me away from home, Just to save you from being alone; You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts. I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school, Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool, Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band, That needs a helping hand, Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face. You made a first-class fool out of me, But I'm as blind as a fool can be. You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without. -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May" | |
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. | |
The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. Let others think his heart is big, I think it stupid of the Pig. -- Ogden Nash | |
The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with the higher emotions. She would me "Honey" call, She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. But now alas! She's left me Falero, lero, loo. Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize was her prudent choice of footwear. The fives did fit her shoe. In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, "Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just's umbrella. -- Lord Bowen | |
The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door. He said, "I am not fighting for you any more." The queen knew she had seen his face someplace before, And slowly she let him inside. He said, "I see you now, and you're so very young, But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won, And I have this intuition that it's all for your fun. And now will you tell me why?" -- Suzanne Vega, "The Queen and The Soldier" | |
The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright -- And this was very odd, because it was The middle of the night. -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
The thrill is here, but it won't last long You'd better have your fun before it moves along... | |
The trouble with a kitten is that When it grows up, it's always a cat -- Ogden Nash. | |
The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it needs to be. | |
The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex. I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile. -- Ogden Nash | |
The wind doth taste so bitter sweet, Like Jaspar wine and sugar, It must have blown through someone's feet, Like those of Caspar Weinberger. -- P. Opus | |
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" | |
There are bad times just around the corner, There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky And it's no good whining About a silver lining For we know from experience that they won't roll by... -- Noel Coward | |
There is in certain living souls A quality of loneliness unspeakable, So great it must be shared As company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this That in immensity There is one lonelier than you. | |
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 | |
There's a lesson that I need to remember When everything is falling apart In life, just like in loving There's such a thing as trying to hard You've gotta sing Like you don't need the money Love like you'll never get hurt You've gotta dance Like nobody's watching It's gotta come from the heart If you want it to work. -- Kathy Mattea | |
There's amnesia in a hangknot, And comfort in the ax, But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax. There's surcease in a gunshot, And sleep that comes from racks, But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax. You find rest on the hot squat, Or gas can give you pax, But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks. There's refuge in the church lot When you tire of facing facts, And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks. Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels, Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals -- But the pleasantest place to find your end Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend. -- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road" | |
They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results About a month before. Their hair began to curl The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL. He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this To pass where they had failed For it must ever be And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me. My notion was to start again Ignoring all they'd done We quickly turned it into code To see if it would run. | |
They went rushing down that freeway, Messed around and got lost. They didn't care... they were just dying to get off, And it was life in the fast lane. -- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane" | |
Thinks't thou existence doth depend on time? It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine Have made my days and nights imperishable, Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, Innumerable atoms; and one desert, Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. | |
This here's the wattle, The emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle; You can hold it in your hand. Amen! -- Monty Python | |
Though I respect that a lot I'd be fired if that were my job After killing Jason off and Countless screaming argonauts Bluebird of friendliness Like guardian angels it's Always near Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch Who watches over you Make a little birdhouse in your soul Not to put too fine a point on it Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet Make a little birdhouse in your soul -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants | |
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown Waiting for someone or something to show you the way Tired of lying in the sunshine And then one day you find Staying home to watch the rain Ten years have got behind you You are young and life is long No one told you when to run And there is time to kill today You missed the starting gun And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking And racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death Every year is getting shorter Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way Never seem to find the time The time is gone, the song is over Plans that either come to nought Thought I'd something more to say... Or half a page of scribbled lines -- Pink Floyd, "Time" | |
Time washes clean Love's wounds unseen. That's what someone told me; But I don't know what it means. -- Linda Ronstadt, "Long Long Time" | |
To code the impossible code, This is my quest -- To bring up a virgin machine, To debug that code, To pop out of endless recursion, No matter how hopeless, To grok what appears on the screen, No matter the load, To write those routines To right the unrightable bug, Without question or pause, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV To mount the unmountable magtape, For a heavenly cause. To stop the unstoppable crash! And I know if I'll only be true To this glorious quest, And the queue will be better for this, That my code will run CUSPy and calm, That one man, scorned and When it's put to the test. destined to lose, Still strove with his last allocation To scrap the unscrappable kludge! -- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha | |
To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly strip down your words to naked, willing flesh. Then bind them to a metaphor or three, and take by force a satisfying mesh. Arrange them to your will, each foot in place. You are the master here, and they the slaves. Now whip them to maintain a constant pace and rhythm as they stand in even staves. A word that strikes no pleasure? Cast it out! What use are words that drive not to the heart? A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt, and choose more docile words to take its part. A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain, by making love directly to the brain. | |
Tobacco is a filthy weed, That from the devil does proceed; It drains your purse, it burns your clothes, And makes a chimney of your nose. -- B. Waterhouse | |
Troll sat alone on his seat of stone, And munched and mumbled a bare old bone; For many a year he had gnawed it near, For meat was hard to come by. Done by! Gum by! In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone, And meat was hard to come by. Up came Tom with his big boots on. Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is youn? For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim, As should be a-lyin in graveyard. Caveyard! Paveyard! This many a year has Tim been gone, And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard." "My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole. But what be bones that lie in a hole? Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead, Afore I found his shinbone. Tinbone! Thinbone! He can spare a share for a poor old troll For he don't need his shinbone." Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee Without axin' leave should go makin' free With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin; So hand the old bone over! Rover! Trover! Though dead he be, it belongs to he; So hand the old bnone over!" -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
"Twas bergen and the eirie road Did mahwah into patterson: "Beware the Hopatcong, my son! All jersey were the ocean groves, The teeth that bite, the nails And the red bank bayonne. that claw! Beware the bound brook bird, and shun He took his belmar blade in hand: The kearney communipaw." Long time the folsom foe he sought Till rested he by a bayway tree And, as in nutley thought he stood, And stood a while in thought. The Hopatcong with eyes of flame, Came whippany through the englewood, One, two, one, two, and through And garfield as it came. and through The belmar blade went hackensack! "And hast thou slain the Hopatcong? He left it dead and with it's head Come to my arms, my perth amboy! He went weehawken back. Hohokus day! Soho! Rahway!" He caldwell in his joy. Did mahwah into patterson: All jersey were the ocean groves, And the red bank bayonne. -- Paul Kieffer | |
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! All mimsy were the borogroves The jaws that bite, the claws And the mome raths outgrabe. that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, He took his vorpal sword in hand And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" Long time the manxome foe he sought. So rested he by the tumtum tree And as in uffish thought he stood And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame Came whuffling through the tulgey wood One! Two! One! Two! And through and And burbled as it came! through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. "Hast thou slain the Jabberwock? He left it dead, and took its head, Come to my arms, my beamish boy! And went galumphing back. Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!" He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves And the mome raths outgrabe. -- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky" | |
'Twas bullig, and the slithy brokers Did buy and gamble in the craze "Beware the Jabberstock, my son! All rosy were the Dow Jones stokers The cost that bites, the worth By market's wrath unphased. that falls! Beware the Econ'mist's word, and shun He took his forecast sword in hand: The spurious Street o' Walls!" Long time the Boesk'some foe he sought - Sake's liquidity, so d'vested he, And as in bearish thought he stood And stood awhile in thought. The Jabberstock, with clothes of tweed, Came waffling with the truth too good, Chip Black! Chip Blue! And through And yuppied great with greed! and through The forecast blade went snicker-snack! "And hast thou slain the Jabberstock? It bit the dirt, and with its shirt, Come to my firm, V.P.ish boy! He went rebounding back. O big bucks day! Moolah! Good Play!" He bought him a Mercedes Toy. 'Twas panic, and the slithy brokers Did gyre and tumble in the Crash All flimsy were the Dow Jones stokers And mammon's wrath them bash! -- Peter Stucki, "Jabberstocky" | |
Twenty two thousand days. Twenty two thousand days. It's not a lot. It's all you've got. Twenty two thousand days. -- Moody Blues, "Twenty Two Thousand Days" | |
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright Where the hammer? Where the chain? In the forests of the night, In what furnace was thy brain? What immortal hand or eye What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Dare its deadly terrors clasp? Burnt in distant deeps or skies When the stars threw down their spears The cruel fire of thine eyes? And water'd heaven with their tears On what wings dare he aspire? Dare he laugh his work to see? What the hand dare seize the fire? Dare he who made the lamb make thee? And what shoulder & what art Tyger, Tyger, burning bright Could twist the sinews of they heart? In the forests of the night, And when thy heart began to beat What immortal hand or eye What dread hand & what dread feet Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? Could fetch it from the furnace deep And in thy horrid ribs dare steep In the well of sanguine woe? In what clay & in what mould Were thy eyes of fury roll'd? -- William Blake, "The Tyger" | |
Voiceless it cries, Wingless flutters, Toothless bites, Mouthless mutters. | |
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 | |
Watching girls go passing by It ain't the latest thing I'm just standing in a doorway I'm just trying to make some sense Out of these girls passing by A smile relieves the heart that grieves The tales they tell of men Remember what I said I'm not waiting on a lady I'm not waiting on a lady I'm just waiting on a friend I'm just waiting on a friend ... Don't need a whore Don't need no booze Don't need a virgin priest Ooh, making love and breaking hearts But I need someone I can cry to It is a game for youth I need someone to protect But I'm not waiting on a lady I'm just waiting on a friend I'm just waiting on a friend -- Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend" | |
We don't need no indirection We don't need no compilation We don't need no flow control We don't need no load control No data typing or declarations No link edit for external bindings Hey! did you leave the lists alone? Hey! did you leave that source alone? Chorus: (Chorus) Oh No. It's just a pure LISP function call. We don't need no side-effecting We don't need no allocation We don't need no flow control We don't need no special-nodes No global variables for execution No dark bit-flipping for debugging Hey! did you leave the args alone? Hey! did you leave those bits alone? (Chorus) (Chorus) -- "Another Glitch in the Call", a la Pink Floyd | |
We gotta get out of this place, If it's the last thing we ever do. -- The Animals | |
We're Knights of the Round Table We dance whene'er we're able We do routines and chorus scenes We're knights of the Round Table With footwork impeccable Our shows are formidable We dine well here in Camelot But many times We eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. We're given rhymes That are quite unsingable In war we're tough and able, We're opera mad in Camelot Quite indefatigable We sing from the diaphragm a lot. Between our quests We sequin vests And impersonate Clark Gable It's a busy life in Camelot. I have to push the pram a lot. -- Monty Python | |
Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends! We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside! There behind the glass there's a real blade of grass, Be careful as you pass, move along, move along. Come inside, the show's about to start, Guaranteed to blow your head apart. Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth, Greatest show, in heaven, hell or earth! You gotta see the show! It's a dynamo! You gotta see the show! It's rock 'n' roll! -- ELP, "Karn Evil 9" (1st Impression, Part 2) | |
Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five, The headline screamed that I was still alive, I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night. I dreamed I'd been in a border town, In a little cantina that the boys had found, I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds. When along came a senorita, She looked so good that I had to meet her, I was ready to approach her with my English charm, When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm, And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo, Grow some funk of your own. We no like to with the gringo fight, But there might be a death in Mexico tonite. ... Take my advice, take the next flight, And grow some funk, grow your funk at home. -- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" | |
Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain. Fancy giving money to the Government! Nobody will see the stuff again. Well, they've no idea what money's for -- Ten to one they'll start another war. I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! Fancy giving money to the Government! -- A.P. Herbert | |
Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come, I hope they comin' for me! And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good, I hope they doin' it for free! They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever! First time that I got it I was just ten years old, Got it from the kitty next door... I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure, I think I got it some more! Got a bad scratch fever... -- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever" | |
Well, my daddy left home when I was three, And he didn't leave much for Ma and me, Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze. Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid, But the meanest thing that he ever did, Was before he left he went and named me Sue. ... But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars, I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars, And kill the man that give me that awful name. It was Gatlinburg in mid-July, I'd just hit town and my throat was dry, Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew, At an old saloon on a street of mud, Sitting at a table, dealing stud, Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue. ... Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad, From a wornout picture that my Mother had, And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye... -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue" | |
Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. -- Core Dumped Blues | |
Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers, And we're loved everywhere we go. We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth, At ten thousand dollars a show. We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills, But the thrill we've never known, Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, On the cover of the Rolling Stone. I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie, Who embroiders on my jeans. I got my poor old gray-haired daddy, Drivin' my limousine. Now it's all designed, to blow our minds, But our minds won't be really be blown; Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture, On the cover of the Rolling Stone. We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies, Who'll do anything we say. We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way. We got all the friends that money can buy, So we never have to be alone. And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture, On the cover of the Rolling Stone. -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.] | |
What awful irony is this? We are as gods, but know it not. | |
What did ya do with your burden and your cross? Did you carry it yourself or did you cry? You and I know that a burden and a cross, Can only be carried on one man's back. -- Louden Wainwright III | |
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore -- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over -- Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags Like a heavy load. Or does it explode? -- Langston Hughes | |
What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up, up it goes, And yet never grows? | |
What segment's this, that, laid to rest On FHA0, is sleeping? What system file, lay here a while This, this is "acct.run," While hackers around it were weeping? Accounting file for everyone. Dump, dump it and type it out, The file, the highseg of login. Why lies it here, on public disk And why is it now unprotected? A bug in incant, made it thus. Mount, mount all your DECtapes now And copy the file somehow, somehow. The problem has not been corrected. Dump, dump it and type it out, The file, the highseg of login. -- to Greensleeves | |
What with chromodynamics and electroweak too Our Standardized Model should please even you, Tho' once you did say that of charm there was none It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun. Yet your state of the union penultimate large Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge, And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole. Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track, But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed. Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more, You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore, That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later. -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, December, 1984 | |
What, still alive at twenty-two, A clean upstanding chap like you? Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit, Slit your girl's, and swing for it. Like enough, you won't be glad, When they come to hang you, lad: But bacon's not the only thing That's cured by hanging from a string. So, when the spilt ink of the night Spreads o'er the blotting pad of light, Lads whose job is still to do Shall whet their knives, and think of you. -- Hugh Kingsmill | |
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 | |
When oxygen Tech played Hydrogen U. The Game had just begun, when Hydrogen scored two fast points And Oxygen still had none Then Oxygen scored a single goal And thus it did remain, At Hydrogen 2 and Oxygen 1 Called because of rain. | |
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 the Guru administers, the users are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a sysop who is loved. Next, one who is feared. And worst, one who is despised. If you don't trust the users, you make them untrustworthy. The Guru doesn't talk, he hacks. When his work is done, the users say, "Amazing: we implemented it, all by ourselves!" | |
When users see one GUI as beautiful, other user interfaces become ugly. When users see some programs as winners, other programs become lossage. Pointers and NULLs reference each other. High level and assembler depend on each other. Double and float cast to each other. High-endian and low-endian define each other. While and until follow each other. Therefore the Guru programs without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Warnings arise and he lets them come; processes are swapped and he lets them go. He has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When his work is done, he deletes it. That is why it lasts forever. | |
When you find yourself in danger, When you're threatened by a stranger, When it looks like you will take a lickin'... There is one thing you should learn, When there is no one else to turn to, Caaaall for Super Chicken!! (**bwuck-bwuck-bwuck-bwuck**) Caaaall for Super Chicken!! | |
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 CAN THE MATTER BE Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it's converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny's so long at the fair. | |
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 | |
Whether you can hear it or not, The Universe is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" | |
Whip it, baby. Whip it right. Whip it, baby. Whip it all night! | |
Why are you watching The washing machine? I love entertainment So long as it's clean. Professor Doberman: While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified improvement. Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic experience. As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in fact distract from the unity of the whole. In the final analysis, one receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its meaning. It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive implications. | |
With/Without - and who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about? -- Pink Floyd | |
"You are old, Father William," the young man said, "All your papers these days look the same; Those William's would be better unread -- Do these facts never fill you with shame?" "In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I wrote wonderful papers galore; But the great reputation I found that I'd won, Made it pointless to think any more." | |
"You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- Do you think, at your age, it is right?" "In my youth," father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again." "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- Pray what is the reason of that?" "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- Allow me to sell you a couple?" | |
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- Pray, how did you manage to do it?" "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life." "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- What made you so awfully clever?" "I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" | |
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And make errors few people could bear; You complain about everyone's English but yours -- Do you really think this is quite fair?" "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, "But my stature these days is so great That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, And to stop me it's now far too late." | |
You can grovel with a lover, you can grovel with a friend, You can grovel with your boss, and it never has to end. (chorus) Grovel, grovel, grovel, every night and every day, Grovel, grovel, grovel, in your own peculiar way. You can grovel in a hallway, you can grovel in a park, You can grovel in an alley with a mugger after dark. (chorus) You can grovel with your uncle, you can grovel with your aunt, You can grovel with your Apple, even though you say you can't. (chorus) | |
You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues, And you know it don't come easy ... I don't ask for much, I only want trust, And you know it don't come easy ... | |
You may be right, I may be crazy, But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for! -- Billy Joel | |
Your wise men don't know how it feels To be thick as a brick. -- Jethro Tull, "Thick As A Brick" | |
Yours is not to reason why, Just to Sail Away. And when you find you have to throw Your Legacy away; Remember life as was it is, And is as it were; Chasing sounds across the galaxy 'Till silence is but a blur. -- QYX. | |
A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? | |
Be careful! Is it classified? | |
Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. | |
Blow it out your ear. | |
Communicate! It can't make things any worse. | |
Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone. | |
Don't relax! It's only your tension that's holding you together. | |
Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. | |
Give your very best today. Heaven knows it's little enough. | |
If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it. | |
It is so very hard to be an on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up. | |
It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done. | |
It was all so different before everything changed. | |
It's a very *__UN*lucky week in which to be took dead. -- Churchy La Femme | |
It's all in the mind, ya know. | |
It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. | |
Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is not worth sending. | |
Just to have it is enough. | |
Keep it short for pithy sake. | |
Lady Luck brings added income today. Lady friend takes it away tonight. | |
Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. | |
"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. | |
Make a wish, it might come true. | |
So this is it. We're going to die. | |
This life is yours. Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself. | |
This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. | |
Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately, it can still be changed today. | |
Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today. | |
You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to leave it behind. | |
You have a reputation for being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. A pity that it's totally undeserved. | |
You have an unusual equipment for success. Be sure to use it properly. | |
You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets wrinkled. | |
You love your home and want it to be beautiful. | |
You may get an opportunity for advancement today. Watch it! | |
You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially if they are dead. | |
You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. | |
You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass. | |
You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. | |
You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow. | |
You're definitely on their list. The question to ask next is what list it is. | |
Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). | |
Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. | |
Your nature demands love and your happiness depends on it. | |
Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong. | |
A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass. -- Donald A. Metz | |
A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena. -- Donald A. Metz | |
A boy scout troop went on a hike. Crossing over a stream, one of the boys dropped his wallet into the water. Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed the wallet and tossed it to another carp. Then that carp passed it to another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back and forth. "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case of carp-to-carp walleting." | |
A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. -- Donald A. Metz | |
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." | |
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. -- Dave Barry | |
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959) | |
Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is my choice for team captain. Cincinnatti was beating us 3-1, and I led off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and kept going, sliding safely into third base. With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first. Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third. I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and shouts, "Back to second if I can make it." -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" | |
COONDOG MEMORY (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog is for sale. -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly | |
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" | |
Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. -- George F. Will, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball" | |
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #15 "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." And while you're at it, throw in a couple of those Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. | |
HARVARD: Quarterback: Sophomore Dave Strewzinski... likes to pass. And pass he does, with a record 86 attempts (three completions) in 87 plays.... Though Strewzinksi has so far failed to score any points for the Crimson, his jackrabbit speed has made him the least sacked quarterback in the Ivy league. Wide Receiver: The other directional signal in Harvard's offensive machine is senior Phil Yip, who is very fast. Yip is so fast that he has set a record for being fast. Expect to see Yip elude all pursuers and make it into the endzone five or six times, his average for a game. Yip, nicknamed "fumblefingers" and "you asshole" by his teammates, hopes to carry the ball with him at least one of those times. YALE: Defense: On the defensive side, Yale boasts the stingiest line in the Ivies. Primarily responsible are seniors Izzy "Shylock" Bloomberg and Myron Finklestein, the tightest ends in recent Eli history. Also contributing to the powerful defense is junior tackle Angus MacWhirter, a Scotsman who rounds out the offensive ethnic joke. Look for these three to shut down the opening coin toss. -- Harvard Lampoon 1988 Program Parody, distributed at The Game | |
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. -- W. C. Fields | |
I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended, and I don't care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play as another. -- Ford Frick, National League President, reacting to a threatened strike by some Cardinal players in 1947 if Jackie Robinson took the field against St. Louis. The Cardinals backed down and played. | |
I guess I've been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took time enough to figure out where the goal line was -- what it meant to win -- or even how you won. -- Cash McCall | |
I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as Martina Navratilova who can run like deer and bench-press Chevrolet trucks. But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports that enables men to be such incredible jerks about it. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" | |
I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that it took seven others to beat him! | |
I would be batting the big feller if they wasn't ready with the other one, but a left-hander would be the thing if they wouldn't have knowed it already because there is more things involved than could come up on the road, even after we've been home a long while. -- Casey Stengel | |
I'm glad we don't have to play in the shade. -- Golfer Bobby Jones on being told that it was 105 degrees in the shade. | |
If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of gravity supercedes the law of golf. -- Donald A. Metz | |
If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good attitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to playing the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win -- unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager can make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry? -- Sparky Anderson | |
If you're carrying a torch, put it down. The Olympics are over. | |
In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf. | |
In Brooklyn, we had such great pennant races, it made the World Series just something that came later. -- Walter O'Malley, Dodgers owner | |
It gets late early out there. -- Yogi Berra | |
It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another -- but which one? Differences are crucial. -- Lazarus Long | |
It's like deja vu all over again. -- Yogi Berra | |
It's not whether you win or lose but how you played the game. -- Grantland Rice | |
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look playing the game. | |
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. | |
Life is a gamble at terrible odds, if it was a bet you wouldn't take it. -- Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" | |
MARTA SAYS THE INTERESTING thing about fly-fishing is that it's two lives connected by a thin strand. Come on, Marta, grow up. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates team, which lost 112 games. After a terrible series against the New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can somebody think of something to help us win a game?" "I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said. "On any ball hit to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul." -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" | |
Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: you can win or you can lose or it can rain. -- Casey Stengel | |
"Oh, he [a big dog] hunts with papa," she said. "He says Don Carlos [the dog] is good for almost every kind of game. He went duck hunting one time and did real well at it. Then Papa bought some ducks, not wild ducks but, you know, farm ducks. And it got Don Carlos all mixed up. Since the ducks were always around the yard with nobody shooting at them he knew he wasn't supposed to kill them, but he had to do something. So one morning last spring, when the ground was still soft, he took all the ducks and buried them." "What do you mean, buried them?" "Oh, he didn't hurt them. He dug little holes all over the yard and picked up the ducks in his mouth and put them in the holes. Then he covered them up with mud except for their heads. He did thirteen ducks that way and was digging a hole for another one when Tony found him. We talked about it for a long time. Papa said Don Carlos was afraid the ducks might run away, and since he didn't know how to build a cage he put them in holes. He's a smart dog." -- R. Bradford, "Red Sky At Morning" | |
Once there was this conductor see, who had a bass problem. You see, during a portion of Beethovan's Ninth Symphony in which there are no bass violin parts, one of the bassists always passed a bottle of scotch around. So, to remind himself that the basses usually required an extra cue towards the end of the symphony, the conductor would fasten a piece of string around the page of the score before the bass cue. As the basses grew more and more inebriated, two of them fell asleep. The conductor grew quite nervous (he was very concerned about the pitch) because it was the bottom of the ninth; the score was tied and the basses were loaded with two out. | |
Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging over from, say, right field, to deal with it. She's been on the team for three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without ever considering whether there were men on base. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" | |
Pedro Guerrero was playing third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984 when he made the comment that earns him a place in my Hall of Fame. Second baseman Steve Sax was having trouble making his throws. Other players were diving, screaming, signaling for a fair catch. At the same time, Guerrero, at third, was making a few plays that weren't exactly soothing to manager Tom Lasorda's stomach. Lasorda decided it was time for one of his famous motivational meetings and zeroed in on Guerrero: "How can you play third base like that? You've gotta be thinking about something besides baseball. What is it?" "I'm only thinking about two things," Guerrero said. "First, `I hope they don't hit the ball to me.'" The players snickered, and even Lasorda had to fight off a laugh. "Second, `I hope they don't hit the ball to Sax.'" -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" | |
Reporter: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?" Yogi Berra: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back." | |
Rube Walker: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?" Yogi Berra: "You mean now?" | |
San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean *you*. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. -- George Halas, professional football coach | |
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." | |
Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. | |
Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to shoot some craps. The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable. When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his entire wad, shook the dice and rolled. A smile crossed his face as a seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others. No one said a word. Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket and handed the others to Dutsky. "Roll 'em," Lucci said. "Your point is thirteen." | |
The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned it to his master. "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim." | |
The fellow sat down at a bar, ordered a drink and asked the bartender if he wanted to hear a dumb-jock joke. "Hey, buddy," the bartender replied, "you see those two guys next to you? They used to be with the Chicago Bears. The two dudes behind you made the U.S. Olympic wrestling team. And for your information, I used to play center at Notre Dame." "Forget it," the customer said. "I don't want to explain it five times." | |
THE OLD POOL SHOOTER had won many a game in his life. But now it was time to hang up the cue. When he did, all the other cues came crashing go the floor. "Sorry," he said with a smile. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
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 | |
The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. -- Dizzy Dean | |
The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride." | |
The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil. -- Heywood Broun | |
The whole of life is futile unless you consider it as a sporting proposition. | |
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, call it the target. | |
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?" | |
We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson] comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well, he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin' the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call. "You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh." -- Satchel Paige | |
When I'm gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and the hats turned down'll be there, but no more housewives and little men in the street and foreign presidents. It's goin' to be back to the fighter who comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says he's in shape. Old hat. I was the onliest boxer in history people asked questions like a senator. -- Muhammad Ali | |
Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. -- Vince Lombardi | |
======================================================================= || || || The FORTUNE-COOKIE program is soon to be a Major Motion Picture! || || Watch for it at a theater near you next summer! || || || ======================================================================= Francis Ford Coppola presents a George Lucas Production: "Fortune Cookie" Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Harrison Ford Bette Midler Marlon Brando Christopher Reeves Marilyn Chambers and Bob Hope as "The Waiter". Costumes Designed by Pierre Cardin. Special Effects by Timothy Leary. Read the Warner paperback! Invoke the Unix program! Soundtrack on XTC Records. In 70mm and Dolby Stereo at selected theaters and terminal centers. | |
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. -- R. Emerson -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?" Ed.] | |
DELETE A FORTUNE! Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to `fortune' with the fortune you hate most, and we'll make sure it gets expunged. | |
Did you know about the -o option of the fortune program? It makes a selection from a set of offensive and/or obscene fortunes. Why not try it, and see how offended you are? The -a ("all") option will select a fortune at random from either the offensive or inoffensive set, and it is suggested that "fortune -a" is the command that you should have in your .profile or .cshrc. file. | |
I know you believe you understand what you think this fortune says, but I'm not sure you realize that what you are reading is not what it means. | |
If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. | |
If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. | |
This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need, please use the program "________randchar". This program generates random characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be more profound than THIS program has ever been. | |
This fortune would be seven words long if it were six words shorter. | |
THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your contribution of a pithy fortunes, clean or obscene? We cannot continue without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week. Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug .... | |
What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? | |
When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. | |
A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away. -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown | |
After a time, you may find that "having" is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as "wanting." It is not logical, but it is often true. -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 | |
Another war ... must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost in this way? ... Obedience. Duty. Death, and more death ... -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 | |
Beam me up, Scotty! It ate my phaser! | |
But it's real. And if it's real it can be affected ... we may not be able to break it, but, I'll bet you credits to Navy Beans we can put a dent in it. -- deSalle, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2 | |
"Can you imagine how life could be improved if we could do away with jealousy, greed, hate ..." "It can also be improved by eliminating love, tenderness, sentiment -- the other side of the coin" -- Dr. Roger Corby and Kirk, "What are Little Girls Made Of?", stardate 2712.4 | |
Compassion -- that's the one things no machine ever had. Maybe it's the one thing that keeps men ahead of them. -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3 | |
Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one man. And nothing can replace it or him. -- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 | |
Death. Destruction. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 | |
Do you know about being with somebody? Wanting to be? If I had the whole universe, I'd give it to you, Janice. When I see you, I feel like I'm hungry all over. Do you know how that feels? -- Charlie Evans, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8 | |
Do you know the one -- "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by ..." You could feel the wind at your back, about you ... the sounds of the sea beneath you. And even if you take away the wind and the water, it's still the same. The ship is yours ... you can feel her ... and the stars are still there. -- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 | |
"... freedom ... is a worship word..." "It is our worship word too." -- Cloud William and Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown | |
I realize that command does have its fascination, even under circumstances such as these, but I neither enjoy the idea of command nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists, and I will do whatever logically needs to be done. -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2812.7 | |
"I think they're going to take all this money that we spend now on war and death --" "And make them spend it on life." -- Edith Keeler and Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown. | |
I thought my people would grow tired of killing. But you were right, they see it is easier than trading. And it has its pleasures. I feel it myself. Like the hunt, but with richer rewards. -- Apella, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 | |
If I can have honesty, it's easier to overlook mistakes. -- Kirk, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9 | |
It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 | |
It is a human characteristic to love little animals, especially if they're attractive in some way. -- McCoy, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6 | |
It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six. -- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3 | |
It is necessary to have purpose. -- Alice #1, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 | |
It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not hers. -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7 | |
It would be illogical to assume that all conditions remain stable. -- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.3 | |
It would be illogical to kill without reason. -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 | |
It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. -- Yarnek of Excalbia, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 | |
"It's hard to believe that something which is neither seen nor felt can do so much harm." "That's true. But an idea can't be seen or felt. And that's what kept the Troglytes in the mines all these centuries. A mistaken idea." -- Vanna and Kirk, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5819.0 | |
Leave bigotry in your quarters; there's no room for it on the bridge. -- Kirk, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 | |
Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal. -- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7 | |
No one may kill a man. Not for any purpose. It cannot be condoned. -- Kirk, "Spock's Brain", stardate 5431.6 | |
"No one talks peace unless he's ready to back it up with war." "He talks of peace if it is the only way to live." -- Colonel Green and Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5. | |
Oh, that sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and it's still the same song. -- Eve McHuron, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1 | |
On my planet, to rest is to rest -- to cease using energy. To me, it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass, using energy, instead of saving it. -- Spock, "Shore Leave", stardate 3025.2 | |
One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it. -- Kirk, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.2 | |
Our missions are peaceful -- not for conquest. When we do battle, it is only because we have no choice. -- Kirk, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 | |
The face of war has never changed. Surely it is more logical to heal than to kill. -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 | |
The games have always strengthened us. Death becomes a familiar pattern. We don't fear it as you do. -- Proconsul Marcus Claudius, "Bread and Circuses", stardate 4041.2 | |
The sooner our happiness together begins, the longer it will last. -- Miramanee, "The Paradise Syndrome", stardate 4842.6 | |
There's nothing disgusting about it [the Companion]. It's just another life form, that's all. You get used to those things. -- McCoy, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8 | |
Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not stopped. -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown | |
War isn't a good life, but it's life. -- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 | |
[War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 | |
Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with. | |
We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. But when it comes to your job -- that's different. And it always will be different. -- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4 | |
When a child is taught ... its programmed with simple instructions -- and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of what it was taught, thinks independently. -- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3. | |
Yes, it is written. Good shall always destroy evil. -- Sirah the Yang, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown | |
You Earth people glorified organized violence for forty centuries. But you imprison those who employ it privately. -- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1 | |
You go slow, be gentle. It's no one-way street -- you know how you feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels too. Don't press. If the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know. -- Kirk, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8 | |
You speak of courage. Obviously you do not know the difference between courage and foolhardiness. Always it is the brave ones who die, the soldiers. -- Kor, the Klingon Commander, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 | |
"`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.' `But the plans were on display...' `On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.' `That's the display department.' `With a torch.' `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' `So had the stairs.' `But look you found the notice didn't you?' `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'" - Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning department. | |
"Pages one and two [of Zaphod's presidential speech] had been salvaged by a Damogran Frond Crested Eagle and had already become incorporated into an extraordinary new form of nest which the eagle had invented. It was constructed largely of papier mache and it was virtually impossible for a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of it. The Damogran Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of the species but wanted no truck with it." - An example of Damogran wildlife. | |
"`You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasently like being drunk.' `What's so unpleasent about being drunk?' `You ask a glass of water.'" - Arthur getting ready for his first jump into hyperspace. | |
"`You know,' said Arthur, `it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die from asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.' `Why, what did she tell you?' `I don't know, I didn't listen.'" - Arthur coping with certain death as best as he could. | |
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" - Arthur experiences the improbability drive at work. | |
"`If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.'" - Zaphod. | |
"`Hey this is terrific!' Zaphod said. `Someone down there is trying to kill us!' `Terrific,' said Arthur. `But don't you see what this means?' `Yes. We are going to die.' `Yes, but apart from that.' `APART from that?' `It means we must be on to something!' `How soon can we get off it?'" - Zaphod and Arthur in a certain death situation over Magrathea. | |
"And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?" - For the sperm whale, it wasn't. | |
"Oh no, not again." - A bowl of petunias on it's way to certain death. | |
"`You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' `Yeah,' said Zaphod, `but don't shout it out or they'll all want one.' `THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?' `No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn't you hear I come in six packs?' `But sir,' it squealed, `I just heard on the sub-ether radio report. It said you were dead...' `Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet.'" - Zaphod and the Guide's receptionist. | |
"Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar and bought most of it." - Zaphod in paradise. | |
"`Hand me the rap-rod, Plate Captain.' The little waiter's eyebrows wandered about his forehead in confusion. `I beg your pardon, sir?' he said. `The phone, waiter,' said Zaphod, grabbing it off him. `Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.'" - Zaphod discovers that waiters are the least hip people in the Universe. | |
"The main reception foyer was almost empty but Ford nevertheless weaved his way through it." - Ford making his way out of Milliways whilst under the influence of enough alchol to make a rhino sing. | |
"`Incidentally,' he said, `what does teleport mean?' Another moment passed. Slowly, the others turned to face him. `Probably the wrong moment to ask,' said Arthur, `It's just I remember you use the word a short while ago and I only bring it up because...' `Where,' said Ford quietly, `does it say teleport?' `Well, just over here in fact,' said Arthur, pointing at a dark control box in the rear of the cabin, `Just under the word "emergency", above the word "system" and beside the sign saying "out of order".'" - Arthur finding an escape route from a certain death situation. | |
"`We've got to find out what people want from fire, how they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.' The crowd were tense. They were expecting something wonderful from Ford. `Stick it up your nose,' he said. `Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,' insisted the girl, `Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?'" - Ford "debating" what to do with fire with a marketing girl. | |
"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. | |
BOOK There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexeplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. - Introduction to Fit the Seventh. | |
FORD Tell me Arthur... ARTHUR Yes? FORD This boulder we're stuck under, how big would you say it was? Roughly? ARTHUR Oh, about the size of Coventry Cathedral. FORD Do you think we could move it? (Arthur doesn't reply) Just asking. - Ford and Arthur in a tricky situation, Fit the Eighth. | |
BOOK What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer. - Comforting advice for Ford and Arthur in this current situation, Fit the Eighth. | |
ZAPHOD Hey, this rock... FORD Marble... ZAPHOD Marble... FORD Ice-covered marble... ZAPHOD Right... it's as slippery as... as... What's the slipperiest thing you can think of? FORD At the moment? This marble. ZAPHOD Right. This marble is as slippery as this marble. - Zaphod and Ford trying to get a grip on things in Brontitall, Fit the Tenth. | |
ARTHUR It's not a question of whose habitat it is, it's a question of how hard you hit it. - Arthur pointing out one of the disadvantages of gravity, Fit the Tenth. | |
ARTHUR It probably seems a terrible thing to say, but you know what I sometimes think would be useful in these situations? LINT. What? ARTHUR A gun of some sort. LINT.2 Will this help? ARTHUR What is it? LINT.2 A gun of some sort. ARTHUR Oh, that'll help. Can you make it fire? LINT. Er... F/X DEAFENING ROAR LINT. Yes. - Arthur and the Lintillas gaining the upper hand, Fit the Twelfth. | |
"`... then I decided that I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.' Arthur cleared his throat, and then did it again. `Where,' he said, `did you...?' `Find a gin and tonic?' said Ford brightly. `I found a small lake that thought it was a gin and tonic, and jumped in and out of that. At least, I think it thought it was a gin and tonic.' `I may,' he addded with a grin which would have sent sane men scampering into the trees, `have been imagining it.'" - Ford updating Arthur about what he's been doing for the past four years. | |
"Arthur's consciousness approached his body as from a great distance, and reluctantly. It had had some bad times in there. Slowly, nervously, it entered and settled down into its accustomed position. Arthur sat up. `Where am I?' he said. `Lord's Cricket Ground,' said Ford. `Fine,' said Arthur, and his consciousness stepped out again for a quick breather. His body flopped back on the grass." - Arthur coping with his return to Earth as best as he could. | |
"`A curse,' said Slartibartfast, `which will engulf the Galaxy in fire and destruction, and possibly bring the Universe to a premature doom. I mean it,' he added. `Sounds like a bad time,' said Ford, `with luck I'll be drunk enough not to notice.'" - Ford ensuring everyone knew where his priorities lay. | |
"Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy of THHGTTG. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness. `Go to it,' it said, `and good luck.' It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of the Universe and ways of coping with that." - One of the more preferable pieces of advice contained in the Guide. | |
"Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and his skeleton the other, whilst his brain tried to work out which of his ears it most wanted to crawl out of. `Bet you weren't expecting to see me again,' said the monster, which Arthur couldn't help thinking was a strange remark for it to make, seeing as he had never met the creature before. He could tell that he hadn't met the creature before from the simple fact that he was able to sleep at nights." - Arthur discovering who had diverted him from going to a party. | |
"`That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.'" - Marvin's first ever compliment about anybody. | |
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." - This line perhaps best sums up the whole book. | |
"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79. .... When it's fall in New York, the air smells as if someone's been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe the best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a building." - Nuff said?? | |
"`What's been happening here?' he demanded. `Oh just the nicest things, sir, just the nicest things. can I sit on your lap please?'" "`Colin, I am going to abandon you to your fate.' `I'm so happy.'" "`It will be very, very nasty for you, and that's just too bad. Got it?' `I gurgle with pleasure.'" - Ford and Colin the robot. | |
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." - One of the laws of computers and programming revealed. | |
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. "The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' | |
(aikamuotojen käyttö aikamatkustuksessa) "You can arrive (mayan arivan on-when) for any sitting you like without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you can book retrospectively, as it were when you return to your own time. (you can have on-book haventa forewhen presooning returningwenta retrohome.) " | |
"The suit into which the man's body had been stuffed looked as if it's only purpose in life was to demonstrate how difficult it was to get this sort of body into a suit. " | |
"What are you talking about? " "Never mind, eat the fruit. " "You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden. " "Eat the fruit. " "Sounds quite like it too. " | |
"Does it worry you that you don't talk any kind of sense? " | |
"He expanded his chest to make it totally clear that here was the sort of man you only dared to cross if you had a team of Sherpas with you. " | |
"It was real. At least, if it wasn't real, it did support them, and as that is what sofas are supposed to do, this, by any test that mattered, was a real sofa. " | |
"Yes, it's the right planet, all right, " he said again. "Right planet, wrong universe. " | |
"Ford had his own code of ethics. It wasn't much of one, but it was his and he stuck by it, more or less. One rule he made was never to buy his own drinks. He wasn't sure if that counted as an ethic, but you have to go with what you've got. " | |
"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. " | |
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" | |
"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" | |
As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. -- Woody Allen | |
Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others. They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix. Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time, which is all the time. -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head" | |
Decorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is. -- C. Schulz | |
Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly | |
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schulz | |
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -- Woody Allen | |
Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end? -- Tom Stoppard | |
For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. -- Steven Wright | |
From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults" | |
He asked me if I knew what time it was -- I said yes, but not right now. -- Steven Wright | |
High Priest: Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven: Bro. Maynard: And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it smash our enemies to tiny bits." And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and lima bean- High Priest: Skip a bit, brother. Bro. Maynard: And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take out the holy pin. Then shalt thou count to three. No more, no less. *Three* shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be three. *Four* shalt thou not count, and neither count thou two, excepting that thou then goest on to three. Five is RIGHT OUT. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it. Amen. All: Amen. -- Monty Python, "The Holy Hand Grenade" | |
"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." -- William Gilbert | |
I am getting into abstract painting. Real abstract -- no brush, no canvas, I just think about it. I just went to an art museum where all of the art was done by children. All the paintings were hung on refrigerators. -- Steven Wright | |
I bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. -- Steven Wright | |
"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..." -- Steven Wright | |
"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?' He said, 'Phoenix.' So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around with.' We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. Then the phone rang. He said 'You get it.' I picked it up and said 'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...' The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank... It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we would just like to know what happened to the money?' I said, 'Mr. Jones, I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never called me again." -- Steven Wright | |
I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go." -- Steven Wright | |
I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means it's going to be up all night. -- Steven Wright | |
I have a box of telephone rings under my bed. Whenever I get lonely, I open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call. One day I dropped the box all over the floor. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to get it disconnected. So I got a new phone. I didn't have much money, so I had to get an irregular. It doesn't have a five. I ran into a friend of mine on the street the other day. He said why don't you give me a call. I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone doesn't have a five. He asked how long had it been that way. I said I didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens. -- Steven Wright | |
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 | |
I have a map of the United States. It's actual size. I spent last summer folding it. People ask me where I live, and I say, "E6". -- Steven Wright | |
I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything. Every once in a while I turn it on and off. On and off. On and off. One day I got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!" -- Steven Wright | |
I have an existential map. It has "You are here" written all over it. -- Steven Wright | |
"I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly. "AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT." "Why?" "THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF." -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers -- they're going to make a game out of it. -- Woody Allen | |
I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face is up. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It's about Russia. -- Woody Allen | |
I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out. The weatherman said "I don't understand it. I was supposed to be 80 degrees today," and I said "Oops." In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above... so I never have to go upstairs. I just bought a microwave fireplace... You can spend an evening in front of it in only eight minutes. -- Steven Wright | |
I used to live in a house by the freeway. When I went anywhere, I had to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway. I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights. Now it looks like I'm the only one moving. I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going to be out that long." I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out. Now my car goes 500 miles an hour. -- Steven Wright | |
"I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to get off my driveway." -- Steven Wright | |
I'D LIKE TO BE BURIED INDIAN-STYLE, where they put you up on a high rack, above the ground. That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even feel it. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen | |
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx | |
If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few people die past the age of a hundred. -- George Burns | |
If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year. What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ... If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ... -- Dave Barry | |
If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe? -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" | |
In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All those who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the devil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up as a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you. -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" | |
Is it weird in here, or is it just me? -- Steven Wright | |
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" | |
It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. -- Woody Allen | |
It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy. -- Groucho Marx | |
It looked like something resembling white marble, which was probably what it was: something resembling white marble. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" | |
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it. -- Steven Wright | |
It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. -- Groucho Marx | |
It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen | |
Last night the power went out. Good thing my camera had a flash.... The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops. -- Steven Wright | |
Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving... every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip. I don't remember what it was. -- Steven Wright | |
Like you, I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's place in the Scheme of Things. Here are just a few: Q -- Is there life after death? A -- Definitely. I speak from personal experience here. On New Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian", then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful headache. Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead. I guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods. -- Dave Barry | |
My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". -- Steven Wright | |
My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31. We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at 6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by 6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That was the biggest game we had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose and Knights of Pithiests. The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole, which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying. We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. So we're going back in a few years... -- Julius H. Marx [Groucho] | |
One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. -- Larry Gelbart | |
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx | |
Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget. Unsuccessfully. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money and go to a mall. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. -- Benjamin Franklin. | |
"The pyramid is opening!" "Which one?" "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" | |
Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? -- Steven Wright | |
You can't have everything. Where would you put it? -- Steven Wright | |
"You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. -- Groucho Marx | |
"It is a relief and a joy when I see a regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line, and I realize, this city may survive--for now." -- Richard Stallman (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
"If a machine couldn't run a free operating system, we got rid of it." -- Richard Stallman (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) | |
"So I decided that if the architecture is fundamentally sane enough, say it follows some basic rules like it supported paging , then I would be able to say, yes, Linux fundamentally supports that model." -- Linus Torvalds on Portability (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
"I am not convinced that they can write solid stable software. Proprietary software is already hobbled by it's secretive cathedral nature, but Microsoft seems to have a corner on incompetent programming as well." -- Chris DiBona from the introduction. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
"While not obviously a business-friendly licensem there are certain aspects of the GNU license which are attractive, believe it or not, for commercial purposes." -- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
"So here's a picture of reality: (picture of circle with lots of sqiggles in it) As we all know, reality is a mess." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
"You know, how is The Force like duct tape? Answer: it has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Include me out. -Samuel Goldwyn | |
It isn't an optical illusion. It just looks like one. | |
It's more than magnificent-it's mediocre. -Samuel Goldwyn | |
No one goes to that restaurant anymore-it's always too crowded. (attributed to Yogi Berra) | |
Referring to a book: I read part of it all the way through. -Samuel Goldwyn | |
We're overpaying him, but he's worth it. -Samuel Goldwyn | |
The good oxymoron, to define it by a self-illustration, must be a planned inadvertency. -Wilson Follett | |
Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it. -Irene Peter | |
Of course I can keep secrets. It's the people I tell them to that can't keep them. -Anthony Haden-Guest | |
Most bacteria have the decency to be microscopic. Epulopiscium fishelsoni is not among them. The newly identified one-celled macro-microorganism is a full .5 mm long, large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Described in the current Nature, "It is a million times as massive as a typical bacterium."-Time, page 25, March 29, 1993 | |
"It's a step forward although there was no progress." President Hosni Murbarak of Egypt attempting to put the best face on a disappointing summit meeting between President Clinton and the Syrian dictator Hafez Assad. | |
"I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place. " - Winston Churchill | |
Assume a virtue, if you have it not. -William Shakespeare | |
If Microsoft Owned McDonald's Source: Unknown 1. Every order would come with fries whether you asked for them or not. 2. When they introduce McPizza, the marketing makes it seem that they invented pizza. 3. "A McDonald's on every block" -- Bill Gates. 4. You'd be constantly pressured to upgrade to a more expensive burger. 5. Sometimes you'll find that the burger box is empty. For some strange reason you'll accept this and purchase another one. 6. They'd claim the burgers are the same size as at other fast food chains, but in reality it's just a larger bun hiding the small beef patty. 7. Straws wouldn't be available until after you finish your drink. 8. "Push" technology -- they have McD employees come to your door and sell you Happy Meals. 9. Your order would never be right but the cash register would work perfectly for taking your money. 10. The "Special Sauce" cannot be reverse engineered, decompiled, or placed on more than 1 Big Mac. | |
Caller: I just installed Windows 95 on my computer. Tech Support: And...? Caller: It's not working. Tech Support: You already said that. | |
An OS/2 professional visits a seminar for Windows 95. During the practice lesson Bill Gates asks him: "What do you like about Windows95?" He answers, "That YOU have to use it." | |
"Windows for Dummies" is much more than a book title, it's a Microsoft way of life! | |
Windows and DOS -- a turtle and it's shell. | |
The word "Windows" is a word out of an old dialect of the Apaches. It means: "White man staring through glass-screen onto an hourglass..." | |
Windows 95 really does have pre-emptive multitasking: It can boot and crash at the same time. | |
If Windows sucked it would be good for something. | |
Windows: It's not pretty. It's not ugly. But it's pretty ugly. | |
Microsoft does have a Y2K problem... it's called Linux! | |
Windows is the best GUI - It always sticks! | |
Windows isn't CrippleWare -- it's "Functionally Challenged". | |
Windows 95 never has bugs. It just develops random features. | |
In 1968 it took the computing power of 2 C-64's to fly a rocket to the moon. Now, in 1998 it takes the Power of a Pentium 200 to run Microsoft Windows 95. Something must have gone wrong. | |
MS-DOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development | |
It's trivial to make fun of Microsoft products, but it takes a real man to make them work, and a god to make them do anything useful. | |
Blackmail Error: Send $200 to Bill Gates or your computer will get so messed up it will never work again. | |
Q: How do you make Windows run faster? A: Throw it harder! | |
Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people. | |
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 support staff does it take to change a light bulb? A: Four. One to ask "What is the registration number of the light bulb?", one to ask "Have you tried rebooting it?", another to ask "Have you tried reinstalling it?" and the last one to say "It must be your hardware because the light bulb in our office works fine..." | |
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 $2 for every light bulb ever changed anywhere in the world. | |
Q: How many Microsoft tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Twelve. One to work the bulb, and eleven to write a 1,123 page guide to changing lightbulbs ("Learn Lightbulb Management in 21 Days"). | |
Q: How many Micro$oft programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: 472. One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle. One to write WinQueryStatusLightBulb. One to write WinGetLightSwitch-Handle... | |
Q: How many Internet Explorer programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: None. Their light bulbs are integrated in to the fixtures and can not be changed. | |
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) | |
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If... 1. Every night you dream of torturing Linus Torvalds 2. Every morning you say, "I pledge allegiance to the logo of the United Corporation of Microsoft. And to the stock options for which it stands, one company, under Bill, with headaches and buggy software for all." 3. Your favorite pick-up line is, "Hey baby...do you want to see a little ActiveX?" 4. Everytime you see a website with "Best viewed with Netscape" on it you feel like filing a lawsuit against its webmaster 5. You feel that all Anti-Microsoft websites should be censored because they are on the Internet, something Bill "invented." 6. You've set a goal to invent at least one new buzzword or acronym per day 7. You've ever been nervous because you haven't registered your Microsoft software yet. 8. You've trained your parrot to say "Unix sucks!" and "All hail Bill Gates!" 9. You own a limited edition Monopoly game in which Boardwalk is Microsoft and Jail is replaced by Justice Department Investigation 10. You've spent countless hours tracking down the source of the "Microsoft Acquires Vatican Church" rumor | |
Two computer people discussing those old stories about Bill Gates' name adding up to 666 in ASCII: "I hear that if you play the NT 4.0 CD backwards, you get a satanic message" "...That's nothing. If you play it forward, it installs NT 4.0!" | |
All of you people should be ashamed of yourselves! MicroSoft is the reason there are so many people in my IS department, and the reason half of us have jobs. If Sun had won, we could probably get by with two people sleeping like the Maytag man. But because of MS, there are eight people gainfully employed as highly paid contracters, looking busy, feeding their kids. And the way it looks, I stand to be employed and wealthy for a long, long time. -- From Slashdot.org | |
The box said "Requires Windows 95 or better." I can't understand why it won't work on my Linux computer. | |
It is not too late to turn back from the GATES of hell. Use Linux - the free 32 bit operating system. | |
We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. -- Linus Torvalds | |
The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first. | |
Failure is not an option -- it comes bundled with Windows. | |
Everyone seems so impatient and angry these days. I think it's because so many people use Windows at work -- do you think you'd be Politeness Man after working on Windows 8 hrs. or more? -- Chip Atkinson | |
NT 5.0 so vaporous it's in danger of being added to the periodic table as a noble gas. -- From Slashdot.org | |
It's spelled Linux, but it's pronounced `Not Windows' It's spelled Windows, but it's pronounced `Aieeeeeeee!' -- Shannon Hendrix | |
Get it up, keep it up... LINUX: Viagra for the PC. -- Chris Abbey | |
It's no wonder they call it WinNT; WNT = VMS++; -- Chris Abbey | |
Peace, Love and Compile the kernel... -- Justin L. Herreman | |
Windows NT -- it'll drive you buggy! -- Gareth Barnard | |
US Navy uses NT. Saddam, Gadafi, it's party time! -- Havlik Denis | |
Q: How many Microsoft Programmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: It cannot be done. You will need to upgrade your house. Q: How many Linux users does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Two. One to write the HOWTO-LIGHTBULB-CRONJOB, and another to read it. -- Geoff Johnson | |
Windows: The first user interface where you click Start to turn it off. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Yo-yo operating system = WinNT: it goes up..., it goes down..., it goes... -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Linux - It is now safe to turn on your computer. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Microsoft does have a Y2K problem... it's called Linux! -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your source code is? -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Windows 2000 is more secure than Linux... Since the machine is offline half of the time because of crashes, it cannot be accessed globally, therefore producing higher security. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
It's all GNU to me. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Windows hasn't increased computer literacy. It's just lowered the standard. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
Statements recently seen on Slashdot: "The Internet interprets advertising as damage and routes around it." "Accept risk. Accept responsibility. Put a lawyer out of business." "A beowulf cluster of Cisco routers? Isn't that the Internet?" "Geeks aren't interested in politics because government doesn't double its efficiency and speed once every 18 months." "Windows 98 hasn't crashed for me once in over a year, either. Oh, wait, I haven't booted it in over a year." "For more than 4 generations the IT Professionals were the guardians of quality and stability in software. Before the dark times. Before Microsoft..." "You can tell how desperate they are by counting the number of times they say 'innovate' in their press releases." | |
If it's too good to be true, it's probably a rigged demo. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -- From a Slashdot.org post in response to screenshots posted of Microsoft's X-Box gaming console | |
Certain things are too horrible to auction on the Web. Consider that eBay recently halted auctions on: Human Remains Human Parts Humans Microsoft Products Pretty soon they're gonna ban sales on pentagrams and demon-summoning paraphenalia. Is there anywhere on the web where it's still safe to sell Evil Things? -- From a Slashdot.org post in response to eBay voiding auctions of legitimate second-hand Microsoft products | |
Hear me out. Linux is Microsoft's main competition right now. Because of this we are forcing them to "innovate", something they would usually avoid. Now if MS Bob has taught us anything, Microsoft is not a company that should be innovating. When they do, they don't come up with things like "better security" or "stability", they come back with "talking paperclips", and "throw in every usless feature we can think of, memory footprint be dammed". Unfortunatly, they also come up with the bright idea of executing email. Now MIME attachments aren't enough, they want you to be able to run/open attachments right when you get them. This sounds like a good idea to people who believe renaming directories to folders made computing possible for the common man, but security wise it's like vigorously shaking a package from the Unibomber. So my friends, we are to blame. We pushed them into frantically trying to invent "necessary" features to stay on top, and look where it got us. Many of us are watching our beloved mail servers go down under the strain and rebuilding our company's PC because of our pointless competition with MS. I implore you to please drop Linux before Microsoft innovates again. -- From a Slashdot.org post in regards to the ILOVEYOU email virus | |
Get it up, keep it up... LINUX: Viagra for the PC. -- Chris Abbey | |
I used to be interested in Windows NT, but the more I see of it the more it looks like traditional Windows with a stabler kernel. I don't find anything technically interesting there. In my opinion MS is a lot better at making money than it is at making good operating systems. -- Linus Torvalds | |
I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running Linux... And oh! It was as though the heavens opened and God handed down a client-side OS so beautiful, so graceful, and so elegant that a million Microsoft developers couldn't have invented it even if they had a hundred years and a thousand crates of Jolt cola. -- Polly Sprenger, LAN Times | |
It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your source code is? | |
Missouri Town Changes Name to 'Linux' LINUX, MO -- The small Missouri town of Linn, county seat of Osage County, announced yesterday that it will be henceforth called 'Linux'. Mayor Bob Farrow said, "Linn needed something to put it on the map. A few weeks ago my daughter mentioned that she installed Linux on her computer and how great she thought it was. I thought to myself, 'Self, changing the town's name to 'Linux' could be an opportunity to attract attention -- and money -- to our town. We could even hold a Linux Convention at the community center.' So I approached the city council about the idea, and they loved it. The rest is history." Farrow's daughter is organizing the Linux Linux User Group. She hopes to be able to hold a Linux Convention this fall. "The Linn, er, Linux community center probably won't be big enough, we'll probably have to hold it in nearby Jefferson City," she said. The mayor does have one reservation. "How the hell do you pronounce Linux?" One of the mayor's contenders in the next election, Mr. Noah Morals, says he will start an ad campaign calling Bob Farrow "the Incumbent Liar of LIE-nucks". Needless to say, the mayor usually pronounces Linux as "LIH-nucks". | |
Linux Rally Held in Pennsylvania HARRISBURG, PA -- Thousands of Linux advocates gathered at the Pennsylvania state capitol building earlier today. They were protesting the state's recent three year deal with Microsoft to install Windows NT on all state computer systems. "Whatever pointy haired boss made this deal ought to be shot on sight," one protestor exclaimed. "Windows NT is a piece of [expletive] compared to Linux. The taxpayers of Pennsylvania are going to be sorry three years from now when this 'deal' concludes. The state has sold its soul to Satan [Bill Gates]." Brief hostilities broke out when a group of police officers armed with riot gear descended on the protestors. After the police threatened to use tear gas, the protestors threw thousands of Linux CDs at them. Once the supply of CDs was depleted, the protest became peaceful again. "I saw several policemen pick up Linux CDs and put them in their pockets," one protestor noted. The protest broke up a few minutes later once it was realized that the state legislature wasn't in session. "We may have wasted our time today," one advocate said, "But we'll be back later." State and Microsoft officials were unavailable for comment at press time. How typical. | |
"CmdrBurrito" Launches Slashdot.org Parody An anonymous hacker with the handle "CmdrBurrito" has launched a parody of the Slashdot "News for Nerds" site entitled Dotslash. Dotslash has the motto "Snooze for Slackers. Stuff that Scatters." It has fake news articles and ficticious reader comments. Some of the recent articles include "Bill Gates Wins Powerball Jackpot," "Linux 2.1.666 Released," and "Supercomputer Created from 8088 and Z80 Computers." Rumor has it that "CmdrBurrito" plans to create parodies of other sites, including Linux Weekly News ("Linsux Weakly Snooze"), Freshmeat ("Deadmeat"), and Linux.org ("Linsux.org"). When asked about Dotslash, Slashdot webmaster Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda said, "No problem. I simply posted an article about it on Slashdot, and watched it die from the 'Slashdot Effect.' Six hours later, and it's still offline. I suspect Dotslash is running Windows NT. The mystery 'CmdrBurrito' character is probably a bored Microsoft employee." | |
'Kitchen Sink' OS Announced Coding has begun on a new operating system code named 'Kitchen Sink'. The new OS will be based entirely on GNU Emacs. One programmer explained, "Since many hackers spend a vast amount of their time in Emacs, why not just make it the operating system?" When asked about the name, he responded, "Well, it has been often said that Emacs has everything except a kitchen sink. Now it will." One vi advocate said, "What the hell?!?! Those Emacs people are nuts. It seems that even with a programming language, a web browser, and God only knows what else built into their text editor, they're still not satisfied. Now they want it to be an operating system. Hell, even Windows ain't that bloated!" | |
Mad Programmer Commits Suicide KENNETT, MO -- For two years Doug Carter toiled away in his basement computer lab working on his own 'Dougnix' operating system. Apparently he was sick of Windows 95 so he decided to create his own OS, based loosely on Unix. He had developed his own 'DougUI' window manager, Doug++ compiler, DougFS filesystem, and other integrated tools. All was going well until last week when he hooked his computer up to the Internet for the first time. It was then that he stumbled on to www.linux.org. Reports are sketchy about what happened next. We do know he committed suicide days after, leaving behind a rambling suicide note. Part of the note says: "I've wasted the past two years of my life... Wasted... Gone... Forever... Never return to. [illegible] Why did I bother creating my own OS... when Linux is exactly what I needed!?!?!?! If I had only known about Linux! Why someone didn't tell me? [illegible] Wasted! Aggghhh!" [The rest of the note is filled with incomprehensible assembly language ramblings.] | |
Open Source Beer Revolution Yesterday, Red Hat introduced an 'open source' beer called Red Brew. The recipes for making the beer are available for free over the Net, and microbrewery kits are available at low cost from Red Hat. Says a Red Hat spokesman, "With the proliferation of free (open source) software, it was only a matter of time before open source beer became reality. After all, the only thing hackers like more than free software is free beer!" Following the Red Hat annoucement, other companies are racing to launch their own beer 'distribution'. Caldera is developing an OpenBrew beer. Meanwhile, Patrick Volkerding is working on a SlackBeer distribution, and DebianBrew is expected soon. Traditional breweries and beer distributors are not thrilled about open source beer. "This is ludicrous! People want beer that comes from time-tested, secret recipes -- not beer from recipes invented overnight! Open source is a fad," a spokesman for Buddwizzer Beer, Inc. said. In addition, other beverage distributors are nervous. "First open source beer, and soon open source soft drinks! Before we know it, we'll have RedCoke and SlackPepsi! This open source plague must be stopped before it eats into our bottom line! Don't quote me on that last sentence," the CEO of Croak-a-Cola said. | |
Linux Infiltrates Windows NT Demo SILICON VALLEY, CA -- Attendees at the Microsoft ActiveDemo Conference held this week in San Jose were greeted by a pleasant surprise yesterday: Linux. Somehow a group of Linux enthusiasts were able to replace a Windows NT box with a Linux box right before the "ActiveDemo" of Windows NT 5 beta. "I have no clue how they were able to pull off this prank," a Microserf spokesman said. "Rest assured, Microsoft will do everything to investigate and prosecute the Linux nuts who did this. Our bottom line must be protected." Bill Gates said, "I was showing off the new features in Windows NT 5 when I noticed something odd about the demo computer. It didn't crash. Plus, the font used on the screen wasn't MS San Serif -- trust me, I know. My suspicions were confirmed when, instead of the "Flying Windows" screensaver, a "Don't Fear the Penguins" screensaver appeared. The audience laughed and applauded for five straight minutes. It was so embarrasing -- even more so than the pie incident. One attendee said, "Wow! This Linux is cool -- it didn't crash once during the entire demo! I'd like to see NT do that." Another asked, "You guys got any Linux CDs? I want one. Forget about vaporware NT." Yet another remarked, "I didn't know it was possible to hack Linux to make it look like NT. I can install Linux on my company's computers without my boss knowing!" | |
Tux Penguin Beanie Baby Sales Skyrocket Two weeks ago Ty released a 'Tux the Penguin' Beanie Baby. Sales of the stuffed toy have exceeded expectations. All 100,000 of them have been sold, and it will be another week before more can be produced and distributed. Tux is now the one of the most valuable Beanie Babies, with some stores selling remaining ones for over $500. Tux's strong sales constrast sharply with Ty's other computer-related Beanie Baby, 'Billy the Billionaire'. "Billy's sales are dismal. Except for the 2,000 that Bill Gates bought for himself and his daughter Jennifer, Billy has been a failure. People just aren't responsive to toys that represent greedy, capitalistic billionaires with bad haircuts," a member of the Church of Beanie Baby Collecting said. Ty is considering releasing other Beanie Babies similar to Tux. Some possibities include 'Steve the Apple Worm' and 'Wilbur the Gimp'. "Computer-related Beanie Babies are selling extremely well," a Ty spokesman said. "I don't understand why people are obsessed with these stupid stuffed toys. But as long as they're making me lots of money, I don't care! Oops... Please don't quote me on that." | |
ARE YOU ADDICTED TO SLASHDOT? Take this short test to find out if you are a Dothead. 1. Do you submit articles to Slashdot and then reload the main page every 3.2 seconds to see if your article has been published yet? 2. Have you made more than one "first comment!" post within the past week? 3. Have you ever participated in a Gnome vs. KDE or a Linux vs. FreeBSD flamewar on Slashdot? 4. Do you write jokes about Slashdot? 5. Do you wake up at night, go to the bathroom, and fire up your web browser to get your Slashdot fix on the way back? 6. Do you dump your date at the curb so you can hurry home to visit Slashdot? 7. Do you think of Slashdot when you order a taco at a restaurant? 8. Are you a charter member of the Rob Malda Fan Club? 9. Did you lease a T3 line so you could download Slashdot faster? 10. Is Slashdot your only brower's bookmark? 11. Do you get a buzz when your browser finally connects to Slashdot? 12. Do you panic when your browser says "Unable to connect to slashdot.org"? 13. Have you even made a New Year's Resolution to cut back on Slashdot access... only to visit it at 12:01? | |
Microsoft Acquires Nothing REDMOND, WA -- In an unprecedented move, Microsoft refrained from acquiring any rival companies for a full week. "I can't believe it," one industry analyst noted. "This is the first time in years that I haven't read any headlines about Microsoft acquiring something." The lack of Microsoft assimilation this week left a vacuum in computer industry publications. "Microsoft acquisition stories make up 10% of our headlines," an editor at Ziff-Slavis said. "We had to scramble to fill this void. We ran some controversial Jessie Burst columns instead, hoping that we could recoup ad revenue from people reading all the flames in the Talk Back forums. Jessie Burst forums account for 15% of our total ad revenue." | |
Stallman's Latest Proclamation Richard M. Stallman doesn't want you to say "Windows" anymore. He is now advocating that people call this OS by its real name: Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows. This proclamation comes on the heels of his controversial stand that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. RMS explained in a Usenet posting, "Calling Microsoft's OS 'Windows' is a grave inaccuracy. Xerox and Apple both contributed significant ideas and innovations to this OS. Why should Microsoft get all the credit?" RMS also hinted that people shouldn't refer to Microsoft's web browser as IE. "It should really be called Microsoft-Spyglass-Mosaic-Internet-Explorer. Again, how much credit does Microsoft really deserve for this product? Much of the base code was licensed from Spyglass." Many industry pundits are less than thrilled about RMS' proclamation. The editor of Windows Magazine exclaimed, "What?!?! Yeah, we'll rename our magazine Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows Magazine. That just rolls off the tongue!" A Ziff-Davis columnist noted, "Think of all the wasted space this would cause. If we spelled out everything like this, we'd have headlines like, 'Microsoft Releases Service Pack 5 for Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows Neutered Technology 4.0' Clearly this is unacceptable." | |
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." | |
Increased Electricity Consumption Blamed on Linux WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US Department of Energy claims Linux is partially responsible for the increased demand for electricity during the past year. Electricity use was up 2.5% from January to September of 1998 compared with the same period in 1997. "While some of the increase can be attributed to higher temperatures over the summer," one Department bureaucrat explained, "Linux is certainly a contributor to the increased demand for power." When asked for clarification, the bureaucrat responded, "In the past, most PCs have been turned off when not in use. Linux users, on the other hand, usually don't turn off their computers. They leave them on, hoping to increase their uptime to impress their friends. And since Linux rarely crashes the entire system, those computers stay on for weeks, months, even years at a time. With Linux use continuing to grow, we expect demand for electricity to increase steadily over the next several years." In response to the news, several utility companies have announced plans to give away free Linux CDs to paying customers who request them. One anonymous executive said, "The more people who use Linux, the more power they consume. The more electricity they use, the more money we make. It's a win-win combination." Yesterday Linus Torvalds was nominated as a candidate for the Assocation of American Utility Companies Person of the Year. | |
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." | |
The Movement Formerly Known As Open Source The battle over the Open Source trademark is heating up. Software in the Public Interest and the Open Source Initiative both hold competing claims to the trademark. In order to put an end to the infighting, a group of free software advocates have founded the Association for the Movement Formerly Known as Open Source (AMFKOS) One AMFKOS founder said, "I find it ironic that a trademark representing free software is itself proprietary. This situation must change. We propose that the free software movement adopt another name besides 'Open Source'. Hopefully then we can all Get-Back-To-Coding(tm) instead of fighting over Bruce Perens' and Eric Raymond's egos." Rumor has it that Richard Stallman plans to mount a campaign to promote the phrase "GNU/Free Software" in place of "Open Source". In addition, the terms "Ajar Source", "Unlocked Source", "Nude Source", "Unclosed Source", and "Just-Type-make Software" have all been proposed by various Usenet or Slashdot posters. | |
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #1 Linux-of-the-Month Club Price: US$60 for a one year membership Producer: CheapNybbles; 1-800-LINUX-CD It's the gift that keeps on giving. Every month a CD-ROM with a different Linux distribution or BSD Unix flavor will be sent in the mail. This is the perfect gift for those that have been using Slackware since day one and haven't gotten around to trying another distribution. Or, for those friends or relatives that still cling to Windows, a Linux-of-the-Month club membership is the perfect way to say, "Your OS sucks". | |
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #3 iTux Penguin Computer Price: $999.95 for base model Producer: Orange Computer, Co.; 1-800-GET-ITUX Based on the Slashdot comments, response to the Apple iMac from the Linux community was lukewarm at best. Orange Computer, Co., has picked up where Apple left behind and produced the iTux computer specifically for Linux users who want to "Think a lot different". The self-contained iTux computer system is built in the shape of Tux the Penguin. Its 15 inch monitor (17 inch available next year) is located at Tux's large belly. The penguin's two feet make up the split ergonomic keyboard (without those annoying Windows keys, of course). A 36X CD-ROM drive fits into Tux's mouth. Tux's left eye is actually the reboot button (can be reconfigured for other purposes since it is rarely used) and his right eye is the power button. The iTux case opens up from the back, allowing easy access for screwdriver-wielding nerds into Tux's guts. The US$995.95 model contains an Alpha CPU and all the usual stuff found in a Linux-class machine. More expensive models, to be debuted next year, will feature dual or quad Alpha CPUs and a larger size. | |
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #4 Microsoft Destruction Kit Price: US$29.95 (more with optional digital camera or shotgun) Producer: The Fuzzier Image; 1-800-BILL-SUX Mix an Internet Explorer CD-ROM, a rocket launcher, and a flamethrower. What do you have? A whole lot of fun! The Microsoft Destruction Kit is the best way to destroy those Microsoft CD-ROMs you no longer need now that you've discovered Linux. You can launch the CD (and registration forms, manuals, retail boxes, license agreements, etc.) and pepper it with bullets, all while capturing the event with a digital camera. Or, you can use the included miniature flamethrower to burn the evil CD to a crisp. The kit comes with a set of IE 4.0 CDs to get you started. Tell Microsoft "where *you* want it to go today" in style with the Microsoft Destruction Kit. | |
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #5 AbsoluteZero(tm) Cryogenic Refrigerator $29,999.95 for economy model at Cryo-Me-A-River, Inc. The pundits have been hyping new technology allowing your home appliances to have Internet access. Most people aren't too keen with the thought of their refrigerator sharing an IP address with their can opener. But with the new AbsoluteZero(tm) Refrigerator, that might change. This is not a fridge for your food -- it's a fridge for your overclocked, overheating CPU. You stick your computer inside, bolt the door shut, turn the temperature down to 5 degrees Kelvin, and you've got the perfect environment for accelerating your CPU to 1 Terahertz or more. This cryogenic cooling system may not actually reach absolute zero, but it comes mighty close. Unfortunately, the AbsoluteZero(tm) is the size of a small house, consumes a constant stream of liquid nitrogen, and requires it's own nuclear reactor (not included). But that's a small price to pay for the ability to play Quake 3 at 100,000 frames per second. | |
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #6 Hearing Un-aid US$129.95 at The Fuzzier Projection Co. It's a scene we can all identify with: you're at a boring company meeting, trying to read the latest Slashdot headlines on your PalmPilot, but you can't concentrate because the PHB is rambling in a loud, booming voice about e-infomediary-substrategic-paradigms and meta-content-aggregation-relationship-corridors. With the Hearing Un-aid(tm), you can put a stop to incessant buzzword-speak by your boss. Unlike a hearing aid, which amplifies sound, the Hearing Un-aid dampens noise, so you can easily tune out the board meeting and instead focus on something far more important, such as downloading Humorix stories. If you happen to miss something important (yeah, right) and your boss accuses you of not paying attention, you can simply point to your hearing "aid" and respond, "What was that? I couldn't hear you because of my temporary hearing loss." | |
Microsoft Open Source Solitaire REDMOND, WA -- In a first attempt at "embrace-and-extend" of open source software, Microsoft will release its popular Solitaire and FreeCell games as open source under the MILA (Microsoft Innovative License Agreement). According to a Microsoft press release, the Visual C++ source code for the two games will be available from the Microsoft website "in the first quarter" (no year was specified). Industry pundits hail the move as revolutionary. "Microsoft's release of its most popular Windows feature as open source software demonstrates just how innovative the company really is. The DoJ is clearly barking up the wrong tree," wrote one Ziff-Davis flunkie. One executive at a large company said, "Freely available source code is the best idea Microsoft has ever invented." One Linux developer told Humorix, "Let's just hope some fool doesn't try to port this thing to Linux. Imagine the havoc that could ensue if a bunch of core Linux contributors downloaded Solitaire and became addicted to it. It would be a disaster! Linux and open source development would grind to a halt while the hackers wasted their time playing Solitaire or FreeCell. 'Just one more game...' they would say." | |
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Microsoft ActivePromo Campaign: "Match Vaporware & Win!" Microsoft's PR masterminds are planning a massive marketing campaign, code-named "ActivePromo 2000", to promote the upcoming release of Windows 2000 (scheduled for February 2001). This marketing campaign will include a "Match Vaporware & Win!" promotion. Microsoft will team up with a major fast-food chain (McDonalds, probably, since it has the largest market share, but Burger King is another possibility) for a special Windows 2000 promotion. With every combo meal purchase, the customer will receive a game token containing a date on it. If the official release of Windows 2000 is on that date, the customer can redeem the token for a variety of prizes -- ranging from a "lifetime supply" of Windows upgrades, to 25,000 shares of Microsoft stock. | |
Is Windows Antique? SILICON VALLEY -- The first ever antique mall devoted to computers has opened its doors deep in the heart of Silicon Valley. Named "Stacks of Antiqueues", the new mall features obsolete hardware, old software, and other curiosities that only a nerd would want to buy. The mall also features a whole collection of Microsoft software, which, as can be expected, has the Redmond giant up in arms. The mall, founded by a group of Linux, FreeBSD, and BeOS users, has a whole section devoted to Microsoft "antiques". Offerings range from a rare (and expensive) copy of Windows 1.0 all the way up to Windows 98. All versions of DOS from 1.0 up are available, in addition to such Microsoft products as Bob, Profit, and Multiplan. Bob Hinesdorf, one of the mall's founders, defends the decision to include Microsoft products in its selection of antique computer stuff. "Windows 98 is surely antique; it's based on 16 bit Windows 3.x code, which was based on 16 bit DOS code, which was based loosely on 8 bit CP/M." | |
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. | |
Attack of the Tuxissa Virus What started out as a prank posting to comp.os.linux.advocacy yesterday has turned into one of the most significant viruses in computing history. The creator of the virus, who goes by the moniker "Anonymous Longhair", modified the Melissa virus to install Linux on infected machines. "It's a work of art," one Linux advocate told Humorix after he looked through the Tuxissa virus source code. "This virus goes well beyond the feeble troublemaking of Melissa. It actually configures a UMSDOS partition on the user's hard drive and then downloads and installs a stripped-down version of Slackware Linux." The email message that the virus is attached to has the subject "Important Message About Windows Security". The text of the body says, "I want to let you know about some security problems I've uncovered in Windows 95/98/NT, Office 95/97, and Outlook. It's critically important that you protect your system against these attacks. Visit these sites for more information..." The rest of the message contains 42 links to sites about Linux and free software. Details on how the virus started are a bit sketchy. The "Anonymous Longhair" who created it only posted it to Usenet as an early April Fool's gag, demonstrating how easy it would be to mount a "Linux revolution". | |
Invasion of the Dancing Penguin Those annoying, dancing cartoon characters embedded in software applications are no longer confined to Microsoft programs. They have entered the realm of Linux. A new Linux distribution under development, called LinTux, promises to provide a more "user-friendly" environment through its "Dancing Penguin" assistant. Dancing Tux will "guide" users through the installation process and will be a permanent fixture of the X root window. The LinTux staff demonstrated a prototype version of the Dancing Tux program to this Humorix reporter. It was certainly impressive, but, like the Dancing Paper Clip in Microsoft Office, it becomes annoying very fast. The one redeeming feature of LinTux is that, when the system is idle, Dancing Tux becomes a make-shift screen saver. The animations included in the prototype were quite amusing. For instance, in one scene, Tux chases Bill Gates through an Antarctic backdrop. In another animation, Tux can be seen drinking beers with his penguin pals and telling Microsoft jokes. | |
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. | |
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... | |
Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball... July 2000: Government Issues Update on Y2K Crisis to American Public In a statement to all U.S. citizens, the President assured that the repairs to the nation's infrastructure, damaged severely when the Y2K crisis hit on January 1, is proceeding on track with the Government's guidelines. The message was mailed to every citizen by mail carriers via horseback. The statement itself was written on parchment with hand-made ink written from fountain pens. "Our technological progress since the Y2K disaster has been staggering," said the statement. "We have been able to fix our non-Y2K compliant horse carriages so that commerce can once again continue. We believe that we will be able to reinvent steam-powered engines within the next decade. Internal combustion engines should become operational once again sometime before the dawn of the next century." No one knows when the technological luxuries we once enjoyed as little as 6 months ago will return. Things such as e-mail, the Internet, and all computers were lost when the crisis showed itself for what it really was: a disaster waiting to happen. Scholars predict the mainframe computer will be invented again during the 24th century... | |
Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball... January 2099: Rob Malda Finally Gets His Damned Nano-Technology The Linux hacker community finally breathed a collective sigh of relief when it was announced that Rob Malda finally got his damned nanotechnology. "It's about time!" exclaimed one Dothead. "He been going on about that crap since god-knows-when. Now that he's got that and those wearable computers, maybe we can read about something interesting on Slashdot!" Observers were skeptical, however. Already the now-immortal Rob Malda nano-cyborg (who reportedly changed his name to "18 of 49, tertiary adjunct of something-or-other") has picked up a few new causes to shout about to the high heavens until everyone's ears start bleeding. In one Slashdot article, Malda writes "Here's an article about the potential of large greyish high-tech mile-wide cubes flying through space, all controlled by a collective mind set upon intergalactic conquest. Personally, I can't wait. Yum." | |
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. | |
The GPL Is Not Y2K-Compliant! BOSTON, MA -- Panic ensued earlier today at GNU Project Headquarters when it was discovered that the GNU General Public License is not ready for the year 2000. Thankfully, the panic quickly subsided when RMS posted an emergency diff file to Usenet that patches the GPL to eliminate the problem. The non-Y2K compliant material appears on lines 295 and 316 of version 2.0 of the GPL. Both lines contain the text, "Copyright (C) 19yy ", a classic example of unpreparedness for the year 2000. Microsoft was quick to respond to the news, saying in a rushed press release, "At least our license agreements don't contain any Y2K issues." The GNU Project immediately countered Microsoft's statement with a press release that said simply, "Whatever". | |
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#1) 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 1: What is your opinion of the Microsoft antitrust trial? A. The DoJ is wasting taxpayer's money. Now, if the DOJ were to upgrade all of its computer systems to Windows, then the department would be making wise use of tax dollars. B. All of the Microsoft email messages that the evil government has presented as evidence are obviously taken out of context or have been completely twisted around. I mean... Bill Gates would never say "let's cut off their air supply" in a memo; it's an obvious fabrication. C. Judge Jackson is obviously biased in favor of the DOJ's vigilante persecution of Microsoft. D. If Microsoft loses, it will be the gravest miscarriage of justice in all the history of mankind. | |
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#4) 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 4: What is your favorite Microsoft Office feature? A. Dancing Paper Clip B. Takes up enough hard drive space to prevent my children from installing violent video games or downloading pornography C. Everyone else has it, so I can easily exchange documents with others D. I have so many favorites, I can't choose just one! | |
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#7) 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 7: What new features would you like to see in Windows 2000? A. A marquee on the taskbar that automatically scrolls the latest headlines from MSNBC and Microsoft Press Pass B. Content filtration software for Internet Explorer that will prevent my children from accessing dangerous propaganda about Linux. C. A new card game; I've spent over 10,000 hours playing Solitaire during my free time at work and I'm starting to get bored with it D. A screensaver depicting cream pies being thrown at Janet Reno, Joel Klien, David Boies, Ralpha Nader, Orrin Hatch, Linus Torvalds, Richard M. Stallman, and other conspirators out to destroy Microsoft E. A Reinstall Wizard that helps me reinstall a fresh copy of Windows to fix Registry corruptions and other known issues | |
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#8) 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 8: If you could meet Bill Gates for one minute, what would you say to him? A. "Can you give me a loan for a million or so?" B. "I just love all the new features in Windows 98!" C. "Could you autograph this box of Windows 98 for me?" D. "I really enjoyed reading 'Business @ the Speed of Thought'. It's so cool!" E. "Give the government hell, Bill!" | |
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". | |
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#15) 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 15: In your opinion, what companies should Microsoft seek to acquire in the coming year? A. Disney. I'd like to see a cute animated movie starring Clippit the Office Assistant. B. CBS. I'd like to see a new line-up featuring must-watch shows like "Touched by a Microserf", "Redmond Hope", "Everybody Loves Bill", "The Late Show With Steve Ballmer", and "60 Minutes... of Microsoft Infomercials", C. Google. Microsoft could drastically improve the quality and performance of this search engine by migrating it from Linux to Windows NT servers. D. Lowes Hardware Stores. Every copy of Windows 2000 could come bundled with a coupon for a free kitchen sink or a free window! | |
Slashdot Effect Vaporizes Ganymede -- Submitted by Dave Finton In one of the more bizarre consequences of the infamous "Slashdot Effect", Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system, was completely and utterly destroyed when CmdrTaco posted an article about the Hubble Space Telescope's latest round of images and discoveries. "It all started when we put up some more info on our web page about Jupiter and Ganymede," said one NASA guy whom we believe may be in charge of something. "CmdrTaco got wind of it, and posted it on his site." According to observers, the webserver promptly exploded thereafter, damaging the nearby remote control system used to aim and focus the Hubble's cameras from the ground. "All of the sudden our controls went wacky!" said one engineer. "The Hubble then started shooting these death rays all over the universe. One of those rays hit Ganymede, and *POOF*. There it went! We were all like, 'COOOOOL! Let's aim it something else!'" | |
Jargon Coiner (#5) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * DUKE OF URL: A person who publishes their Netscape bookmark file on their homepage. * WWWLIZE (pronounced wuh-wuh-wuh-lize): Habit of unconsciously appending www. in front of URLs, even when it's not necessary. * DUBYA-DUBYA-DUBYA: Common pronounciation of "double-u double-u double-u" when orally specifying a wwwlized address. * ADVOIDANCE: iding a particularly annoying advertising banner by dragging another window over it, or by placing your hand on the monitor to cover it up. Example: "Bob advoided any Microsoft banners he came across." | |
Jargon Coiner (#6) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * STOP MIRAGE: Trying to click on an imaginary Stop button on a program's toolbar after doing something you didn't want to. Usually caused as the result of excessive use of Netscape. * YA-PREFIX: Putting "another" or "yet another" in front of a name or tacking "YA" in front of an acronym. Example: "We could ya-prefix this fortune by titling it 'Yet Another Lame List of Fabricated Jargon'." * DOMAINEERING: Using a service like Netcraft to determine what operating system and webserver a particular domain is running. * NOT-A-SALTINE EXPLANATION: The canned response given to someone who uses the term "hacker" instead of "cracker". | |
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)" | |
Jargon Coiner (#9) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * RHYMES WITH CYNICS: The final answer to any debate about how to pronounce Linux. Of course, "cynics" might not be the best word to associate Linux with... * WISL? (Will It Support Linux?): The very first thought that springs into a Linux user's mind when a cool new piece of software or hardware is announced. * JJMD! (Jar Jar Must Die!): Meaningless reply given to a question or poll for which you don't have a good answer. Example: Question: "When did you stop beating your wife?" Answer: "JJMD!" | |
Please please please don't use Word, It really makes you look absurd! The Dancing Paper Clip is crappy, Use something else and be more happy! -- Protests shouted at a PR firm that issued a Linux press release obviously created with Microsoft Word. | |
Treaty of Helsinki Signed HELSINKI, FINLAND -- A cease-fire in the flame war between Linux and FreeBSD has been reached. A group of two dozen Linux and FreeBSD zealots met in Helsinki to ratify a treaty bringing a temporary end to the hostile fighting between both camps. "Today is a good day for peace," one observer noted. "Now both sides can lay down their keyboards and quit flaming the opposing side on Usenet and Slashdot." The cease-fire is a response to the sudden increase in fighting that has occured over the past two weeks. The Slashdot server became a victim of the cross-fire this week when thousands of Anonymous Cowards and Geek Zealots posted inflammatory comments that amounted to, "My OS is better than your OS!" Many nerds, suffering withdrawl symptoms when the Slashdot site slowed to a crawl, demanded that the bickering stop. "I can't take it anymore! It takes two minutes to download the Slashdot homepage -- assuming the site is actually online. I must have my 'News for Nerds' now! The fighting must stop," one Anonymous Coward ranted. | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
Do-It-Yourself IPO You too can get rich quick by translating an existing Linux distribution into one of the following untapped markets: - Babylonian - Hittite - Ancient Egyptian (hieroglyphics may be a challenge, though) - Pig Latin (this may be the strongest type of encryption allowed by the DOJ in the near future) - Mayan - Cherokee - Cyrillic (to take advantage of the booming Russian economy) - Redneck - Klingon (it's a wonder this hasn't been done yet) - Wingdings Once you start marketing your new product, a highly lucrative self-underwritten IPO is just months away! | |
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." | |
This is excellent news! I haven't thought about remedies yet... well, you know, I can think of one thing the court should do: require that Microsoft remove the Dancing Paper Clip and associated crap from Office... Oh, and while they're at it, get rid of those multi-megabyte easter eggs. Why does Excel need a flight simulator? So I can see the Blue Screen of Death in 3D? Oh, and another thing, the court needs to put a hex on ActiveX... -- Anonymous Coward's response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft | |
Don't you see? This whole trial is a conspiracy concocted by Bill Gates. He knows that he stands to make even more billions if Microsoft is broken up into Baby Bills... just like Rockefeller did with Standard Oil, and stockholders did with Ma Bell. Bill Gates actually wants the DOJ to win. That's why he's been so arrogant in court; he wants Judge Jackson to throw the book at him! It will be a very lucrative book. The faked Windows video? His amnesia during the video deposition? It's all a ruse to fool Microsoft stockholders... and us. -- The ramblings of a resident Slashdot conspiracy nut in response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft | |
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 | |
The Latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Bashing Linux As used by Jesse Berst and Fred Moody... 1. Write a scathing article attacking some facet of Linux and publish it 2. Arrange for the article to be mentioned on LinuxToday or Slashdot. 3. Watch as thousands of angry Linux zealots storm your article and load the advertising banners. Listen to the ca-chink $ound of the advertising revenue that's pouring in. 4. As soon as the maelstrom quiets, publish another scathing article about the immaturity of the Linux "community", excerpting some of the nasty flames from Linux longhairs denouncing your intelligence and claiming that you're on the Microsoft payroll. 5. Arrange for the article to be mentioned on LinuxToday or Slashdot. 6. Watch as thousands of angry Linux zealots storm your article... 7. Wait for a few weeks, and repeat. Cash your inflated paycheck, invest the proceeds in some Linux stocks, and retire early. You've "earned" it! | |
What Did Santa Claus Bring You In 1999? (#2) WEBMASTER OF LINUXSUPERMEGAPORTAL.COM: One of my in-laws gifted me a CD-ROM containing the text of every "...For Dummies" book ever published. It's a shame IDG never published "Hiring A Hitman To Knock Off Your Inlaws... For Dummies", because that's something I'm itching to do. At any rate, I'm using the CD as a beer coaster. JESSE BERST: I got a coupon redeemable for the full copy of Windows 2000 when it comes out in February. Win2K is the most innovative, enterprise-ready, stable, feature-enriched, easy-to-use operating system on the market. I don't see how Linux can survive against Microsoft's far superior offering. I ask you: could you get fired for NOT choosing Windows 2000? You bet. LINUX CONVERT: I kept hinting for a SGI box, but instead my wife got me an old Packard Bell. Unfortunately, she bought it at CompUSSR, which doesn't take returns, so I'm stuck with it. I haven't been able to get Linux to boot on it, so this machine will probably become a $750 paperweight. | |
Is Linux A Finnish Conspiracy? WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF CORRUPTION -- According to a report recently issued by the NSA (No Such Agency), Finland is now considered a national economic and security risk. "We don't trust the Finns... software written by these people could potentially contain backdoors that could undermine domestic security," the report states. In response to the news, US Senator Fatcatte (R-WA) has proposed a bill, the It's For The Children Act of 2000, that would ban all software written by native-born Finns. "It's time we take the Finnish threat seriously," Fatcatte said at a press conference. "Not only is Finn software a threat to domestic tranquility, but it could radically alter the computer industry, costing us thousands of jobs... and, more importantly, billions in tax revenue. We must prevent the Finns from subverting our economy with so-called 'open-source software'." He then asked, "Is anybody thinking of the children of programmers who will become unemployed when Finnish software overruns the country?" | |
Alan Cox Releases Quantum Kernel Submitted by Dave Finton A surprising development in the linux-kernel mailing list surfaced when Alan Cox announced the release of a 2.2 Linux kernel existing both as an official stable kernel and as a prepatch kernel. This immediately spurred the creation of two different realities (and hence two different Alan Coxes), where a kernel would not settle down to one or the other state until someone looked at it. "I think this resulted from the large number of 'final' prepatch kernels prior to the 2.2.14 release," said David Miller, kernel networking guru and gas station attendent (he'll settle down to one or the other state when someone looks at him). When word of this development spread to Microsoft, Bill Gates was extremely delighted. The Redmond, WA campus has been plagued with quantum fluctuations ever since the inception of Windows 2000 back in 1992. "Our release date has been existing in infinitely many states since the very beginning," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "This just shows the Linux operating system cannot scale to multiple realities as well as our OS." | |
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." | |
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#1) Adopt-A-Beowulf: the latest company to hop the Linux bandwagon as it tramples down Wall Street. Every geek dreams of owning their own Beowulf supercomputer. Very few people (except for dotcom billionnaires) can afford to build one, but the folks at Adopt-a-Beowulf can provide the next best thing: a virtual beowulf. For US$49.95, you can "adopt" your own 256-node Beowulf cluster. You won't own it, or even get to see it in person, but you will receive photos of the cluster, a monthly newsletter about its operation, and a limited shell account on it. The company hopes to branch out into other fields. Some slated products include Adopt-A-Penguin, Lease-A-Camel (for Perl mongers), and Adopt-A-Distro (in which your name will be used as the code-name for a beta release of a major Linux distribution or other Open Source project). | |
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#2) Don't throw out that old Red Hat Linux 3.0 CD. A group of entrepreneurs are hording vintage Linux items in the hopes that they will become hot collector's items in the coming decades. The venture, called "Money Grows On Binary Trees", hopes to amass a warehouse full of old Linux distributions, books, stuffed penguins, promotional material, and Linus Torvalds autographs. "Nobody thought pieces of cardstock featuring baseball players would be worth anything..." the founder of Binary Trees said. "That 'Linux For Dummies' book sitting in your trash could be the next Babe Ruth card." The company organized a Linux Collectibles Convention last week in Silicon Valley, drawing in a respectable crowd of 1,500 people and 20 exhibitors. The big attraction was a "Windows For Dummies" book actually signed by Linus Torvalds. "He signed it back at a small Linux conference in '95," the owner explained. "He didn't realize it was a Dummies book because I had placed an O'Reilly cover on it... Somebody at the convention offered me $10,000 for it, but that seemed awfully low. I hope to sell it on eBay next month with a reserve price containing a significant number of zeros." | |
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#3) In the "Cathedral and the Bazaar", ESR mentions that one motivation behind Open Source software is ego-gratification. That's where OpenEgo, Inc. comes in. For a fee, the hackers at OpenEgo will produce a piece of Open Source software and distribute it in your name, thus building up your reputation and ego. You can quickly become the envy of all your friends -- without lifting a finger. Want a higher-paying tech job? With OpenEgo's services, you'll look like an Open Source pro in no time, and have dozens of hot job offers from across the country. Says the OpenEgo sales literature, "Designing, implementing, maintaining, and promoting a successful Open Source project is a pain. However, at OpenEgo, we do all the work while you reap all the rewards..." A page on the OpenEgo site claims, "We produced a Linux kernel patch for one customer last year that was immediately accepted by Linus Torvalds... Within days the person gained employment at Transmeta and is now on the road to IPO riches..." Prices range from $1,000 for a small program to $5,000 for a kernel patch. | |
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#4) The buzz surrounding Linux and Open Source during 1999 has produced a large number of billionnaires. However, people who weren't employed by Red Hat or VA Linux, or who didn't receive The Letter, are still poor. The visionaries at The IPO Factory want to change all that. As the name suggests, this company helps other businesses get off the ground, secure investments from Venture Capitalists, and eventually hold an IPO that exits the stratosphere. "You can think of us as meta-VCs," the IPO Factory's founder said. "You provide the idea... and we do the rest. If your company doesn't hold a successful IPO, you get your money back, guaranteed!" He added quickly, "Of course, if you do undergo a billion dollar IPO, we get to keep 25% of your stock." The company's first customer, LinuxOne, has been a failure. "From now on we're only going to service clients that actually have a viable product," an IPO Factory salesperson admitted. "Oh, and we've learned our lesson: it's not a good idea to cut-and-paste large sections from Red Hat's S-1 filing." | |
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#3) BRYANT DUMBELL: It's time for Round One: The Flying CompactDiscus. JOHN SPLADDEN: That's right, Bryant. Each team member will hurl one CD-ROM and receive points for both the distance thrown and whether the disc is still readable afterwards. DUMBELL: First up is Mad Hatter's Alan Cox. He struts, he winds up, and there it goes! Look at the trajectory on that baby... Now it's time for the Portalback's Anonymous Coward #521 to throw. This guy was voted as the best CompactDiscus thrower in the league by popular vote on Slashdot. SPLADDEN: Indeed, AnonCow has got some powerful muscles. No brain though. Did you know that he dropped out of college to join the Andover.Net team? DUMBELL: Yeah, what a tough decision to make. It's now becoming quite common for nerd superstars to ditch college and move to Silicon Valley and receive Big League stock options. Still, AnonCow was out for several games this season due to a Carpal Tunnel flareup. I hope he isn't squandering his millions... he might be forced to retire early. | |
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#4) BRYANT DUMBELL: Welcome back. After Round 1, the Mad Hatters are ahead 15 to 12. Round 2, the Caffeine Craziness event, is now underway. JOHN SPLADDEN: This is my favorite part of the Nerdbowl. Each player tries to consume as many gallons of caffeinated beverages within one minute, and then points are awarded based on the redness of their eyes. DUMBELL: I like this event too... I must admit, it's much better than the "Crash It" event that was played in the Zeroth Annual Nerdbowl last year. Players were each seated in front of a PC running Windows 98... points were awarded based on how fast the player could cause a Blue Screen. SPLADDEN: Ah, yes, I remember that. Everybody complained that the event was too easy. "Where the hell is the challenge?" yelled Chris DiBona while doing a victory dance after the VA Linux Rich Penguins beat the SuSE Cats In The Hats last year 121-96. | |
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#5) A commercial that aired during the live ASCII broadcast of the game: Having trouble staying awake for weeks at a time working on that latest hack? Worried that some young punk will take over your cushy job because you sleep too much? Don't worry, EyeOpener® brand cola is here to save the day. You'll never feel sleepy again when you drink EyeOpener®. Surgeon General's Warning: This product should only be used under a doctor's immediate supervision, as it contains more caffeine than 512 cases of Coca-Cola. Caution: When sleep does occur after about three weeks, optometrists recommend having someone on hand to close your eyelids. Coming soon: ExtremelyWired(tm) cola with 50% more sugar! May or may not meet FDA approval... we're still trying. | |
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#7) JOHN SPLADDEN: In this final round, the two teams must assemble a 16-node Beowulf cluster from scratch, install Linux on them, and then use the system to calculate pi to 1 million digits. This is the ultimate test for nerds... only people in the Big Leagues should attempt this... [snip] BRYANT DUMBELL: Look at that! Instead of messing with screws, the Portalbacks are using duct tape to attach their motherboards to the cases! That should save some time. [snip] They've done it! The Mad Hatters have completed the Final Round in 2 hours, 15 minutes. That's one hell of a Beowulf cluster they produced... drool. SPLADDEN: With that, the Mad Hatters win the Nerd Bowl 105 to 68! There's going to be some serious beer-drinking tonight back at the Red Hat offices. DUMBELL: Linus Torvalds has emerged from the sidelines to present his Linus Torvalds Trophy to the winners. What a glorious sight! This has definitely been the best Nerdbowl ever. I pity those people that have been watching the Superbowl instead. | |
NOTICE LinuxForecast.com has issued a Slashdot Effect Watch for your domain effective for the next 48 hours. Forecast models indicate that Taco Boy is planning on posting an article about your "Penguin Porn" site. The models disagree on the timing or duration of the storm, although we can say that a moderate risk of server crashes, excess bandwidth usage, and increased website hosting bills are possible. Please take appropriate action by mirroring your site. It might be too late now, but you might also want to consider purchasing Denial Of Service Insurance. | |
Freaks In Linux Houses Shouldn't Throw FUD By Mr. Stu Poor, technology pundit for the Arkansas "Roadkill Roundup" newspaper. [Editor's Note: He's the local equivalent of Jesse Berst]. As you all know, February 17th was the happy day that Microsoft officially released Windows 2000. I went down to the local Paperclips computer store and asked if they had any copies in stock. One of the pimply-faced Linux longhairs explained that Paperclips didn't carry Win2K because it is not intended for consumers. What FUD! I can't believe the gall of those Linux Communists to spread such FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about Windows 2000, which is _the_ best, most stable operating system ever produced in the history of mankind! | |
Affordable Virtual Beowulf Cluster Every nerd drools over Beowulf clusters, but very few have even seen one, much less own one. Until now, that is. Eric Gylgen, the open source hacker famous for EviL (the dancing ASCII paperclip add-on to vi), is working on a program that will emulate Beowulf clusters on a standard desktop PC. "Of course," he added candidly, "the performance of my virtual cluster will be many orders of magnitude less than a real cluster, but that's not really the point. I just want to be able to brag that I run a 256 node cluster. Nobody has to know I only spent $500 on the hardware it uses." Eric has prior experience in this field. Last month he successfully built a real 32 node Beowulf cluster out of Palm Pilots, old TI-8x graphing calculators, various digital cameras, and even some TRS-80s. He demonstrated a pre-alpha version of his VirtualEpicPoem software to us yesterday. His Athlon machine emulated a 256 node Beowulf cluster in which each node, running Linux, was emulating its own 16 node cluster in which each node, running Bochs, was emulating VMWare to emulate Linux running old Amiga software. The system was extremely slow, but it worked. | |
Will Silicon Valley Become A Ghost Town? Back in the 80s, businessmen hoped that computers would usher in a paperless office. Now in the 00s, businessmen are hoping that paper will usher in a computerless office. "We've lost more productivity this last decade to shoddy software," explained Mr. Lou Dight, the author of the bestselling book, "The Dotless Revolution". "By getting rid of computers and their infernal crashes, bluescreens, and worst of all, Solitaire, the US gross domestic product will soar by 20% over the next decade. It's time to banish Microsoft crapware from our corporate offices." Lou Dight is the champion of a new trend in corporate America towards the return of pen-and-paper, solar calculators, old IBM typewriters, and even slide rules. If "dotcom" was the buzzword of the 90s, "dotless" is the buzzword of the 21st Century. | |
What I'd like to see is a prohibition on Microsoft incorporating multi-megabyte Easter Eggs and other stupid bloatware into Windows and Office. A typical computer with pre-installed Microsoft shoveware probably only has about 3 megabytes of hard drive space free because of flight simulators, pinball games, and multimedia credits Easter Eggs that nobody wants. I predict that if Microsoft is ever forced to remove these things, the typical user will actually be able to purchase competing software now that they have some free space to put it on. Of course, stock in hard drive companies might plummet... -- Anonymous Coward, when asked by Humorix for his reaction to the proposed Microsoft two-way split | |
The new "I Love You" virus is not the work of some snot-nosed acne-laced teenager working from a basement in the Phillipines. It's actually part of a conspiracy concocted by the unholy alliance of Microsoft and several well-known and well-despised spammers. You'll notice that the ILOVEYOU, Melissa, and Tuxissa strains all extract email addresses from the victim's system. This is a gold mine for spammers, who are able to use these viruses to harvest active email addresses for them. Everytime ILOVEYOU, for instance, propogates, it keeps track of all the email addresses it has been sent to, so that when it finally boomerangs back to a spammer, they have a nice convenient list of addresses to send "laser printer toner" and "get rich quick!" advertisements to. -- Bob Smith (not his real code-name), in a speech given at the First Annual Connecticut Conspiracy Convention (ConConCon), "the largest ever gathering of conspiracy theorists east of the Mississippi." | |
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". | |
Security Holes Found In Microsoft Easter Eggs REDMOND, WA -- It's damage control time for the Microsoft Marketing Machine. Not only have exploits been found in IE, Outlook, and even the Dancing Paper Clip, but now holes have been uncovered in Excel's Flight Simulator and Word's pinball game. "If you enter Excel 97's flight simulator and then hit the F1, X, and SysRq keys while reading a file from Drive A:, you automatically gain Administrator rights on Windows NT," explained the security expert who first discovered the problem. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg." Office 97 and 2000 both contain two hidden DLLs, billrulez.dll and eastereggs.dll, that are marked as "Safe for scripting" but are not. Arbitrary Visual BASIC code can be executed using these files. More disturbing, however, are the undocumented API calls "ChangeAllPasswordsToDefault", "OpenBackDoor", "InitiateBlueScreenNow", and "UploadRegistryToMicrosoft" within easter~1.dll. Microsoft spokesdroids have already hailed the problem as "an insignificant byproduct of Microsoft innovation." | |
Elite Nerds Create Linux Distro From Hell HELL, MICHIGAN -- A group of long-time Linux zealots and newbie haters have thrown together a new Linux distro called Hellix that is so user-hostile, so anti-newbie, so cryptic, and so old-fashioned that it actually makes MS-DOS look like a real operating system. Said the founder of the project, "I'm sick and tired of the Windowsification of the Linux desktop in a fruitless attempt to make the system more appealing to newbies, PHBs, and MCSEs. Linux has always been for nerds only, and we want to make sure it stays that way!" One of the other Bastard Distributors From Hell explained, "In the last five years think of all the hacking effort spent on Linux... and for what? We have nothing to show for it but half-finished Windows-like desktops, vi dancing paperclips, and graphical front-ends to configuration files. Real nerds use text files for configuration, darnit, and they like it! It's time to take a stand against the hordes of newbies that are polluting our exclusive operating system." One Anonymous Coward said, "This is so cool... It's just like Unix back in the good old days of the 70's when men were men and the only intuitive interface was still the nipple." | |
Brief History Of Linux (#4) Walls & Windows Most people don't realize that many of the technological innovations taken for granted in the 20th Century date back centuries ago. The concept of a network "firewall", for instance, is a product of the Great Wall of China, a crude attempt to keep raging forest fires out of Chinese territory. It was soon discovered that the Wall also kept Asian intruders ("steppe kiddies") out, just as modern-day firewalls keep network intruders ("script kiddies") out. Meanwhile, modern terminology for graphical user interfaces originated from Pre-Columbian peoples in Central and South America. These natives would drag-and-drop icons (sculptures of the gods) into vast pits of certain gooey substances during a ritual in which "mice" (musical instruments that made a strange clicking sound) were played to an eerie beat. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#5) English Flame War The idea behind Slashdot-style discussions is not new; it dates back to London in 1699. A newspaper that regularly printed Letters To The Editor sparked a heated debate over the question, "When would the 18th Century actually begin, 1700 or 1701?" The controversy quickly became a matter of pride; learned aristocrats argued for the correct date, 1701, while others maintained that it was really 1700. Another sizable third of participants asked, "Who cares?" Ordinarily such a trivial matter would have died down, except that one 1700er, fed up with the snobbest 1701 rhetoric of the educated class, tracked down one letter-writer and hurled a flaming log into his manor house in spite. The resulting fire was quickly doused, but the practice known as the "flame war" had been born. More flames were exchanged between other 1700ers and 1701ers for several days, until the Monarch sent out royal troops to end the flamage. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#8) Let's all holler for Hollerith In 1890 the US Congress wanted to extend the census to collect exhaustive demographic information on each citizen that could be resold to marketing companies to help pay for the newly installed gold-plated toilets on Capitol Hill. Experts estimated that the 1890 Census wouldn't be completed until 1900. It was hoped that an electronic tabulating machine using punchcards designed by Herman Hollerith would speed up the process. It didn't quite work out that way. An infestation of termites ate their way through the wooden base of Hollerith's machines, and then a wave of insects devoured several stacks of punchcards. Also, some Hollerith models had the propensity to crash at the drop of a hat... literally. In one instance, the operator dropped his hat and when he reached down to pick it up, he bumped the machine, causing it to flip over and crash. These flaws meant that the census was delayed for several years. However, the system was, in the words of one newspaper reporter, "good enough for government work", a guiding principle that lives on to this very day and explains the government's insistence on using Windows-based PCs. | |
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 (#13) Wanted: Eunuchs programmers Everything you know about the creation of the Unix operating system is wrong. We have uncovered the truth: Unix was a conspiracy hatched by Ritchie and Thompson to thwart the AT&T monopoly that they worked for. The system, code-named EUNUCHS (Electronic UNtrustworthy User-Condemning Horrible System), was horribly conceived, just as they had planned. The OS, quickly renamed to a more respectable "Unix", was adopted first by Ma Bell's Patent Department and then by the rest of the monopoly. AT&T saw an inexpensive, multi-user, portable operating system that it had all rights to; the authors, however, saw a horrible, multi-crashing system that the Evil Ma Bell Empire would become hopelessly dependent on. AT&T would go bankrupt trying to maintain the system and eventually collapse. That didn't happen. Ritchie and Thompson were too talented to create a crappy operating system; no matter how hard they tried the system was too good. Their last ditch effort to sabotage the system by recoding it obfuscated C was unsuccessful. Before long Unix spread outside of Bell Labs and their conspiracy collapsed. | |
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 (#15) Too many hyphens: Traf-O-Data and Micro-soft Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended an exclusive private school in Seattle. In 1968, after raising $3,000 from a yard sale, they gained access to a timeshare computer and became addicted. After depleting their money learning BASIC and playing Solitaire, they convinced a company to give them free computer time in exchange for reporting bugs -- ironically, an early form of Open Source development! The two then founded a small company called Traf-O-Data that collected and analyzed traffic counts for municipalities using a crude device based on the Intel "Pretanium" 8008 CPU. They had some success at first, but ran into problems when they were unable to deliver their much hyped next-generation device called "TrafficX". An engineer is quoted as saying that "Traf-O-Data is the local leader in vaporware", the first documented usage of the term that has come to be synonymous with Bill Gates. Soon thereafter, the two developed their own BASIC interpreter, and sold it to MITS for their new Altair computer. April 4, 1975 is the fateful day that Micro-soft was founded in Albuquerque, NM as a language vendor. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#17) If only Gary had been sober When Micro-soft moved to Seattle in 1979, most of its revenue came from sales of BASIC, a horrible language so dependant on GOTOs that spaghetti looked more orderly than its code did. (BASIC has ruined more promising programmers than anything else, prompting its original inventor Dartmouth University to issue a public apology in 1986.) However, by 1981 BASIC hit the backburner to what is now considered the luckiest break in the history of computing: MS-DOS. (We use the term "break" because MS-DOS was and always will be broken.) IBM was developing a 16-bit "personal computer" and desperately needed an OS to drive it. Their first choice was Gary Kildall's CP/M, but IBM never struck a deal with him. We've discovered the true reason: Kildall was drunk at the time the IBM representatives went to talk with him. A sober man would not have insulted the reps, calling their employer an "Incredibly Bad Monopoly" and referring to their new IBM-PC as an "Idealistically Backwards Microcomputer for People without Clues". Needless to say, Gary "I Lost The Deal Of The Century" Kildall was not sober. | |
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. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#18) There are lies, damned lies, and Microsoft brochures Even from the very first day, the Microsoft Marketing Department was at full throttle. Vaporware has always been their weapon of choice. Back when MS-DOS 1.25 was released to OEMs, Microsoft handed out brochures touting some of the features to be included in future versions, including: Xenix-compatible pipes, process forks, multitasking, graphics and cursor positioning, and multi-user support. The brochure also stated, "MS-DOS has no practical limit on disk size. MS-DOS uses 4-byte Xenix compatible pointers for file and disk capacity up to 4 gigabytes." We would like to emphasize in true Dave Barry fashion that we are not making this up. Big vaporous plans were also in store for Microsoft's "Apple Killer" graphical interface. In 1983 Microsoft innovated a new marketing ploy -- the rigged "smoke-and-mirrors" demo -- to showcase the "overlapping windows" and "multitasking" features of Interface Manager, the predecessor to Windows. These features never made it into Windows 1.0 -- which, incidentally, was released 1.5 years behind schedule. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#19) Boy meets operating system The young Linus Torvalds might have been just another CompSci student if it wasn't for his experiences in the Univ. of Helsinki's Fall 1990 Unix & C course. During one class, the professor experienced difficulty getting Minix to work properly on a Sun box. "Who the heck designed this thing?" the angry prof asked, and somebody responded, "Andrew Tanenbaum". The name of the Unix & C professor has already escaped from Linus, but the words he spoke next remain forever etched in his grey matter: "Tanenbaum... ah, yes, that Amsterdam weenie who thinks microkernels are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, they're not. I would just love to see somebody create their own superior Unix-like 32-bit operating system using a monolithic kernel just to show Tanenbaum up!" His professor's outburst inspired Linus to order a new IBM PC so he could hack Minix. You can probably guess what happened next. Inspired by his professor's words, Linus Torvalds hacks together his own superior Unix-like 32-but operating system using a monolithic kernel just to show Mr. Christmas Tree up. | |
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. | |
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 (#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 (#26) On the surface, Transmeta was a secretive startup that hired Linus Torvalds in 1996 as their Alpha Geek to help develop some kind of microprocessor. Linus, everyone found out later, was actually hired as part of a low-budget yet high-yield publicity stunt. While other dotcoms were burning millions on glitzy marketing campaigns nobody remembers and Superbowl ads displayed while jocks went to the bathroom, Transmeta was spending only pocket change on marketing. Most of that pocket change went towards hosting the Transmeta website (the one that wasn't there yet) which, incidentally, contained more original content and received more visitors than the typical dotcom portal. Microsoft relies on vaporware and certain ahem stipends given to journalists in order to generate buzz and hype for new products, but Transmeta only needed Non-Disclosure Agreements and the Personality Cult of Linus to build up its buzz. When the secret was finally unveiled, the Slashdot crowd was all excited about low-power mobile processors and code-morphing algorithms -- for a couple days. Then everyone yawned and went back to playing Quake. It's still not entirely clear when Transmeta is actually supposed to start selling something. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#27) Microsoft's position as the 5,000 pound gorilla of the computer industry didn't change during the 1990's. Indeed, this gorilla got even more bloated with every passing Windows release. Bill Gates' business strategy was simple: 1. Pre-announce vaporous product. 2. Hire monkeys (low-paid temps) to cruft something together in VB 3. It it compiles, ship it. 4. Launch marketing campaign for new product showcasing MS "innovation". 5. Repeat (GOTO 1). With such a plan Microsoft couldn't fail. That is, unless some external force popped up and ruined everything. Such as Linux and the Internet perhaps. Both of these developments were well-known to Bill Gates in the early and mid 1990's (a company as large as Microsoft can afford a decent spy network, after all). He just considered both to be mere fads that would go away when Microsoft announced some new innovation, like PDAs -- Personal Desktop Agents (i.e. Bob and Clippit). | |
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." | |
Anonymous Noncoward writes, "For my Economics 101 class, I have to pretend to be Bill Gates and write an editorial defending Microsoft against anti-trust charges, citing economic principles. To complete such an assignment violates every moral fiber of my body. What should I do?" The Oracle responds: Well, it seems that you have to make a decision among two choices. You can blow off the assignment, thus forcing you to fail EC101, lowering your GPA below the required minimum to keep your scholarship, causing you to drop out of college and work at McDonalds all your life. Or you can write a paper that's positive towards Microsoft and make an 'A'. This seems like a no-brainer to me; I'd choose the first option without hesitation -- a burger flipper has far more dignity and self-respect than somebody who utters a positive statement about the Evil Empire. | |
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. | |
"Brown Orifice" Is Only The Beginning Last week security holes were found in Netscape's Java implementation that allowed it to act as a web server. Earlier today, a hacker announced that he had found vulnerabilities in Mozilla M17 that allow it to operate as a web browser. And that's just the beginning. Said "3l337h4x0r", the discoverer of the M17 exploit, "This is quite a hack! By manipulating some internal functions, I was able to use M17 to actually surf the web. Slashdot and Humorix rendered beautifully." Mozilla engineers were stunned. "This shouldn't be possible. M17 contains a newsreader, a mail client, an instant messenger client, and a whole bunch of XUL acronymn-enriched stuff, but it shouldn't be able to handle HTTP or HTML. We haven't been planning on adding web-surfing functionality to Mozilla until M30... maybe M25 at the earliest. I suspect this whole thing is a hoax." | |
Look Out! It's Microsoft Outlook An old maxim in the Unix community states, "All programs expand until they can read mail... except Microsoft Outlook." Well, that's no longer true. By taking advantage of loopholes in several undocumented APIs, a team of geeks were able to transform Outlook from a virus-delivery system into an actual mail client. "It was quite a feat to accomplish this," said one of the geeks. "I mean, the rat's nest that is the Windows API can be used to frighten small children... or adults. And the frequency by which Outlook exploits are discovered is directly proportional to the number of times Bill Gates uses the word 'innovation'. But this is the first time somebody has discovered a beneficial exploit." Microsoft has vowed to release a patch to fix the uncovered security flaws. "We simply cannot tolerate unauthorized reverse engineering and hacking of our innovative solutions. Our Security Response Team will pull an all-nighter to eliminate these known issues." | |
The Next Big Thing: "Clairvoyant Consultants" Nobody likes to deal with tech support or customer service reps. A growing number of people are getting sick of being put on hold for three hours and then paying ridiculous "per incident" fees so some Microserf can tell them to "reinstall the operating system!" Desperate users are turning to an unlikely source to diagnose and fix software problems: psychics. Palm[Pilot] readers, 1-900 number operators, and clairvoyant consultants are quickly becoming the hottest careers in the tech sector. Explained Madam Cosmos, owner of the Main Street Mysticism Temple in Keokuk, Iowa, "With my special powers, I can track down the source of any problem. Got a rogue Registry entry that's causing Bluescreens? I'll find it. Missing a curly bracket in your Perl program but can't locate it because the error messages are so unhelpful? I'll know where it is even before you walk in my door." | |
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." | |
Unobfuscated Perl (#1) A rogue group of Perl hackers has presented a plan to add a "use really_goddamn_strict" pragma that would enforce readability and UNobfuscation. With this pragma in force, the Perl compiler might say: * Warning: Program contains zero comments. You've probably never seen or used one before; they begin with a # symbol. Please start using them or else a representative from the nearest Perl Mongers group will come to your house and beat you over the head with a cluestick. * Warning: Program uses a cute trick at line 125 that might make sense in C. But this isn't C! * Warning: Code at line 412 indicates that programmer is an idiot. Please correct error between chair and monitor. * Warning: While There's More Than One Way To Do It, your method at line 523 is particularly stupid. Please try again. | |
Unobfuscated Perl (#2) A rogue group of Perl hackers has presented a plan to add a "use really_goddamn_strict" pragma that would enforce readability and UNobfuscation. With this pragma in force, the Perl compiler might say: * Warning: Write-only code detected between lines 612 and 734. While this code is perfectly legal, you won't have any clue what it does in two weeks. I recommend you start over. * Warning: Code at line 1,024 is indistinguishable from line noise or the output of /dev/random * Warning: Have you ever properly indented a piece of code in your entire life? Evidently not. * Warning: I think you can come up with a more descriptive variable name than "foo" at line 1,523. * Warning: Programmer attempting to re-invent the wheel at line 2,231. There's a function that does the exact same thing on CPAN -- and it actually works. | |
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" | |
The Socioeconomic Group Formerly Known As "Geeks" Nobody wants to be called a "geek" anymore. The label, once worn proudly by members of the tech community as a symbol of their separation from mainstream society, is now suddenly out of style. It all started last week when some clueless PR firm released a list of the "Top 100 Geeks", including such anti-geeks as Bill Gates, Janet Reno, Paul Allen, and Jeff "One-Click" Bezos. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that businessmen in South Korea are striving for the "Geek Chic" image by dressing like Bill Gates. Now that the Chief Bloatware Architect has been identified as a "geek", everybody else has bailed ship. Still undecided on a new label, the community now calls itself the S.E.G.K.A.G. (SocioEconomic Group formerly Known As Geeks). "I cannot tolerate belonging to the same subculture as Bill Gates!" explained one former geek. "If that manifestation of evil is called a 'geek', then so be it. I am now officially a nerd." | |
Microsoft Fights Linux -- By Contributing Kernel Patches If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... and then destory 'em. That seems to be the new Microsoft strategy for dealing with Linux. Instead of fighting a FUD or patent war, Microsoft operatives are doing something totally out of character: they are contributing patches for the Linux kernel and other programs. Don't worry, Microsoft is still evil. It's all part of a massive denial of service attack against Linus Torvalds designed to bring kernel development to a standstill. By sending over 10,000 patches per minute by email to Linus and other top kernel hackers, Microsoft has exposed Linux's Achilles heel. "I can't believe this is happening!" one stressed-out kernel hacker said at a press conference on IRC. "If this goes on, we may have to conduct kernel development over some other network protocol, like avian carriers... Aw crap, there's smoke coming from my email server! Ahh... it can't handle the load!" At this point the developer cut off and we haven't heard from him since. At first Linus was unsure where the deluge of patches was coming from. But when he saw one patch to replace kernel panics with bluescreens, the source was pretty obvious. "Oh, and the fact that all of the patches are covered by Microsoft's GPL [Grossly Private License] was a dead giveaway, too," | |
Official National Anthem Of The Geek Paradise Of Humorixia (first verse) I got this bark letter the other day, "Stop using our trademark or you will pay". I said "Ha" and threw it in the trash, Oh but then those lawyers got very rash, Lawsuits, subpoenas, the accusations came, All their attacks were truly lame, They said, "You've committed quite a sin!" "You're going to get five to ten!" Kill all the lawyers! Oh, kill all the lawyers! Let's "kill -9 lawyers" now! | |
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. | |
"Oops," Says MPAA President Recently, the United States filed a legal brief in support of the MPAA's argument that linking to the DeCSS source code is not protected by the First Amendment. At the time, the MPAA was ecstatic. But not any longer. The tables have turned: the Federal government has filed a lawsuit against the movie industry, arguing that many Hollywood-produced movies 'link' to illegal content. The MPAA is now desperately wrapping itself up in the Bill of Rights. "Murder is illegal. Showing a murder in a movie -- or, rather, 'linking' to it -- is also illegal," explained a spokesperson for the Coalition Of Angry Soccer Moms In Support Of Brow-Beating Movie Industry Executives, an interest group that has backed the government's lawsuit. | |
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) | |
Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Linus Torvalds SILLYCON VALLEY -- Nearly 130 former system administrators have filed suit against Linus Torvalds in which they claim Linux cost them their jobs. Recently several companies migrated from Windows to Linux, increasing their productivity but decreasing the need for a large staff of tech workers, prompting a wave of layoffs. "The good old days when it required five full-time system administrators to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server are history, all because of that cancer known as Linux," explained the lead litigant in the lawsuit. "It all started two years ago when some pimply-faced idiot down in Accounting decided to smuggle in a Linux box to automate some of his work. Before long every tech-savvy person in Accounting, Billing, and Sales was secretly using Linux." "That's when the troubles started. Productivity soared. Downtime was limited to an average of three milliseconds per day. Macro viruses ceased to spread. It was horrible! The entire IT staff was replaced by one part-time bearded wonder, who was able to administrate the entire Linux network! Due to the layoffs, I'm now sitting in a homeless shelter with little hope to find work. Nobody wants to hire an MCSE anymore!" | |
"...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 | |
Ted Turner Unveils All-Commercial Channel For years, the pundits have predicted that the Web would become more like television. However, media tycoon Ted Turner is pursuing the exact opposite. Taking a cue from pop-under advertisements, Flash ads, get-rich-quick spam emails, viral marketing, and "Gator" programs, Turner has unveiled "TCC", the Turner Commercial Channel, for cable TV. TCC will feature "shows" like "Best Commercials That You've Seen A Million Times", "Life Is A Slogan, Just Buy It", and "Name That Jingle". These shows will occupy about 30% of the screen, while several rows of marquees at the bottom will flash various advertising messages. An animated "TCC" watermark will float around the screen while corporate logos are flashed randomly in the corners. Meanwhile, "pop-up ads" will randomly appear that obscure the other ads. These pop-ups will sometimes be further obscured by meta-pop-ups. Likewise, corporate jingles will play in the background, interfering with other jingles and advertising sounds. | |
The Blue Screen Of Advocacy The Federal Bureau of Investigation & Privacy Violations has issued a national advisory warning computer stores to be on the lookout for the "Bluescreen Bandits". These extreme Linux zealots go from store to store and from computer to computer typing in "C:\CON\CON" and causing the demo machines to crash and display the Blue Screen Of Death. Efforts to apprehend the bandits have so far been unsuccessful. The outlaws were caught on tape at a CompUSSR location in Southern California, but in an ironic twist, the surveillance system bluescreened just before the penguinistas came into clear view. "We don't have many clues. It's not clear whether a small group is behind the bluescreen vandalism, or whether hundreds or even thousands of geek zealots are involved," said the manager of a Capacitor City store. The manager has good reason to be upset. The bluescreen raid was the top story in the local newspaper and quickly became a hot topic of discussion. As a result, the local school board halted its controversial plans to migrate their computers from Macs to PCs. | |
Linux Distro To Include Pre-Installed Security Holes Proactive Synergy Paradigm, the Linux distro targeted at Pointy Haired Bosses, will now include built-in security flaws to better compete with Microsoft programs. "The sheer popularity of Windows, Outlook, and IIS clearly shows that people demand security holes large enough to drive a truck through," said Mr. Bert Dill of P.S.P. Inc. "We're going to do our best to offer what the consumer wants. Just as Microsoft stole ideas from Apple during the 1980's, we're stealing ideas from Microsoft today." Future releases of Proactive Synergy Linux will feature "LookOut! 1.0", a mail reader that automatically executes (with root privileges) e-mail attachments coded in Perl, JavaScript, Python, and Visual Basic. "Hey, if it works for Microsoft, it can work for us," boasted Mr. Dill. "Now PHBs won't have to stick with Windows in order to have their confidential files secretly emailed to their colleagues by a worm. Better yet, this capability allows viruses to automagically delete unnecessary files to save disk space without wasting the PHB's valuable time. | |
As Easy As /usr/src/linux Wiping the sweat from his brow, the contestant diligently continues to recite, "'i' equals 'NR' underscore 'TASKS' semicolon newline 'p' equals ampersand 'task' bracket 'NR' underscore 'TASKS' close-bracket semicolon newline while parens minus minus 'i' parens brace if parens star minus..." Bzzzt! One of the judges says, "You missed an exclamation point. Ten point penalty for that error." The contestant realizes it's all over. He had spent 500 hours memorizing the source code to the Linux 0.01 kernel and then blew it all by forgetting one stupid ASCII character in sched.c. Welcome to the First Annual Linux Kernel Memorization Contest in New Haven, Connecticut, where the stakes are high and the frustration is simply unbearable. Linuxer longhairs from all over the globe have descended on the Offramp Motel to show off their memorization skills in front of a crowd of... dozens. "Those math freaks can memorize PI and other irrational constants all they want. I'll stick with the Linux 0.01 kernel source code thank you very much," said Bob Notmyrealname, the organizer of the event. % | |
The Humorix Oracle explains how to get a job at a major corporation: 1. Find an exploit in Microsoft IIS or another buggy Microsoft product to which large corporations rarely apply security patches. 2. Create a virus or worm that takes advantage of this exploit and then propogates itself by selecting IP numbers at random and then trying to infect those machines. 3. Keep an eye on your own website's server logs. When your virus starts propogating, your server will be hit with thousands of attacks from other infected systems trying to spread the virus to your machine. 4. Make a list of the IP numbers of all of the infected machines. 5. Perform a reverse DNS lookup on these IP numbers. 6. Make a note of all of the Fortune 500 companies that appear on the list of infected domains. 7. Send your resume to these companies and request an interview for a system administrator position. These companies are hiring -- whether they realize it or not. 8. Use your new salary to hire a good defense lawyer when the FBI comes knocking. | |
8GB Ought To Be Enough For Anybody REDMOND, WA -- In a shocking move, Microsoft has revealed that the new Xbox console will only contain an 8 gigabyte hard drive. This implies that the machines will use a version of the Windows operating system that fits within only 8GB. Squeezing Windows into such a small footprint must certainly be one of the greatest technological achievements ever crafted by Microsoft's Research & Assimilation Department. "I can't believe it," said one industry observer who always happens to show up when this Humorix reporter needs to quote somebody. "To think that they were able to strip away the easter egg flight simulators, the multi-gigabyte yet content-free Help files, and all of the other crap that comes bundled with Windows is simply remarkable. I don't even want to think about all of the manpower, blood, sweat, and tears required to distill Windows into only 8 gigabytes of bare essentials. Wow!" Hard drive manufacturers are deeply disturbed over the news. Explained one PR flack at Eastern Analog, "We depend on Microsoft to continually produce bloated software that becomes larger and larger with each passing day. We can't sell huge 100GB drives if Microsoft Windows only occupies a measly 8 gigs! They will never buy a new drive if Microsoft doesn't force them!" | |
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!" | |
Jon Splatz's Movie Review: "Lord of the Pings" I've never walked out on a movie before. When I pay $9.50 to see a movie (plus $16.50 for snacks), I'm going to sit through every single minute no matter how awful. The resolve to get my money's worth allowed me to watch Jar Jar Binks without even flinching last year. But I couldn't make it through "Lord of the Pings". This movie contains a scene that is so appalling, so despicable, so vile, so terrible, so crappy, and so gut-wrenching that I simply had to get up, run out of the theater, and puke in the nearest restroom. It was just that bad. The whole thing is completely ruined by a scene that takes place only 52 seconds into the flick. Brace yourself: big letters appear on screen that say "An AOL/Time Warner Production". ... Because this film is brought to you by the letters A-O-L-T-W, I must give it an F-minus even though I've only seen 53 seconds of it. | |
NEW YORK -- Publishers from all across the country met this week at the first annual Book Publishers Assocation of America (BPAA) meeting. Many of the booths on the showroom floor were devoted to the single most important issue facing the publishing industry: fighting copyright violations. From "End Reader License Agreements" to age-decaying ink, the anti-copying market has exploded into a multi-million dollar enterprise. "How can authors and publishers hope to make ends meet when the country is rapidly filling with evil libraries that distribute our products for free to the general public?" asked the chairman of the BPAA during his keynote address. "That blasted Andrew Carnegie is spending all kinds of his own ill-gotten money to open libraries in cities nationwide. He calls it charity. I call it anti-competitive business practices hoping to bankrupt the entire publishing industry. We must fight these anti-profit, pro-copying librarians and put an end to this scourge!" -- from the February 4, 1895 edition of the New York Democrat-Republican | |
Mass Exodus From Hollywood During the past week, over 150 Hollywood actors, musicians, writers, directors, and key grips have quit their day jobs and moved to the Midwest to engage in quieter occupations such as gardening or accounting. All of the these people cite piracy as the reason for giving up their careers. "I simply can't sit by and let my hard work be stolen by some snot nosed punk over the Internet," explained millionaire movie director Steve Bergospiel. "There's absolutely no incentive to create movies if they're going to be transmitted at the speed of light by thousands of infringers. Such criminal acts personally cost me hundreds -- no, thousands -- of dollars. I can't take that kind of fear and abuse anymore." MPAA President Pei Pervue considers the exodus to be proof that Hollywood is waking up to the fact that they are being "held hostage" by copyright infringers. "Without copyright protection and government-backed monopolies on intellectual property, these's absolutely no reason to engage in the creative process. Now the Internet, with its click-and-pirate technology, makes it easy for anybody to flout the law and become a copyright terrorist. With the scales tipped so much in favor of criminals, it's no wonder some of Hollywood's elite have thrown in the towel. What a shame." | |
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul. -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces" | |
A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create destruction and chaos - just to gain his point... and if all this could in turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man would deliberately go mad to prove his point. -- Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground" | |
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery | |
Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
Advice is a dangerous gift; be cautious about giving and receiving it. | |
After all, it is only the mediocre who are always at their best. -- Jean Giraudoux | |
All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. | |
All we know is the phenomenon: we spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives." -- Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell" | |
An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his usual pledge to the United Way Campaign. "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but I've already paid them half of it." "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!" | |
An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha." -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
And on the eighth day, we bulldozed it. | |
"And, you know, I mustn't preach to you, but surely it wouldn't be right for you to take away people's pleasure of studying your attire, by just going and making yourself like everybody else. You feel that, don't you?" said he, earnestly. -- William Morris, "Notes from Nowhere" | |
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know how to lie well. -- Samuel Butler | |
"Anyone can say 'no'. It is the first word a child learns and often the first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of thought on every occasion." -- Chuck Jones (Warner Bros. animation director.) | |
"Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution" | |
As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly useful and interesting, I just had to share it. Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" 1. I salivate at the sight of mittens. 2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse. 3. Some people never look at me. 4. Spinach makes me feel alone. 5. My sex life is A-okay. 6. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. 7. I like to kill mosquitoes. 8. Cousins are not to be trusted. 9. It makes me embarrassed to fall down. 10. I get nauseous from too much roller skating. 11. I think most people would cry to gain a point. 12. I cannot read or write. 13. I am bored by thoughts of death. 14. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me. 15. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker. 16. I am never startled by a fish. 17. My mother's uncle was a good man. 18. I don't like it when somebody is rotten. 19. People who break the law are wise guys. 20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. | |
As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly useful and interesting, I just had to share it. Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" 1. I think beavers work too hard. 2. I use shoe polish to excess. 3. God is love. 4. I like mannish children. 5. I have always been diturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears. 6. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools. 7. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye. 8. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs. 9. I believe I smell as good as most people. 10. Frantic screams make me nervous. 11. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room full of mice. 12. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis. 13. A wide necktie is a sign of disease. 14. As a child I was deprived of licorice. 15. I would never shake hands with a gardener. 16. My eyes are always cold. 17. Cousins are not to be trusted. 18. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. 19. I am never startled by a fish. 20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. | |
Back when I was a boy, it was 40 miles to everywhere, uphill both ways and it was always snowing. | |
Be careful what you set your heart on -- for it will surely be yours. -- James Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name" | |
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" | |
Blessed are they that have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it. -- James Russell Lowell | |
Blessed is he who has reached the point of no return and knows it, for he shall enjoy living. -- W.C. Bennett | |
But I find the old notions somehow appealing. Not that I want to go back to them -- it is outrageous to have some outer authority tell you what is proper use and abuse of your own faculties, and it is ludicrous to hold reason higher than body or feeling. Still there is something true and profoundly sane about the belief that acts like murder or theft or assault violate the doer as well as the done to. We might even, if we thought this way, have less crime. The popular view of crime, as far as I can deduce it from the movies and television, is that it is a breaking of a rule by someone who thinks they can get away with that; implicitly, everyone would like to break the rule, but not everyone is arrogant enough to imagine they can get away with it. It therefore becomes very important for the rule upholders to bring such arrogance down. -- Marilyn French, "The Woman's Room" | |
But Officer, I stopped for the last one, and it was green! | |
Can you buy friendship? You not only can, you must. It's the only way to obtain friends. Everything worthwhile has a price. -- Robert J. Ringer | |
Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, But it's very funny -- did you ever try buying them without money? -- Ogden Nash | |
Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. -- Josh Billings | |
Creativity in living is not without its attendant difficulties, for peculiarity breeds contempt. And the unfortunate thing about being ahead of your time when people finally realize you were right, they'll say it was obvious all along. -- Alan Ashley-Pitt | |
Distance doesn't make you any smaller, but it does make you part of a larger picture. | |
Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes. -- Donald Kaul | |
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 | |
Don't be overly suspicious where it's not warranted. | |
Don't expect people to keep in step--it's hard enough just staying in line. | |
Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier. | |
Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted. -- Miguel de Cervantes | |
Don't try to have the last word -- you might get it. -- Lazarus Long | |
Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts avoiding you. -- The Old Farmer's Almanac | |
Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water. "Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic." He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself again. "As I thought," he said, "no better from *____this* side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is. -- A.A. Milne, "Winnie the Pooh," Chapter VI, "In Which Eeyore Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents" | |
Everthing is farther away than it used to be. It is even twice as far to the corner and they have added a hill. I have given up running for the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to. It seems to me they are making the stairs steeper than in the old days. And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers? There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everbody speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them. The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one's shoelaces. And the sizes don't run the way they used to. The 12's and 14's are so much smaller. Even people are changing. They are so much younger than they used to be when I was their age. On the other hand people my age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much that she didn't recognize me. I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning and in so doing I glanced at my own reflection. Really now, they don't even make good mirrors like they used to. Sandy Frazier, "I Have Noticed" | |
Every man is apt to form his notions of things difficult to be apprehended, or less familiar, from their analogy to things which are more familiar. Thus, if a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other subject; it is well known, that the language and the notions proper to his own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured by the rules of navigation: and if he should take it into his head to philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted, but he would draw his notions from the fabric of the ship, and would find in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass. -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 | |
Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to realize it. | |
Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____does anything about it. | |
Everyone wants results, but no one is willing to do what it takes to get them. -- Dirty Harry | |
Everyone was born right-handed. Only the greatest overcome it. | |
Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. -- H.L. Mencken | |
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. -- Albert Schweitzer | |
Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. -- W. Somerset Maugham | |
Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what is wrong with it. | |
Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. -- Aldous Huxley | |
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- Franklin P. Jones | |
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -- Oscar Wilde | |
Fess: Well, you must admit there is something innately humorous about a man chasing an invention of his own halfway across the galaxy. Rod: Oh yeah, it's a million yuks, sure. But after all, isn't that the basic difference between robots and humans? Fess: What, the ability to form imaginary constructs? Rod: No, the ability to get hung up on them. -- Christopher Stasheff, "The Warlock in Spite of Himself" | |
For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. | |
For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble: and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust. -- Sir Thomas More | |
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #6 "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" It's nothing, honey. Go back to sleep. | |
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. | |
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. | |
Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well as destroy the object on which it is poured. | |
He laughs at every joke three times... once when it's told, once when it's explained, and once when he understands it. | |
Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect. -- J. Austen | |
Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. -- Francis Bacon | |
How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule? -- A. Cooper | |
Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. -- Tom Robbins | |
I allow the world to live as it chooses, and I allow myself to live as I choose. | |
I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never any good to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde, "An Ideal Husband" | |
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. -- Winston Churchill | |
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. -- G.K. Chesterton | |
I can give you my word, but I know what it's worth and you don't. -- Nero Wolfe, "Over My Dead Body" | |
I can't seem to bring myself to say, "Well, I guess I'll be toddling along." It isn't that I can't toddle. It's that I can't guess I'll toddle. -- Robert Benchley | |
I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it. -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. | |
"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it." | |
I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that nature with which I am acquainted. Mythology comes nearest to it of any. -- Henry David Thoreau | |
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all." -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me. -- Richard Powers | |
I don't remember it, but I have it written down. | |
I either want less decadence or more chance to participate in it. | |
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West | |
I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it. -- Edgar Allan Poe | |
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery | |
I love mankind ... It's people I hate. -- Schulz | |
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present". When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | |
I never killed a man that didn't deserve it. -- Mickey Cohen | |
I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -- William F. Buckley | |
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. -- William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic" | |
I waited and waited and when no message came I knew it must be from you. | |
I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it. -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne | |
I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd listen to it! -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire | |
I'm so miserable without you, it's almost like you're here. | |
I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself. | |
If a man has talent and cannot use it, he has failed. -- Thomas Wolfe | |
If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport. -- George Winters | |
If he should ever change his faith, it'll be because he no longer thinks he's God. | |
If I'm over the hill, why is it I don't recall ever being on top? -- Jerry Muscha | |
If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it. -- Edward A. Murphy Jr. | |
If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it? -- Ann Edwards-Duff | |
If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? | |
If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else. -- Carlyle | |
If you don't do it, you'll never know what would have happened if you had done it. | |
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge | |
If you flaunt it, expect to have it trashed. | |
If you go out of your mind, do it quietly, so as not to disturb those around you. | |
If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it. -- William Orton | |
If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and fire them all off, wouldn't you? -- Garrison Keillor | |
If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break. -- Schmidt | |
If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it. -- Arthur Kasspe | |
If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you lack sufficient imagination. | |
If you try to please everyone, somebody is not going to like it. | |
If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely. | |
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. -- Oscar Wilde | |
Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing -- it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up. -- Bernard Cooke | |
It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being. -- Benjamin Disraeli | |
It does not matter if you fall down as long as you pick up something from the floor while you get up. | |
It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say you've done and what you're going to do. | |
It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. -- Bertrand Russell | |
It is all right to hold a conversation, but you should let go of it now and then. -- Richard Armour | |
It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. -- Jerome K. Jerome | |
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. | |
It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it. -- Henry Allen | |
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. | |
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. -- George Santayana | |
It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. -- Aeschylus | |
It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who is there, but speed him when he wishes. -- Homer, "The Odyssey" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to scheduling.] | |
It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a proper judge of it. -- Oscar Wilde | |
It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. -- Miss Manners | |
It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" | |
It is impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised. | |
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. | |
It is indeed desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. -- Plutarch | |
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. -- Benjamin Disraeli | |
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. -- Rene Descartes | |
It is not enough to have great qualities, we should also have the management of them. -- La Rochefoucauld | |
It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. -- Proverbs 19:2 | |
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. -- Grace Murray Hopper | |
It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it. -- Cervantes | |
It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their dignity. | |
It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great. -- Havelock Ellis | |
It is the business of little minds to shrink. -- Carl Sandburg | |
It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs. -- Francis Bacon | |
It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. -- Francis Bacon | |
It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. | |
It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether II win or lose. -- Darrin Weinberg | |
It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too good either if you speak when your head is empty. | |
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. | |
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. | |
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" | |
It seems to make an auto driver mad if he misses you. | |
It takes a special kind of courage to face what we all have to face. | |
It takes all kinds to fill the freeways. -- Crazy Charlie | |
It takes both a weapon, and two people, to commit a murder. | |
It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong. -- H.W. Longfellow | |
It takes two to tell the truth: one to speak and one to hear. | |
It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant examples. -- Charles Dickens | |
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything. | |
It's amazing how many people you could be friends with if only they'd make the first approach. | |
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. | |
It's amazing how nice people are to you when they know you're going away. -- Michael Arlen | |
It's bad enough that life is a rat-race, but why do the rats always have to win? | |
It's better to be quotable than to be honest. -- Tom Stoppard | |
It's better to be wanted for murder that not to be wanted at all. -- Marty Winch | |
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. | |
It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being right. | |
It's hard not to like a man of many qualities, even if most of them are bad. | |
It's hard to be humble when you're perfect. | |
It's hard to keep your shirt on when you're getting something off your chest. | |
It's interesting to think that many quite distinguished people have bodies similar to yours. | |
It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess. -- Roger Noe | |
It's reassuring to know that if you behave strangely enough, society will take full responsibility for you. | |
It's sweet to be remembered, but it's often cheaper to be forgotten. | |
Keep your mouth shut and people will think you stupid; Open it and you remove all doubt. | |
Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them. -- James Thurber | |
Let's do it. -- Gary Gilmore, to his firing squad | |
Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others. | |
"Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it weren't for other people" -- Blore | |
Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their religions. -- Benjamin Spock | |
Man has made his bedlam; let him lie in it. -- Fred Allen | |
Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy. -- Albert Einstein | |
Many receive advice, few profit by it. -- Publilius Syrus | |
Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit... -- Hippocrates "The Sacred Disease" | |
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly at the right moment. -- Horace | |
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say. And then say it with the utmost levity. -- G.B. Shaw | |
My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs. -- Woody Allen, on Epistemology | |
Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will never believe you anyway. -- Elbert Hubbard | |
Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient. | |
No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. -- E.W. Howe | |
No matter what happens, there is always someone who knew it would. | |
No one so thoroughly appreciates the value of constructive criticism as the one who's giving it. -- Hal Chadwick | |
Nobody is one block of harmony. We are all afraid of something, or feel limited in something. We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked to each other--not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We shouldn't be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable too. It's so much easier to be together when we drop our masks. -- Liv Ullman | |
Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with constructive praise. | |
Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is. -- Gaius Valerius Catullus | |
One family builds a wall, two families enjoy it. | |
One man tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true. | |
One of the large consolations for experiencing anything unpleasant is the knowledge that one can communicate it. -- Joyce Carol Oates | |
One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
Others can stop you temporarily, only you can do it permanently. | |
Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. -- D.J. Hicks | |
Pelorat sighed. "I will never understand people." "There's nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. How would Seldon have worked out his Plan -- and I don't care how subtle his mathematics was -- if he didn't understand people; and how could he have done that if people weren't easy to understand? You show me someone who can't understand people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself -- no offense intended." -- Asimov, "Foundation's Edge" | |
People don't usually make the same mistake twice -- they make it three times, four time, five times... | |
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future. | |
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it. -- Ogden Nash | |
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first. | |
Please don't recommend me to your friends-- it's difficult enough to cope with you alone. | |
"Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." "He was going to suck my blood!" "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way." ... "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." "When you look at it that way..." "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do." -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" | |
Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps out of the teeth. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm" | |
She often gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it). -- Lewis Carroll | |
So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good: so far as we do evil or good, we are human: and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least we exist. -- T.S. Eliot, essay on Baudelaire | |
Some people around here wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. | |
Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only one life to live, let me live it as a jerk." | |
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" | |
Something better... 13 (sympathetic): Oh, What happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God? 14 (complimentary): You must love the little birdies to give them this to perch on. 15 (scientific): Say, does that thing there influence the tides? 16 (obscure): Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone. 17 (inquiry): When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid? 18 (french): Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you leave. 19 (pornographic): Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once. 20 (religious): The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He. 21 (disgusting): Say, who mows your nose hair? 22 (paranoid): Keep that guy away from my cocaine! 23 (aromatic): It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the coffee ... in Brazil. 24 (appreciative): Oooo, how original. Most people just have their teeth capped. 25 (dirty): Your name wouldn't be Dick, would it? -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne" | |
Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. -- W.C. Fields | |
Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out? | |
Style may not be the answer, but at least it's a workable alternative. | |
Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood. | |
Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. -- T.S. Eliot, "The Family Reunion" | |
Such a fine first dream! But they laughed at me; they said I had made it up. | |
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure. | |
Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting a falsehood, isn't it? -- A. Hope | |
That must be wonderful: I don't understand it at all. -- Moliere | |
That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee. | |
The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal. -- Dr. Karl Menninger, "The Human Mind", 1930 | |
The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. | |
The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred. | |
The brotherhood of man is not a mere poet's dream; it is a most depressing and humiliating reality. -- Oscar Wilde | |
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
The forest is safe because a lion lives therein and the lion is safe because it lives in a forest. Likewise the friendship of persons rests on mutual help. -- Laukikanyay. | |
The Golden Rule is of no use to you whatever unless you realize it is your move. -- Frank Crane | |
The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb of innocence. To yield to its blandishments is so easy. The wrong, it seems, is venial... Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of adventurous youth. -- Benjamin Cardozo | |
The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. -- P. Medawar | |
The human race never solves any of its problems. It merely outlives them. -- David Gerrold | |
The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. -- Quintus Ennius | |
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" | |
The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same being who produces the impressions. -- Marquis D.A.F. de Sade | |
The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it. | |
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde | |
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. -- Oscar Wilde | |
The perfect friend sees the best in you -- sees it constantly -- not just when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more like his vision of you -- which is the person you have always wanted to be. -- Nancy Friday | |
The three questions of greatest concern are -- 1. Is it attractive? 2. Is it amusing? 3. Does it know its place? -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" | |
The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one. -- Sid Caesar | |
The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized -- and never knowing. -- David Viscott | |
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day. -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
There is no delight the equal of dread. As long as it is somebody else's. --Clive Barker | |
There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. | |
There's no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. | |
Therefore it is necessary to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the cause. -- Machiavelli | |
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- George Santayana | |
To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am always right. | |
To criticize the incompetent is easy; it is more difficult to criticize the competent. | |
Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life." Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it." | |
Violence stinks, no matter which end of it you're on. But now and then there's nothing left to do but hit the other person over the head with a frying pan. Sometimes people are just begging for that frypan, and if we weaken for a moment and honor their request, we should regard it as impulsive philanthropy, which we aren't in any position to afford, but shouldn't regret it too loudly lest we spoil the purity of the deed. -- Tom Robbins | |
Virtue does not always demand a heavy sacrifice -- only the willingness to make it when necessary. -- Frederick Dunn | |
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. -- Confucius | |
Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company. -- La Rochefoucauld | |
We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. -- Whole Earth Catalog | |
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. -- La Rochefoucauld | |
We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones. -- La Rouchefoucauld | |
We prefer to believe that the absence of inverted commas guarantees the originality of a thought, whereas it may be merely that the utterer has forgotten its source. -- Clifton Fadiman, "Any Number Can Play" | |
We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us. | |
We thrive on euphemism. We call multi-megaton bombs "Peace-keepers", closet size apartments "efficient" and incomprehensible artworks "innovative". In fact, "euphemism" has become a euphemism for "bald-faced lie". And now, here are the euphemisms so colorfully employed in Personal Ads: EUPHEMISM REALITY ------------------- ------------------------- Excited about life's journey No concept of reality Spiritually evolved Oversensitive Moody Manic-depressive Soulful Quiet manic-depressive Poet Boring manic-depressive Sultry/Sensual Easy Uninhibited Lacking basic social skills Unaffected and earthy Slob and lacking basic social skills Irreverent Nasty and lacking basic social skills Very human Quasimodo's best friend Swarthy Sweaty even when cold or standing still Spontaneous/Eclectic Scatterbrained Flexible Desperate Aging child Self-centered adult Youthful Over 40 and trying to deny it Good sense of humor Watches a lot of television | |
Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide a grin. -- F.M. Colby, "Imaginary Obligations" | |
What do I consider a reasonable person to be? I'd say a reasonable person is one who accepts that we are all human and therefore fallible, and takes that into account when dealing with others. Implicit in this definition is the belief that it is the right and the responsibility of each person to live his or her own life as he or she sees fit, to respect this right in others, and to demand the assumption of this responsibility by others. | |
What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry? -- Ashleigh Brilliant | |
What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely, all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice and they remain permanent influences on your life. Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy". -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men" | |
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature. -- Voltaire | |
What you see is from outside yourself, and may come, or not, but is beyond your control. But your fear is yours, and yours alone, like your voice, or your fingers, or your memory, and therefore yours to control. If you feel powerless over your fear, you have not yet admitted that it is yours, to do with as you will. -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "Stormqueen" | |
What, after all, is a halo? It's only one more thing to keep clean. -- Christopher Fry | |
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. -- Samuel Johnson | |
When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promises. -- Franklin Adams | |
When in doubt, do it. It's much easier to apologize than to get permission. -- Grace Murray Hopper | |
When it comes to helping you, some people stop at nothing. | |
When you speak to others for their own good it's advice; when they speak to you for your own good it's interference. | |
WHENEVER ANYBODY SAYS he's struggling to become a human being I have to laugh because the apes beat him to it by about a million years. Struggle to become a parrot or something. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
Whenever someone tells you to take their advice, you can be pretty sure that they're not using it. | |
... whether it is better to spend a life not knowing what you want or to spend a life knowing exactly what you want and that you will never have it. -- Richard Shelton | |
While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very reassuring to know that it's still there. | |
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to avoid responsibility with? | |
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. | |
Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair -- It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. | |
Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
You are not a fool just because you have done something foolish -- only if the folly of it escapes you. | |
You can bear anything if it isn't your own fault. -- Katharine Fullerton Gerould | |
You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too. -- Ayn Rand | |
You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency. -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle" | |
"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't." -- Dagwood Bumstead | |
You give me space to belong to myself yet without separating me from your own life. May it all turn out to your happiness. -- Goethe | |
You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but not how to use it. -- Maharbal | |
You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes you wore home from the party and there aren't any. | |
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 | |
You know it's Monday when you wake up and it's Tuesday. -- Garfield | |
You know you're in trouble when... (1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind her own business. (2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better. (3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold. (4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office. (5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles. (6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to flush a grapefruit down the toilet. (7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box. | |
You know your apartment is small... when you can't know its position and velocity at the same time. you put your key in the lock and it breaks the window. you have to go outside to change your mind. you can vacuum the entire place using a single electrical outlet. | |
You never learn anything by doing it right. | |
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -- George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" [No, it wasn't J.F. Kennedy. Ed.] | |
You shouldn't wallow in self-pity. But it's OK to put your feet in it and swish them around a little. -- Guindon | |
Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things, abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and management of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not how they innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to compound employments of both ... because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both. -- Francis Bacon, "Essay on Youth and Age" | |
Your Co-worker Could Be a Space Alien, Say Experts ...Here's How You Can Tell Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human -- but you can spot these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say experts. They listed 10 signs to watch for: (3) Bizarre sense of humor. Space aliens who don't understand earthly humor may laugh during a company training film or tell jokes that no one understands, said Steiger. (6) Misuses everyday items. "A space alien may use correction fluid to paint its nails," said Steiger. (8) Secretive about personal life-style and home. "An alien won't discuss details or talk about what it does at night or on weekends." (10) Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near certain high-tech hardware. "An alien may experience a mood change when a microwave oven is turned on," said Steiger. The experts pointed out that a co-worker would have to display most if not all of these traits before you can positively identify him as a space alien. -- National Enquirer, Michael Cassels, August, 1984. [I thought everybody laughed at company training films. Ed.] | |
Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you from enjoying it. | |
Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long you are young. -- Samuel Ullman | |
I am myself plus my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I cannot save myself. -- Jos'e Ortega Y Gasset | |
He liked fishing a little too much, and he believed that work was something a man did when he had to. He had always been able to get along well enough without it, especially for the last couple of years. -- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock | |
Some days you wake and immediately start worrying. Nothing in particular is wrong, it's just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble. -- "Survival Series", Jenny Holzer | |
When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else. -- Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace" | |
"Linux doesn't support any sub-32-bit computers, and despite the occasional deranged people interested in retro-computing (ie Alan Cox) I doubt it seriously will.." - Linus Torvalds | |
"I've just come to this group and I don't know what it's all about. I just feel it must be something really serious. Is it really ?" - H. J. Thomas on linux-activists | |
"If we can't keep this sort of thing out of the kernel, we might as well pack it up and go run Solaris." - Larry McVoy | |
"Jamie, you know how inappropriate it is to introduce facts in a discussion about ReiserFS, please refrain from that in the future." - Jes Sorenson "Sorry, I will use [OFFTOPIC] for facts in future ;-)" - Jamie Lokier | |
"Message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation. It may feel good, but you don't actually get anything DONE." - Linus Torvalds | |
"Think of it this way: threads are like salt, not like pasta. You like salt, I like salt, we all like salt. But we eat more pasta." - Larry McVoy | |
"THIS time it really is fixed. I mean, how many times can we get it wrong? At some point, we just have to run out of really bad ideas.." - Linus Torvalds" | |
"Thanks, and THIS time it really is fixed. I mean, how many times can we get it wrong? At some point, we just have to run out of really bad ideas.." - Linus Torvalds | |
"I'd rather not work with people who aren't careful. It's darwinism in software development. It's a cold, callous argument that says that there are two kinds of people, and I'd rather not work with the second kind. Live with it." - Linus Torvalds | |
"The debugger is akin to giving the _rabbits_ a bazooka. The poor wolf doesn't get any sharper teeth. Yeah, it sure helps against wolves. They explode in pretty patterns of red drops flying _everywhere_. Cool. But it doesn't help against a rabbit gene pool that is slowly deteriorating because there is nothing to keep them from breeding, and no darwin to make sure that it's the fastest and strongest that breeds. You mentioned how NT has the nicest debugger out there. Contemplate it." - Linus Torvalds | |
"The lymbic system in my brain is so electrically active, it qualifies as a third brain. Normal humans have two brains, left and right. - Jeff Merkey | |
"Yeah. Maybe we fixed truncate, and maybe we didn't. I've thought that we fixed it now several times, and I was always wrong. Time for some reverse psychology: I'm sure this one doesn't fix the truncate bug either. - Linus Torvalds | |
"I'm a bastard, and proud of it !" - Linus Torvalds | |
"I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work if it just results in what I consider to be a better system." - Linus Torvalds | |
"I admit I've done too much playing around without understanding the issues involved over the last years as well, but it's time to stop reinventing the (sometimes octangular) wheel and learn everything from history which we can learn." - Rik van Riel | |
"I think it's wrong any of us should claim ideas for stuff that has been done already by other people. It's time to put away the wheel reinvention kit and LEARN FROM OTHER SYSTEMS and even from *shudder* books ;)" - Rik van Riel | |
"The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants." - Richard B. Johnson | |
"This, btw, is not something I would suggest you do in your living room. Getting a penguin to pee on demand is _messy_. We're talking yellow spots on the walls, on the ceiling, yea verily even behind the fridge. However. I would also advice against doing this outside - it may be a lot easier to clean up, but you're likely to get reported and arrested for public lewdness Never mind that you had a perfectly good explanation for it all." - Linus Torvalds on sprinkling holy penguin pee | |
"No bugs were harmed in the preparation of this patch. It's just me fartarsing around." - Andrew Morton | |
"... and don't ask me about the extraneous parenthesis. I bet some LISP programmer felt alone and decided to make it a bit more homey." - Linus Torvalds | |
"It's just that I was born with a highly developed case of Altzheimers, and I have trouble keeping details around in my head for more than about five minutes." - Linus Torvalds on bug tracking | |
Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote: > > Running with page aging convinces me that 2.2.19 we need to sort some > of the vm issues out badly, and make it faster than 2.4test 8) Ahh.. The challenge is out! You and me. Mano a mano. Linus | |
> Is there anything else I can contribute? The latitude and longtitude of the bios writers current position, and a ballistic missile. Please boot 2.2.18pre24 (not pre25) on the machine and send me its DMI strings printed at boot time. I'll add it to the 'stupid morons who cant program and wouldnt know QA if it hit them on the head with a mallet' list - Alan Cox on BIOS bugs | |
"I'll bet you $5 USD (and these days, that's about a gadzillion Euros) that this explains it." - Linus | |
> around line mm/vmscan.c:487 that says: Yeah, yeah, it's 7PM Christmas Eve over there, and you're in the middle of your Christmas dinner. You might feel that it's unreasonable of me to ask you to test out my latest crazy idea. How selfish of you. Get back there in front of the computer NOW. Christmas can wait. Linus "the Grinch" Torvalds | |
"Oh, well. Not everybody can be as goodlooking as me. It's a curse." - Linus Torvalds | |
"And I have to say that I absolutely despise the BSD people. They did sendfile() after both Linux and HP-UX had done it, and they must have known about both implementations. And they chose the HP-UX braindamage, and even brag about the fact that they were stupid and didn't understand TCP_CORK (they don't say so in those exact words, of course - they just show that they were stupid and clueless by the things they brag about)." - Linus Torvalds | |
"> I am using the Intel PCI backplane with default etchlink/jumper > configuration and the EBSA285 configured as host bridge. I'd suggest that you check, double check, triple check, take a photo of the links and put it up on the web and get someone else to check all the link settings on the EBSA285 card." - Russell King on linux-arm-kernel | |
"I hold open source people to higher standards. They are supposed to be the people who do programming because it's an art-form, not because it's their job." - Linus Torvalds | |
"Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, THEN, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver." - Linus Torvalds | |
"And no, the driver is not a virus nor a trojan nor does it have any intelligence to suddenly decide to write things when it isn't asked to..." - Anton Altaparmakov on the NTFS driver | |
"Wichert> Why would anyone want to do this? Probably because it's a completely stupid idea that serves no purpose whatsoever." - Jes Sorenson on moving copyright headers to footers | |
Unix has this thing called "directories", which make it possible for you to have multiple files with the same name on your disk. - Rik van Riel explaining the concept of directories | |
Alan Cox wrote: > RFC1122 also requires that your protocol stack SHOULD be able to leap tall > buldings at a single bound of course... And, of course my protocol stack does :) It is also a floor wax, AND a dessert topping!-) - Rick Jones trying to sell his protocol stack | |
<matton> it might be broken? <al> matton: sigh... all software sucks, but usually there are symptomes beyond "it doesn't work" - Al Viro on #kernelnewbies | |
Alan Cox wrote: > In theory however i2o is a standard and all i2o works alike. In practice i2o > is a pseudo standard and nobody seems to interpret the spec the same way, the > implementations all tend to have bugs and the hardware sometimes does too. That's a pretty good description of standards in general, at least when it comes to hardware :-) - Jens Axboe's interpretation of standards | |
/* Allow the packet buffer size to be overridden by know-it-alls. */ - comment from drivers/net/ne.c | |
David Brownell wrote: > AMD told me I'd need an NDA to learn their workaround, and I've not > pursued it. (Does anyone already know what kind of NDA they use?) It varies depending on the info. They may well be able to sort out a sane NDA with you. If they dont want to then I guess it would be best if the ohci driver printing a message explaining the component has an undocumented errata fix, gave AMD's phone number and refused to load.. - Alan Cox | |
"The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants." - Richard B. Johnson on linux-kernel | |
Richard B. Johnson wrote: > The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants. You are an idiot. - Rusty Russell on linux-kernel | |
I will pop a nasty patch to get you through the almost death, but it is nasty and not the preferred unknow solution. - Andre Hedrik on linux-kernel | |
Steve Underwood wrote: > Dave Miller wrote: > > alterity wrote: > > > Haven't seen a post for sometime from the usually prolific Mr Cox. > > > What's the gossip? > > > > They needed some help from him to position Mir for it's > > final descent. > > Strange. I thought his key skill was stopping things from crashing! This crash was inevitable, he's just making sure the disks get sync'd. - Dave Miller on linux-kernel | |
I have a simple rule in life: If I don't understand something, it must be bad. - Linus Torvalds | |
The policy is not to have policy. It works as well in kernel design as politics. - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
This is probably the first and last time I will openly agree for someone to tell me were to go, and do it ;-). - Andre Hedrick on linux-kernel | |
David Wagner wrote: > Is this a bad coding? Yes. Not to mention side effects, it's just plain ugly. Anyone who invents identifiers of _that_ level of ugliness should be forced to read them aloud for a week or so, until somebody will shoot him out of mercy. Out of curiosity: who was the author? It looks unusually nasty, even for SGI. - Al Viro on coding style | |
Do one thing and do it well. - Andrew Grover, ACPI maintainer on Linux-power. | |
ACPI - it's too late to improve it - it's the standard - Andrew Grover, ACPI maintainer on Linux-power. | |
You don't get out much, do you :-)? Lighten up a little, this is supposed to be fun.......We could argue all day, but there was lots of computer work done before PCI and PCs. I'm more than old enough to know, so just leave it at that....... - Dan Malek on the linuxppc-embedded list | |
The thing looks obvious, but I'd rather not apply it to my tree until somebody sends me the above back as a tested patch.. Call me a sissy. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
The executive, Irving Wladawsky- Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said, "If we thought this was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you know, we have a lot of lawyers." - from a New York Times article about Microsoft vs GPL licensing | |
You can extend EXTRAVERSION infinitely, but after the first 10 or so characters, it starts to get silly. - Russell King on linux-kernel | |
Richard B. Johnson wrote: > It's a "tomorrow" thing. Ten hours it too long to stare at a > screen. Sissy! - Jens Axboe on linux-kernel | |
Oh, I believe they do..........but, I haven't been wrong lately, so maybe it's my turn again :-). - Dan Malek on linuxppc-embedded | |
Were they afraid that "e" being the most widely used letter in the English language was going to war out thir xpnsiv kyboards if thy usd it all th tim? - Mike A. Harris on linux-kernel | |
It should be a case of "Just plug in a new kernel, and suddenly your existing filesystem just allows you to do more! 20% more for the same price! AND we'll throw in this useful ginzu knife for just 4.95 for shipping and handling. Absolutely free!" - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
Linus Torvalds wrote: > It should be a case of "Just plug in a new kernel, and suddenly your > existing filesystem just allows you to do more! 20% more for the same > price! AND we'll throw in this useful ginzu knife for just 4.95 for > shipping and handling. Absolutely free!" ...Linus demonstrates why American culture is a bad influence on you. - Jeff Garzik on linux-kernel | |
It's a mistake to think that a directory has to be a directory. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
(at this point the lecture turns into why APIs exist and should be used, and it gets more boring from there...) - Jeff Garzik explaining the PCI API on linux-kernel | |
It should be fixed, but it won't be easy and it won't be fast. If you want to help - wonderful. But keep in mind that it will take months of wading through the ugliest code we have in the tree. If you've got a weak stomach - stay out. I've been there and it's not a nice place. - Al Viro on fixing drivers | |
Linus Torvalds wrote: > Ehh.. Telling people "don't do that" simply doesn't work. Not if they can > do it easily anyway. Things really don't get fixed unless people have a > certain pain-level to induce it to get fixed. Umm... How about the following: you hit delete on patches that introduce new ioctls, I help to provide required level of pain. Deal? - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
<ed__> riel: if it were a vax, gcc would probably be an opcode - excerpt from #kernelnewbies | |
It has always been the policy that format conversions go in user space. The kernel is an arbitrator of resources it is not a shit bucket for solving other peoples incompetence. - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
<phillips> as a perl god, just tell me how to find any string with kernel-doc on it <phillips> I'll trade for some heavyduty vfs consulting one day ;-) - Daniel Phillips on #kernelnewbies | |
<JALH> lxrbot, whereis olaf? <lxrbot> olaf is Not used * JALH runs <Russ|werk> JALH: why <Russ|werk> its not like you did something like this: <Russ|werk> lxrbot, whereis lubrication <lxrbot> lubrication is Not used <JALH> muwhaha <Russ|werk> then...it would be time to run - abusing lxrbot on #kernelnewbies | |
Drivers are a more complex issue. I'm not opposed to binary only drivers, providing its easy to tell they are there and dump all bug reports about them. Freedom generally includes the right to give up freedom. I'll tell people its a bad idea but once they get caught, well it was their right to do so... - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules, it's THEIR problem. I want people to know that in their bones, and I want it shouted out from the rooftops. I want people to wake up in a cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
There seems to be a bug in the mail routing again. It may be related to the recent problem with ditto copier history outbreaks on Linux S/390 and the infamous 'pdp-11 memory subsystem' article routing bug that plagued comp.os.minix once. In the meantime can people check that their mailer hasnt spontaneously added linux-kernel to their history articles before posting them ? - Alan Cox about off topic cross posting on lkml | |
Microsoft is like a mountain with their installed base. Like it or not, no matter how loud the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it. - Jeff Merkey on linux-advoca^Wkernel | |
The fact that it takes more code to parse and interpret ACPI than it does to route traffic on the internet backbones should be a hint something is badly wrong either in ACPI the spec, ACPI the implenentation or both. - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
If you really want to know where you stand, it'll cost you around $15K and that, in my opinion, is fine. If it isn't worth $15K to protect your code then it is worth so little to you that there really is no good reason not to just GPL it from the start. - Larry McVoy on GPL licensing issues | |
Would you like to code up this, test it and send it to me? Btw, good debugging! Linus "lazy is my middle name" Torvalds | |
Let me explain it to you slowly: Disks. Write. One. Write. At. A. Time. - Rik van Riel on linux-kernel | |
It's not broken, you silly boy. - Linus Torvalds offending people on the gcc mailing list | |
James Simmons wrote: > Crap can work. Given enough thrust pigs will fly, but it's not necessary a > good idea. [ Alexander Viro on linux-kernel ] Watch the attributions. With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead. From RFC1925, R Callon, 1996. - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
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 | |
Most EULA's are not legal contracts. In civilised countries the right to disassemble is enshrined in law (ironically it comes in Europe from trying to keep car manufacturers from running monopolistic scams not from the software people doing the same) In the USA its a lot less clear. You can find laws explicitly claiming both, and since US law is primarily about who has loads of money, its a bit irrelevant - Alan Cox explaining EULA's on linux-kernel | |
When devfs went into the tree, the word was "at least it will make people look at the code". Well, it did. Veni, vidi, vomere. - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
> valerie kernel: mtrr: your CPUs had inconsistent variable MTRR settings > valerie kernel: mtrr: probably your BIOS does not setup all CPUs It indicates your bios authors can't read standards. Thats a quite normal state of affairs, so common that the kernel cleans up after them - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
<Russ> I think the linux 2.4 VM is broken...it says, "warning, your memory is not optimized, click here to get memturbo". Is riel aware of this problem? - Russ Dill on #kernelnewbies | |
Re-sending is always the right thing to do. Sometimes it takes a few times, and you can add a small exasperated message at the top by the third time ("Don't you love me any more?"). - Linus Torvalds about sending patches to him | |
Also, I've been getting a _lot_ of patches, and if yours didn't show up it's because I got too many. Never fear, there's always tomorrow. Except in this case it's "in a week or two". - Linus Torvalds announcing his holiday on linux-kernel | |
> The only idea is that 2.4.x kernel turns off cache (L1 & L2) on > processor (on my cpu). How can I check it? Any ideas? We don't touch the caches like that. First guess is to disable the ACPI support, because we've seen that do a million bogus things - Alan Cox explaining the merits of ACPI on linux-kernel | |
Russell King wrote: > I'll look into it, produce a patch, but I'm not a VM hacker. You know what a pte is so you're a VM hacker ;-) - Daniel Phillips on linux-kernel | |
> Wouldn't it have made more sense to make the 'len' parameter an unsigned int? Oh yes. And wouldn't it be nicer if the sky was pink, and God came personally down to earth and stopped all wrans and made you king? - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel? | |
You're so full of shit that it's incredible. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
Well, I have done sparc assembly in my time (remember Dave Sitsky and I did a port of the kernel to the ultrasparc running in 32-bit mode before you did the sparc64 port) but the stuff you're doing in there isn't just assembly, it's magic assembly. ;) - Paul Mackerras admiring Dave Miller's assembly on linux-kernel | |
What is it about so many mail system authors and lacking sense of humour. - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
/* * Check for clue free BIOS implementations who use * the following QA technique * * [ Write BIOS Code ]<------ * | ^ * < Does it Compile >----N-- * |Y ^ * < Does it Boot Win98 >-N-- * |Y * [Ship It] * */ - comment from arch/i386/kernel/dmi_scan.c | |
Eric Biederman wrote: > That added to the fact that last time someone ran the numbers linux > was considerably faster than the BSD for mm type operations when not > swapping. And this is the common case. "Linux VM works wonderfully when nobody is using it" - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
The kernel is not there to cover up for usermode programmers inability to get things right. It has enough to do covering up for the hardware folk - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
> If you took my patch for it, PLEASE don't send it for inclusion; it's an > evil hack and no longer needed when Intel fixes the bug in their 440GX bios. "when" is not a word I find useful about most bios bugs. Try "if" or "less likely that being hit on the head by an asteroid" - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
> Yes *please*! Finally we could introduce proper support for 64-bit > inode numbers too! Right. As soon as userland is audited for places where it uses int for storing inode numbers - just a couple of months after MS fixes all security holes in their software. By then we'll need 128bit time_t, though... - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
Cuba is within small boat distance. I thought it was going to be twenty years before the direction changed, now Im not so sure - Alan Cox on crazy US computer security laws | |
Catastrophic failure of the IDE cable???. What are you doing to the poor thing, jumping on it? - Beau Kuiper on linux-kernel | |
This is a BP6 FAQ. Try increasing the voltage to your CPUs by .1V, or by taking the BP6 and introducing it to a hammer. Either should be an improvement. - Benjamian LaHaise not recommending the Abit BP6 motherboard on lkml | |
I would suggest re-naming "rmbdd()". I _assume_ that "dd" stands for "data dependent", but quite frankly, "rmbdd" looks like the standard IBM "we lost every vowel ever invented" kind of assembly lanaguage to me. I'm sure that having programmed PPC assembly language, you find it very natural (IBM motto: "We found five vowels hiding in a corner, and we used them _all_ for the 'eieio' instruction so that we wouldn't have to use them anywhere else"). - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
(IBM motto: "We found five vowels hiding in a corner, and we used them _all_ for the 'eieio' instruction so that we wouldn't have to use them anywhere else"). [...] (IBM motto: "If you can't read our assembly language, you must be borderline dyslexic, and we don't want you to mess with it anyway"). [...] (IBM motto: "TEN vowels? Don't you know vowels are scrd?") - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
(But Intel has redefined the memory ordering so many times that they might redefine it in the future too and say that dependent loads are ok. I suspect most of the definitions are of the type "Oh, it used to be ok in the implementation even though it wasn't defined, and it turns out that Windows doesn't work if we change it, so we'll define darkness to be the new standard"..) - Linus Torvalds | |
> I got a kernel crash when dial up. But I am using > 2.4.0-rmk1 and pppd-2.4.1. Is there any known ppp problem > in that release? Will it help if I upgrade my kernel? Who knows, we're now many versions ahead, many bugs have been fixed, and a lot of work has been done. - Russell King on linux-arm-kernel | |
> In short, now you need filesystem versioning at a per-page level etc. *ding* *ding* *ding* we have a near winner. Remember, folks, Hurd had been started by people who not only don't understand UNIX, but detest it. ITS/TWENEX refugees. And semantics in question comes from there - they had "open and make sure that anyone who tries to modify will get a new version, leaving one we'd opened unchanged". - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
Attached is buzby.c, the command buzby -poll sends sanity commands to the DSP every two seconds to, errrr, keep it from going insane. Works with the wife too :-) - Derek Mulcahy on tuxscreen-devel | |
So the current heuristic provably sucks. We have cold hard numbers, and quite frankly, Al, there is very very little point in arguing against numbers. It's silly. "Gimme an S, gimme a U, gimme a C, gimme a K - S-U-C-K". The current one sucks. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
Well we could simplify it further by putting all configuration options under a single menu called "things". - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Subject: Re: Yet another design for /proc. Or actually /kernel. > Here's my go at a new design for /proc. I designed it from a userland > point of view and tried not to drown myself into details. Did you have to change the subject line. It makes it harder to kill file when people keep doing that | |
Tim Schmielau wrote: > the appended patch enables 32 bit linux boxes to display more than > 497.1 days of uptime. No user land application changes are needed. Thank you for doing this labor of love - I will let you know how it goes sometime after March 23, 2003 - - J Sloan on linux-kernel | |
Alexander Viro wrote: > You mean that you are unable to read any of the core kernel source? > That would explain a lot... Were you born rude, or did you have to practice it? - Richard Gooch on linux-kernel | |
Having your own personal custom language dialect might be tempting but it is normally something only the lisp community do. - Alan Cox on the linux-kernel mailing list | |
indent does _not_ solve the problem of: * buggers who add 1001st broken implementation of memcmp(), call it FooTurdCompare and prepend it with 20x80 block comment. - Alexander Viro on coding style | |
indent does _not_ solve the problem of: * buggers who use typedefs like WORD, DWORD, BYTE, IMANIDIOTSHOOTME and other crap from the same source (OK, they don't write the last one explicitly - not that it wasn't obvious from the rest of their, ahem, code). - Alexander Viro on coding style | |
indent does _not_ solve the problem of: * buggers who introduce wrappers for standard kernel stuff - like, say it, typedef int Int32; and sprinkle their crap with per-architecture ifdefs. - Alexander Viro on coding style | |
Alexander Viro wrote: > Al, -><- close to setting up a Linux Kernel Hall of Shame - one with names of > wankers (both individual and coprorat ones) responsible, their code and > commentary on said code... Please, please, please, I'm begging you, please do this. It's the only way people learn quickly. Being nice is great, but nothing works faster than a cold shower of public humiliation :-) - Larry McVoy on linux-kernel | |
Davide Libenzi wrote: > It's not easy to get this right anyway. Balancing the pull and push mechanisms in the scheduler while trying to predict the future? "Not easy" is an excellent description. - Rusty Russell on linux-kernel | |
Sheesh... FreeBSD used to have a big advantage over Linux - relative lack of clueless advocates. What a pity that it's gone... - Al Viro on c.u.b.freebsd.misc | |
Where are the negative comments from Al? (Al _always_ has negative comments and suggestions for improvements, don't try to say that he also liked it unconditionally ;) - Linus Torvalds about Alexander Viro on linux-kernel | |
... and I'm quite sure that EMACS could do it easily. Let's not talk about GNU bloatware, OK? - Alexander Viro on linux-kernel | |
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other: High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one another. Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not. Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever. | |
The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled. Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things! Blunt the sharpness, Untangle the knot, Soften the glare, Merge with dust. Oh, hidden deep but ever present! I do not know from whence it comes. It is the forefather of the gods. | |
Heaven and Earth are impartial; They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs. The wise are impartial; They see the people as straw dogs. The space between heaven and Earth is like a bellows. The shape changes but not the form; The more it moves, the more it yields. More words count less. Hold fast to the center. | |
The valley spirit never dies; It is the woman, primal mother. Her gateway is the root of heaven and Earth. It is like a veil barely seen. Use it; it will never fail. | |
The highest good is like water. Water give life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao. In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. In daily life, be competent. In action, be aware of the time and the season. No fight: No blame. | |
Better to stop short than fill to the brim. Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt. Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it. Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow. Retire when the work is done. This is the way of heaven. | |
Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub; It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore benefit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there. | |
Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible. These three are indefinable; Therefore they are joined in one. From above it is not bright; From below it is not dark: An unbroken thread beyond description. It returns to nothingness. The form of the formless, The image of the imageless, It is called indefinable and beyond imagination. Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end. Stay with the ancient Tao, Move with the present. Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao. | |
The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive. The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable. Because it is unfathomable, All we can do is describe their appearance. Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream. Alert, like men aware of danger. Courteous, like visiting guests. Yielding like ice about to melt. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Hollow, like caves. Opaque, like muddy pools. Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action? Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment. Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change. | |
The very highest if barely known. Then comes that which people know and love. Then that which is feared, Then that which is despised. Who does not trust enough will not be trusted. When actions are performed Without unnecessary speech, People say, "We did it!" | |
Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom, And it will be a hundred times better for everyone. Give up kindness, renounce morality, And men will rediscover filial piety and love. Give up ingenuity, renounce profit, And bandits and thieves will disappear. These three are outward forms alone; they are not sufficient in themselves. It is more important To see the simplicity, To realize one's true nature, To cast off selfishness And temper desire. | |
Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox. In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace, But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am. Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile, I am alone, without a place to go. Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing. I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused. Others are clear and bright, But I alone am dim and weak. Others are sharp and clever, But I alone am dull and stupid. Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea, Without direction, like the restless wind. Everyone else is busy, But I alone am aimless and depressed. I am different. I am nourished by the great mother. | |
The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone. The Tao is elusive and intangible. Oh, it is intangible and elusive, and yet within is image. Oh, it is elusive and intangible, and yet within is form. Oh, it is dim and dark, and yet within is essence. This essence is very real, and therein lies faith. From the very beginning until now its name has never been forgotten. Thus I perceive the creation. How do I know the ways of creation? Because of this. | |
To talk little is natural. High winds do not last all morning. Heavy rain does not last all day. Why is this? Heaven and Earth! If heaven and Earth cannot make things eternal, How is it possible for man? He who follows the Tao Is at one with the Tao. He who is virtuous Experiences Virtue. He who loses the way Is lost. When you are at one with the Tao, The Tao welcomes you. When you are at one with Virtue, The Virtue is always there. When you are at one with loss, The loss is experienced willingly. He who does not trust enough Will not be trusted. | |
Something mysteriously formed, Born before heaven and Earth. In the silence and the void, Standing alone and unchanging, Ever present and in motion. Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things. I do not know its name Call it Tao. For lack of a better word, I call it great. Being great, it flows I flows far away. Having gone far, it returns. Therefore, "Tao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; The king is also great." These are the four great powers of the universe, And the king is one of them. Man follows Earth. Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao. Tao follows what is natural. | |
A good walker leaves no tracks; A good speaker makes no slips; A good reckoner needs no tally. A good door needs no lock, Yet no one can open it. Good binding requires no knots, Yet no one can loosen it. Therefore the sage takes care of all men And abandons no one. He takes care of all things And abandons nothing. This is called "following the light." What is a good man? A teacher of a bad man. What is a bad man? A good man's charge. If the teacher is not respected, And the student not cared for, Confusion will arise, however clever one is. This is the crux of mystery. | |
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." | |
Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; Sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency. | |
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. | |
The great Tao flows everywhere, both to the left and to the right. The ten thousand things depend upon it; it holds nothing back. It fulfills its purpose silently and makes no claim. It nourishes the ten thousand things, And yet is not their lord. It has no aim; it is very small. The ten thousand things return to it, Yet it is not their lord. It is very great. It does not show greatness, And is therefore truly great. | |
All men will come to him who keeps to the one, For there lie rest and happiness and peace. Passersby may stop for music and good food, But a description of the Tao Seems without substance or flavor. It cannot be seen, it cannot be heard, And yet it cannot be exhausted. | |
A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, And is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good, And is therefore not good. A truly good man does nothing, Yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, Yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion. Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao. It is the beginning of folly. Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface, On the fruit and not the flower. Therefore accept the one and reject the other. | |
The wise student hears of the Tao and practices it diligently. The average student hears of the Tao and gives it thought now and again. The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud. If there were no laughter, the Tao would not be what it is. Hence it is said: The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard; The highest Virtue seems empty; Great purity seems sullied; A wealth of Virtue seems inadequate; The strength of Virtue seems frail; Real Virtue seems unreal; The perfect square has no corners; Great talents ripen late; The highest notes are hard to hear; The greatest form has no shape; The Tao is hidden and without name. The Tao alone nourishes and brings everything to fulfillment. | |
Great accomplishment seems imperfect, Yet it does not outlive its usefulness. Great fullness seems empty, Yet cannot be exhausted. Great straightness seems twisted. Great intelligence seems stupid. Great eloquence seems awkward. Movement overcomes cold. Stillness overcomes heat. Stillness and tranquillity set things in order in the universe. | |
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. | |
If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked. When the court is arrayed in splendor, The fields are full of weeds, And the granaries are bare. Some wear gorgeous clothes, Carry sharp swords, And indulge themselves with food and drink; They have more possessions than they can use. They are robber barons. This is certainly not the way of Tao. | |
What is firmly established cannot be uprooted. What is firmly grasped cannot slip away. It will be honored from generation to generation. Cultivate Virtue in your self, And Virtue will be real. Cultivate it in the family, And Virtue will abound. Cultivate it in the village, And Virtue will grow. Cultivate it in the nation, And Virtue will be abundant. Cultivate it in the universe, And Virtue will be everywhere. Therefore look at the body as body; Look at the family as family; Look at the village as village; Look at the nation as nation; Look at the universe as universe. How do I know the universe is like this? By looking! | |
He who is filled with Virtue is like a newborn child. Wasps and serpents will not sting him; Wild beasts will not pounce upon him; He will not be attacked by birds of prey. His bones are soft, his muscles weak, But his grip is firm. He has not experienced the union of man and woman, but is whole. His manhood is strong. He screams all day without becoming hoarse. This is perfect harmony. Knowing harmony is constancy. Knowing constancy is enlightenment. It is not wise to rush about. Controlling the breath causes strain. If too much energy is used, exhaustion follows. This is not the way of Tao. Whatever is contrary to Tao will not last long. | |
Ruling the country is like cooking a small fish. Approach the universe with Tao, And evil is not powerful, But its power will not be used to harm others. Not only will it do no harm to others, But the sage himself will also be protected. They do not hurt each other, And the Virtue in each one refreshes both. | |
A great country is like low land. It is the meeting ground of the universe, The mother of the universe. The female overcomes the male with stillness, Lying low in stillness. Therefore if a great country gives way to a smaller country, It will conquer the smaller country. And if a small country submits to a great country, It can conquer the great country. Therefore those who would conquer must yield, And those who conquer do so because they yield. A great nation needs more people; A small country needs to serve. Each gets what it wants. It is fitting for a great nation to yield. | |
Tao is source of the ten thousand things. It is the treasure of the good man, and the refuge of the bad. Sweet words can buy honor; Good deeds can gain respect. If a man is bad, do not abandon him. Therefore on the day the emperor is crowned, Or the three officers of state installed, Do not send a gift of jade and a team of four horses, But remain still and offer the Tao. Why does everyone like the Tao so much at first? Isn't it because you find what you seek and are forgiven when you sin? Therefore this is the greatest treasure of the universe. | |
Peace is easily maintained; Trouble is easily overcome before it starts. The brittle is easily shattered; The small is easily scattered. Deal with it before it happens. Set things in order before there is confusion. A tree as great as a man's embrace springs up from a small shoot; A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth; A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. He who acts defeats his own purpose; He who grasps loses. The sage does not act, and so is not defeated. He does not grasp and therefore does not lose. People usually fail when they are on the verge of success. So give as much care to the end as to the beginning; Then there will be no failure. Therefore the sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost. He help the ten thousand things find their own nature, But refrains from action. | |
In the beginning those who knew the Tao did not try to enlighten others, But kept it hidden. Why is it so hard to rule? Because people are so clever. Rulers who try to use cleverness Cheat the country. Those who rule without cleverness Are a blessing to the land. These are the two alternatives. Understanding these is Primal Virtue. Primal Virtue is deep and far. It leads all things back Toward the great oneness. | |
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. | |
Everyone under heaven says that my Tao is great and beyond compare. Because it is great, it seems different. If it were not different, it would have vanished long ago. I have three treasures which I hold and keep. The first is mercy; the second is economy; The third is daring not to be ahead of others. From mercy comes courage; from economy comes generosity; From humility comes leadership. Nowadays men shun mercy, but try to be brave; They abandon economy, but try to be generous; They do not believe in humility, but always try to be first. This is certain death. Mercy brings victory in battle and strength in defense. It is the means by which heaven saves and guards. | |
A brave and passionate man will kill or be killed. A brave and calm man will always preserve life. Of these two which is good and which is harmful? Some things are not favored by heaven. Who knows why? Even the sage is unsure of this. The Tao of heaven does not strive, and yet it overcomes. It does not speak, and yet is answered. It does not ask, yet is supplied with all its needs. It seems to have no aim and yet its purpose is fulfilled. Heaven's net casts wide. Though its meshes are course, nothing slips through. | |
If men are not afraid to die, It is no avail to threaten them with death. If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means that a man will be killed, Who will dare to break the law? There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand. | |
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. | |
Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water. Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better; It has no equal. The weak can overcome the strong; The supple can overcome the stiff. Under heaven everyone knows this, Yet no one puts it into practice. Therefore the sage says: He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them. He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves to be king of the universe. The truth often sounds paradoxical. | |
After a bitter quarrel, some resentment must remain. What can one do about it? Therefore the sage keeps his half of the bargain But does not exact his due. A man of Virtue performs his part, But a man without Virtue requires others to fulfill their obligations. The Tao of heaven is impartial. It stays with good men all the time. | |
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" | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Are you sure you're telling the truth? Think hard. Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave? If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too? Do you feel bad? How do you think I feel? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Don't you know any better? How could you be so stupid? If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful. You can't fool me. I know what you're thinking. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Do as I say, not as I do. Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. What did you do *this* time? If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. When I was your age... I won't love you if you keep doing that. Think of all the starving children in India. If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. I'm going to kill you. Way to go, clumsy. If you don't like it, you can lump it. | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Go away. You bother me. Why? Because life is unfair. That's a nice drawing. What is it? Children should be seen and not heard. You'll be the death of me. You'll understand when you're older. Because. Wipe that smile off your face. I don't believe you. How many times have I told you to be careful? Just because. | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Good children always obey. Quit acting so childish. Boys don't cry. If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. Why do you have to know so much? This hurts me more than it hurts you. Why? Because I'm bigger than you. Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? Oh, grow up. I'm only doing this because I love you. | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... When are you going to grow up? I'm only doing this for your own good. Why are you crying? Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about. What's wrong with you? Someday you'll thank me for this. You'd lose your head if it weren't attached. Don't you have any sense at all? If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off. Why? Because I said so. I hope you have a kid just like yourself. | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... You wouldn't understand. You ask too many questions. In order to be a man, you have to learn to follow orders. That's for me to know and you to find out. Don't let those bullies push you around. Go in there and stick up for yourself. You're acting too big for your britches. Well, you broke it. Now are you satisfied? Wait till your father gets home. Bored? If you're bored, I've got some chores for you. Shape up or ship out. | |
Article the Third: Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change. Public announcements and guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary. Article the Fourth: The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee" and not the "feeder". Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war. Article the Fifth: Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church, a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have to last a lifetime and must be conserved. -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights" | |
Billy: Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from generation to generation? Mom: Yes? Billy: Well, this generation dropped it. | |
Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
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 | |
-- Gifts for Children -- This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished words and an implicit sense of her departure. It's so curious: one can resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window... or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed... or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. -- Letters From Colette | |
I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows up. -- Will Rogers | |
Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. | |
It is better to remain childless than to father an orphan. | |
It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children. -- Kingsley Amis | |
It is so soon that I am done for, I wonder what I was begun for. -- Epitaph, Cheltenham Churchyard | |
It must have been some unmarried fool that said "A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer"; because, in any decent house, a brat that starts asking questions is promptly packed off to bed. -- Arthur Binstead | |
It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father. | |
It's never too late to have a happy childhood. | |
Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth. It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies. | |
MEMORIES OF MY FAMILY MEETINGS still are a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all get into the car -- I forget what kind it was -- and drive and drive. I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some bees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy whom we called "Dad." We'd eat some stuff or not and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave you. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
My mother wants grandchildren, so I said, "Mom, go for it!" -- Sue Murphy | |
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 | |
Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection unprotected. -- Robert Orben | |
Never trust a child farther than you can throw it. | |
On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines, heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said, "You're going to get it." She bent over and kept on picking. What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over, she looked like the side of a barn. I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it, and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup, when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had to decide quickly. I decided. A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end. -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" | |
Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have much of anything to do with it. | |
Please, Mother! I'd rather do it myself! | |
The courtroom was pregnant (pun intended) with anxious silence as the judge solemnly considered his verdict in the paternity suit before him. Suddenly, he reached into the folds of his robes, drew out a cigar and ceremoniously handed it to the defendant. "Congratulations!" declaimed the jurist. "You have just become a father!" | |
The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got to be good. -- John Barrymore | |
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." -- C. S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia" | |
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" | |
Why do they call it baby-SITTING when all you do is run after them? | |
Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year? Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your children open their old-fashioned presents. Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?" You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!" Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, and I get this cretin TOP?" Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this." You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!" Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" | |
Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
Youth. It's a wonder that anyone ever outgrows it. | |
A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase. He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought to have a name. This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name should be masculine or feminine. After considerable thought, he settled on an naming the car either Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice. "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends. Most of them looked at him pecularly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and went on their way rather quickly. He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black belt in judo. She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine." The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he asked. "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were masculine." "Unhhh... Well, why not?" "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want it to. And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say... `Each Nissan, she go!'" [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental martial art. (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.) Ed.] | |
<jim> Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity "important". True or false? <JHM> jim: "important" or higher. True. <jim> Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) * netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful <Joey> We still have rpm.... | |
Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it recieves a response to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS service on a different platform. -- BugTraq | |
"slackware users don't matter. in my experience, slackware users are either clueless newbies who will have trouble even with tar, or they are rabid do-it-yourselfers who wouldn't install someone else's pre-compiled binary even if they were paid to do it." | |
I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running Linux. And oh! It was as though the heavens opened and God handed down a client-side OS so beautiful, so graceful, and so elegant that a million Microsoft developers couldn't have invented it even if they had a hundred years and a thousand crates of Jolt cola. -- LAN Times | |
I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running Linux.... And did this PC choke? Did it stutter? Did it, even once, say that this program has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down? No. And this is just on the client. -- LAN Times | |
Debian Linux is a solid, comprehensive product, and a genuine pleasure to use. It is also great to become involved with the Debian collective, whose friendliness and spirit recalls the early days of the Internet and its sense of openness and global cooperation. | |
<Flood> netgod: I also have a "Evil Inside" T-shirt (w/ Intel logo).. on the back it states: "When the rapture comes, will you have root?" | |
* boren tosses matlab across the room and hopes it breaks into a number aproaching infinite peices | |
"...It was a lot faster than I thought it was going to be, much faster than NT. If further speed increases are done to the server for the final release, Oracle is going to be able to wipe their ass with SQL SERVER and hand it back to M$ while the Oracle admins ... migrate their databases over to Linux!" | |
<zpx> it's amazing how "not-broken" debian is compared to slack and rh | |
<dark> "Hey, I'm from this project called Debian... have you heard of it? Your name seems to be on a bunch of our stuff." | |
<Diziet> Fuck, I can't compile the damn thing and I wrote it ! | |
<dark> Culus: Building a five-meter-high replica of the Empire State Building with paperclips is impressive. Doing it blindfolded is eleet. | |
I can just see it now: nomination-terrorism ;-) -- Manoj haha! i nominate manoj. -- seeS | |
This is the solution to Debian's problem .. and since the only real way to create more relatives of developers is to have children, we need more sex! It's a long term investment ... it's the work itself that is satisfying! -- Craig Brozefsky | |
<stu> apt: !bugs <apt> !bugs are stupid <dpkg> apt: are stupid? what's that? <apt> dpkg: i don't know <dpkg> apt: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder... <apt> i already had it that way, dpkg. | |
<muggles> i'm trying to convince some netcom admins i know to convert to Debian from RH, netgod, but they are DAMN stubborn <muggles> why RH users so damned hard headed? <Espy> it's the hat | |
<Overfiend> Thunder-: when you get { MessagesLikeThisFromYourHardDrive } <Overfiend> Thunder-: it either means { TheDriverIsScrewy } <Overfiend> or <Overfiend> { YourDriveIsFlakingOut BackUpYourDataBeforeIt'sTooLate PrayToGod } | |
<apt> it has been said that redhat is the thing Marc Ewing wears on his head. | |
<Cylord> Would it be acceptable to debian policy if we inserted a crontab by default into potato that emailed bill.gates@microsoft.com every morning with an email that read, "Don't worry, linux is a fad..." | |
<Reed> It is important to note that the primary reason the Roman Empire fail is that they had no concept of zero... thus they could not test the success or failure of their C programs. | |
<Chalky> gcc is the best compressor ever ported to linux. it can turn 12MB of kernel source (and that's .debbed) into a 500k kernel | |
* dark greets liw with a small yellow frog. * liw kisses the frog and watches it transform to a beautiful nerd girl, takes her out to ice cream, and lives happily forever after with her <dark> liw: Umm it's too late to have the frog back? | |
<rcw> dark: caldera? <Knghtbrd> rcw - that's not a distribution, it's a curse <rcw> Knghtbrd: it's a cursed distribution | |
Software is like sex, it's better when it's free. -- Linus Torvalds | |
I did it just to piss you off. :-P -- Branden Robinson in a message to debian-devel | |
10) there is no 10, but it sounded like a nice number :) -- Wichert Akkerman | |
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 | |
We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. -- Linus Torvalds | |
Gold, n.: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
* Caytln slaps Lisa <Caytln> catfight :P <LisaHere> Watch it girl, I like that. <LisaHere> :) <Caytln> figures :D | |
The X Window System: The standard UNIX graphical environment. With Linux, this is usually XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org). You may call it X, XFree, the X Window System, XF86, or a host of other things. Call it 'XWindows' and someone will smack you and you will have deserved it. | |
* Overfiend sighs <Overfiend> Netscape sucks. <Overfiend> It is a house of cards resting on a bed of quicksand. <Espy> during an earthquake <Overfiend> in a tornado | |
* aj thinks Kb^Zzz ought to pick different things to dream about than general resolutions and policy changes. <Kb^Zzz> aj - tell me about it, this is a Bad Sign | |
<netgod> heh thats a lost cause, like the correct pronounciation of "jewelry" <netgod> give it up :-) <sage> and the correct spelling of "colour" :) <BenC> heh <sage> and aluminium <BenC> or nuclear weapons <sage> are you threating me yankee ? <sage> just cause we don't have the bomb... <BenC> back off ya yellow belly | |
<xtifr> Athena Desktop Environment! In your hearts, you *know* it's the right choice! :) * Knghtbrd THWAPS xtifr | |
<Thoth_> Yeah, well that's why it's numbered 2.3.1... it's for those of us who miss NT-like uptimes | |
* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger... <Knghtbrd> m2 - that's a bad sign | |
<Knghtbrd> Leave it to manoj to call procmail "puny" | |
<Crow-> Manoj: well, i cant understand stuff like "s/3#$%^% {]][ @ f245 }" <Manoj> Crow: That is not quite legal ;-) <Knghtbrd> Manoj - how would one make "s/3#$%^% {]][ @ f245 }" legal anyway? (and what would it do? hehe) <Manoj> Knghtbrd: You need to finish the s/// expression. <Knghtbrd> oh, is that all? | |
<Phase> no... I musn't have any more coffee !!! ;) <Simunye> sure yu do Phase :) <Phase> you really want me bouncing off the ceiling? <Simunye> yesh :) <kira_> bouncing off the ceiling is gewd <Phase> ok, that was a silly question <kira_> it's splatting on the floor that's the problem. | |
Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules, it's THEIR problem. I want people to know that in their bones, and I want it shouted out from the rooftops. I want people to wake up in a cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules. -- Linus Torvalds | |
Due to the closed source development model of XFree it is impossible to support, or even speculate about, features in pre- or beta releases of XFree. -- Marcus Sundberg | |
> >I don't really regard bible-kjv-text as a technical document, > > but... :) > It's a manual -- for living. But it hasn't been updated in a long time, many would say that it's sadly out of date, and the upstream maintainer doesn't respond to his email. :-) -- Branden Robinson, Oliver Elphick, and Chris Waters in a message to debian-policy | |
Last time I had intimate contact with another human being was rather a painful experience... I rather liked it... ;) -- Brett Manz | |
<Knghtbrd> aggh! <Knghtbrd> MAKE IT STOP! <Knghtbrd> MAKE IT STOP!! | |
<Culus> dhd: R you part of the secret debian overstructure? <dhd> no. there is no secret debian overstructure. <CosmicRay> although, now that somebody brought it up, let's start one :-) <Knghtbrd> CosmicRay - why not, sounds like a fun way to spend the afternoon =D | |
<Crow-> these stupid head hunters want resumes in ms word format <Crow-> can you write shit in tex and convert it to word? <Overfiend> \converttoword{shit} | |
* o-o always like debmake because he knew exactly what it would do... <ibid> o-o: you would ;-) | |
<woot> Put *that* in you .sig and smoke it, Knghtbrd. <Culus> You know he will read this :> <woot> heheheheh. | |
> Ok, I see you know what you're doing :-) Either that or I've gotten pretty good at faking it. | |
<netgod> my client has been owned severely <netgod> this guy got root, ran packet sniffers, installed .rhosts and backdoors, put a whole new dir in called /lib/" ", which has a full suite of smurfing and killing tools <netgod> the only mistake was not deleting the logfiles <netgod> question is how was root hacked, and that i couldnt tell u <netgod> it is, of course, not a debian box * netgod notes the debian box is the only one left untouched by the hacker -- wonder why | |
Since this database is not used for profit, and since entire works are not published, it falls under fair use, as we understand it. However, if any half-assed idiot decides to make a profit off of this, they will need to double check it all... -- Notes included with the default fortunes database | |
<Knghtbrd> It's a trackball for one <wichert> so it's not a rodent <wichert> it's a turd with a ball sticking out <wichert> which you fondle constantly | |
<netgod> is it me, or is Knghtbrd snoring? <joeyh> they killed knghtbrd! <netgod> Kysh: wichert, gecko, joeyh, and I are in a room trying to ignore Knghtbrd <Kysh> netgod: Knghtbrd is hard to ignore. | |
<Valkyrja> java, hon, sometimes I really want to smack you. <Knghtbrd> Valkyrja - he'd enjoy it too much <Reteo> Valkyrja: yah, go ahead and do it... beat java into cappuccino! :-) | |
Red Hat has recently released a Security Advisory (RHSA-1999:030-01) covering a buffer overflow in the vixie cron package. Debian has discovered this bug two years ago and fixed it. Therefore versions in both, the stable and the unstable, distributions of Debian are not vulnerable to this problem.. | |
First off - Quake is simply incredible. It lets you repeatedly kill your boss in the office without being arrested. :) -- Signal 11, in a slashdot comment | |
<rain_work> note on a dorm fridge ... "To the person who ate the contents of the container labeled 'James' - warning, it was my biology experiment" | |
* joeyh wonders why everyone wants to know how tall he is <james> joeyh: it helps the sniper | |
<Delenn> I wouldn't make it through 24 hours before I'd be firing up the grill and slapping a few friends on the barbie. <spacemoos> Why would you slap friends with barbies, thats kinda kinky | |
In fact.. based on this model of what the NSA is and isn't... many of the people reading this are members of the NSA... /. is afterall 'News for Nerds'. NSA MONDAY MORNING {at the coffee machine): NSA AGENT 1: Hey guys, did you check out slashdot over the weekend? AGENT 2: No, I was installing Mandrake 6.1 and I coulnd't get the darn ppp connection up.. AGENT 1: Well check it out... they're on to us. -- Chris Moyer <cdmoyer@starmail.com> | |
<Knghtbrd> NOTE THAT THE ABOVE IS JUST AN OPINION AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN TO INCLUDE ANY MEASURE OF FACTUAL INFORMATION. THE SPEAKER DISCLAIMS EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. DEAL WITH IT. | |
<Madax> ahh <Madax> a gathering of geeks.... <Madax> I can smell it now | |
Caveats: it's GNOME, be afraid, be very afraid of the Depends line -- James Troup | |
<lilo> it's weird, when you go on a safari to Africa to catch a lion, you find it alive and it charges, and then you kill it <lilo> when you go on a safari to South Bay to find a Palm Vx, you find it dead and take it home and it charges after it arrives :) | |
<lilo> I can read the bloody *manual* as if it were some sort of religious tract describing forms of enlightenment you can achieve after 10 years on a mountain :) | |
<knghtbrd> Solver_: add users who should be messing with sound to group audio.. Make sure the devices are all group audio (ls -l /dev/dsp will give you the fastest indication if it's probably set right) and build a kernel with sound support for your card <knghtbrd> OR optionally install alsa source and build modules for that with make-kpkg <knghtbrd> OR (not recommended) get and install evil OSS/Linux evil non-free evil binary only evil drivers---but those are evil. And did I mention that it's not recommended? | |
"Pacific Bell Customer Service, this is [..], how can I provide you with excellent customer service today?" "HAHAHAHAHA!! That's good, I like it.." "Um, thanks, they make us say that." -- knghtbrd and a pacbell rep, name removed to protect her job | |
<danpat> Omnic: bloody newzealanders <Omnic> danpat: put a sock in it <danpat> heh :) <knghtbrd> making fun of .nz'ers is different---they're all weird * knghtbrd hides <Omnic> hrmph | |
<Joy> that's a Kludge(TM) <knghtbrd> It Works(tm) <Joy> AIX works(TM) <knghtbrd> no it doesn't <knghtbrd> => | |
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits." -- Albert Einstein | |
* bma_home gropes you <bma_home> "oups, wrong channel" <bma_home> </acf> <cerb> quit groping me <doogie> you know you like it. <bma_home> actually, it was "grope me baby" <gecko-> touch my son and you die, bma ;) <doogie> gecko-: but your wife is ok? | |
<knghtbrd> (tinc) <Espy> (ytitac) <knghtbrd> (ntinac) <Espy> (it) <knghtbrd> (in) * Espy notes talking in acr^Winitialisms is scary when the other side understands you | |
<knghtbrd> it's too bad most ancient unices are y2k compliant <|Rain|> too bad? <|Rain|> why, because people won't upgrade until 2038? | |
<Espy_on_crack> "I installed 'Linux 6.1', doesn't that make me a unix guru?" <BenC> Espy_on_crack: no, you have to install it twice before you are a guru...once to prove you can do it, the second to fix the things your broke the first time <Espy_on_crack> oh right, how silly of me | |
It's as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you. | |
*** Topic for #redhat: ReDHaT is the answer to all your problems. It could be the start too! | |
Guns don't kill people. It's those damn bullets. Guns just make them go really really fast. -- Jake Johanson | |
<Knghtbrd> CVS/Entries had the line I needed to "alter" <Mercury> Knghtbrd: Was about to mention such.. <G> <Mercury> Knghtbrd: Now, ready to commit? <Knghtbrd> wish me luck <Knghtbrd> Mercury: it's committed <Knghtbrd> Mercury: and after all that, I should be too. | |
* Knghtbrd crosses his toes <Knghtbrd> (if I crossed my fingers it would be hard to type) | |
<Deek> If the user points the gun at his foot and pulls the trigger, it is our job to ensure the bullet gets where it's supposed to. | |
<cas> Mercury: gpm isn't a very good web browser. fix it. | |
<cas> well there ya go. say something stupid in irc and have it immortalised forever in someone's .sig file | |
<darkangel> I generally don't use anything that has "experimental" and "warning" pasted all over it <darkangel> no, I'm not that dumb... hehe <Knghtbrd> ... * darkangel considers downloading the latest unstable kernel | |
<wichert> solaris is bsd, so it should work * Espy takes wichert's crack pipe away | |
<Knghtbrd> it's too bad most old unices turned out y2k compliant <Knghtbrd> because it means people will STILL BE RUNNING THEM in 30 years =p <Knghtbrd> it would have been so much nicer if y2k effectively killed off hpux, aix, sunos, etc ;> <Espy> Knghtbrd: since when are PH-UX, aches, and solartus "old"? | |
<raptor> Adamel, i think the code you fixed of mine didn't work <raptor> i must not have commited the working code <Knghtbrd> raptor: like it's the first time THAT has ever happened =p | |
<Mercury> Knghtbrd: Using -3dfx or -svga? <Knghtbrd> Mercury will do something sane with it <Knghtbrd> Mercury: both---svga sig11's, -3dfx sig4's <Knghtbrd> Mercury: that's not good right? ;> | |
<Knghtbrd> Trust us, we know what we're doing... We may have no idea HOW we're doing it, but we know WHAT we're doing. | |
<Mercury> <CJ|BiZKiT-0-> i can upload to linux server tho <Mercury> <CJ|BiZKiT-0-> i got a shell account on one <Mercury> <Mercury> Whats it running? <Mercury> <CJ|BiZKiT-0-> umm <Mercury> <CJ|BiZKiT-0-> apache i think <Mercury> Help, please help.. * Omni chuckles | |
<jt> should a bug be marked critical if it only affects one arch? <james-workaway> jt: rc for that arch maybe, but those kind of arch specific bugs are rare... <jt> not when it's caused by a bug in gcc <doogie> jt: get gcc removed from that arch. :) | |
"Nominal fee". What an ugly sentence. It's one of those things that implies that if you have to ask, you can't afford it. -- Linus Torvalds | |
* knghtbrd is each day more convinced that most C++ coders don't know what the hell they're doing, which is why C++ has such a bad rap <Culus> kb: Most C coders don't know what they are doing, it just makes it easier to hide :P <Culus> see for instance, proftpd :P | |
<doogie> cat /dev/random | perl ? <shaleh> doogie: it is also a valid sendmail.cf <doogie> :) * knghtbrd hands doogie a senseless-use-of-cat award * shaleh wants to try it but is afraid | |
<dhd> perl < /dev/bdsm <knghtbrd> you have a /dev/bdsm? <dhd> sure, it's a pseudosadomasochistic random number generator | |
<Kysh_> Joey: I'm on it right now.. 3 1.3Gb disks, 128M ram, dual 50Mhz (Up to quad 250Mhz) <Kysh_> The catch is that it pulls 110v at about 12A 8> <Culus> 12A! <Culus> Okay, my stove is 3000W, this sun is 1320W <Culus> DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM HERE <calc> a 1320W sun, that is like a hair dryer :) | |
<knghtbrd> joeyh: I was down since midmorning yesterday and pacbell said this morning that AT&T was to blame and almost all of the state was down <rcw> dunno why people insist the internet can survive a nuclear holocaust when it can't survive a backhoe | |
Feb 5 13:27:01 trinity lp0 on fire -- the Linux kernel, alerting me that there was some unknown problem with my printer (ie, it was out of ink) | |
It's not usually cost effective time wise to go do it. But if something's really pissing you off, you just go find the code and fix it and that's really cool. -- John Carmack, on the advantages of open source | |
<calc> yea it sounds useful for RE'ing USB <calc> i have a useless 3com usb camera here :( <knghtbrd> calc: 3Com could have you arrested for violating laws which don't exist 'till October ;> <calc> knghtbrd: i will hide :) <knghtbrd> ...resisting arrest too eh? <calc> knghtbrd: no i will hide before i get served | |
<Mercury> At that point it will compile, but segfault, as it should.. | |
<Knghtbrd> it's 6am. I have been up 24 hours <Knghtbrd> Wake me up and risk life and limb. * Knghtbrd &; sleep <Tv> Okay everyone, we wait 10 minutes and then start flooding Knghtbrd with ^G's. Someone, hack root and cat /dev/urandom >/dev/dsp. | |
<knghtbrd> is it a sign of mental illness to wander aimlessly through the start map, collect your Thunderbolt, hop in the pool, and gib yourself with it just to see your head buouce when it falls through the bottom of the pool? => <knghtbrd> "You know you're a Quake addict when ..." | |
<Endy> taniwha: Quote material :) <taniwha> Endy: :) <knghtbrd> Endy: I already snipped it | |
<devkev> yeah i saw the lightning gun and where you were going, thinking you were gonna kick some ass :) <devkev> didnt realise it would be your own :) | |
"Otherwise, please speak to a doctor about removing your head from your ass, I believe it would be beneficial to all involved." -- Zephaniah E. Hull, flaming someone on a mailing list | |
Tagline, you're it! | |
<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 | |
I am practicing a fine point of ethics. It is acceptable to shoot back. It is not acceptable to shoot first. -- Zed Pobre | |
That's the funniest thing I've ever heard and I will _not_ condone it. -- DyerMaker, 17 March 2000 MegaPhone radio show | |
It's not? Are you saying that you SHOULD allow people (other than William Wallace) to shoot lightning bolts from their arse? -- Seth Galbraith | |
<evilkalla> heh, I never took a coding class <evilkalla> or a graphics class <evilkalla> or a software design class <vegan> and it shows :P | |
<theoddone33> What's this message on my screen, <theoddone33> so blue, so blue, what could it mean? <theoddone33> Could you, would you press Delete, <theoddone33> Ctrl and Alt and then repeat. | |
<aj> come on <aj> it's a pico clone <aj> it's *meant* to be annoying | |
<Overfiend> Culus: wanna suspend me for it? :) <Culus> Overfiend: Go maliciously crack a few severs and we'll talk <Overfiend> Culus: damn, it has to be malicious? <Culus> Overfiend: Sadly, yes | |
<mdorman> I'm a gnus person myself. It's an editor! It's a floorwax! It's a dessert topping! | |
<Deek> change all cvar->value = X to use Cvar_Set() <theoddone33> that didn't happen in oldtree <Deek> Actually, it did. <Knghtbrd> yeah - two weeks later. | |
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code, fix one bug, compile it again... 101 little bugs in the code.... | |
<calc> knghtbrd: gnome 2.0 will be out in a few months, not sure how it will compare to kde 2.0 though <knghtbrd> calc: Just as bloated, just as buggy, and every Gnome 2 app will depend on 30 libraries. <Slimer> knghtbrd: so what changes from 1.0 ? | |
<Deek> Exactly how much of a PITA is this in C? <Knghtbrd> It's written in C++. <Deek> Hence my question. <Knghtbrd> I could do something like it in C. Anyone who saw the results would think I was either a genius or out of my fucking mind. They'd be right on either count. | |
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the universe are pointed away from Earth? | |
<rebelpacket> hey, quick question, is there any way to speed up the performance of uquake-x11? <Deek> rebelpacket: If you want to accelerate it, throw it harder. | |
<netgod> you know <netgod> its really sad when the internic itself cant configure DNS servers right <netgod> it just doesnt get any more pathetic than that | |
<Knghtbrd> Even with overbrights, Quake's color palette is full of dull, flat colors <LordHavoc> knghtbrd: quake's palette is very vibrant unless you use gamma correction <LordHavoc> well actually I agree, it's nowhere near as vibrant as Unreal <Deek> Q3 on the other hand...NEON. <LordHavoc> Q3 is just ridiculous <Deek> Q3 takes the medieval church-dungeon and puts it in Vegas. | |
<joeyh> oh my, it's a UP P III. <doogie> dos it. * joeyh runs dselect <Overfiend> that ought to be sufficient :) | |
<barneyfu> knghtbrd: crap, SDL sure makes DGA a helluva alot easier too doesn't it? :) <knghtbrd> barneyfu: what DGA? <barneyfu> mouse dga <knghtbrd> barneyfu: (does that answer your question?) <barneyfu> Hahahahaha YEAH! :) | |
* knghtbrd ponders how to scare the living shit out of 87 people at once.. <knghtbrd> AHH! I can do it in 3 words!: <knghtbrd> Microsoft Visual COBOL. | |
<elmo> unclean: err, the admin team do not control the archive, that's the ftp cabal <elmo> get your cabals right, damn it :-P | |
<knghtbrd> Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. <knghtbrd> 0x40095fb0 in memchr () from /lib/libc.so.6 <knghtbrd> (gdb) bt <knghtbrd> #0 0x40095fb0 in memchr () from /lib/libc.so.6 <knghtbrd> #1 0x0 in ?? () <knghtbrd> Well That's Really Helpful * knghtbrd trades gdb for a nice ouija board - it'll help more | |
<Knghtbrd> I SNEAK TO BUN <Knghtbrd> HELP ME FOR TO QUACK <Venom> kb: what the hell are you talking about? <Knghtbrd> bwahahaha.. It's a long story. | |
<Myth> I'm getting a connection refused when connecting to port 25, anyone know where the damn log is? <aj> Myth: /var/log/damn.log? * aj wonders what that'd look like <aj> Dec 18 05:32:30 blae smtpd[123]: DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!! | |
<doogie_> linux takes shit and turns it into something useful. <doogie_> windows takes something useful and turns it into shit | |
* weasel wonders how stupid one has to be to spam alt.anonymous.messages <knghtbrd> weasel: about half as stupid as one has to be to harvest it. | |
* wolfie ponders how many debianites it takes to screw in a lightbulb <Viiru> wolfie: Somewhere around 600? One screw's the bulb, and the rest flame him for doing it wrong. <part> wolfie: is the bulb free software? <Tv> Can we vote on whether to screw it or not? | |
<Mercury> LordHavoc: The reason why GL has overdraw is because it is only using HALF of the system they designed for vis. <Mercury> LordHavoc: Shooting itself in the foot. * Dabb looks at all those bullet holes in his shoes - damn, lots :) | |
<mao> why do they insist on ading -Werror... <Misty-chan> Mesa would not compile out of the box if it were done by you guys ;) <knghtbrd> Uh, Mesa DOESN'T compile out of the box most of the time. | |
<Deek> nopcode: No, it isn't. Win32 lacks the equivalent of fork(). <Knghtbrd> Deek: windoze is not meant for people who should have access to sharp objects, hence no fork() <Knghtbrd> instead, you must rely on spoon() | |
<knghtbrd> Windoze CEMeNT: Now with CrackGuard(TM)! Never worry about unsightly cracks in Windoze CEMeNT again! CrackGuard(TM) is so powerful that the entire thing will crumble before it will crack. Order your $200 upgrade version today! | |
<shader> whats wrong with rjing? <Rhamphoryncus> it's lame :P <Rhamphoryncus> it should NOT be possible <Rhamphoryncus> shoving a grenade up your ass and using it as rocket propelant shouldn't be a viable technique :P | |
<Mercury> Someone fix it. <Despair> committed <Knghtbrd> Despair: Mercury? <Despair> Knghtbrd: he's tired, made a mistake, wanted someone to undo it. <Knghtbrd> Despair: so you had him committed? <Despair> Knghtbrd: well, dedicated anyways. | |
<taniwha> Knghtbrd: it's not bloat if it's used <Knghtbrd> taniwha: how do you explain windoze then? <taniwha> Knghtbrd: most of it is used only as ballast to make sure your harddrive is full <Knghtbrd> taniwha: ballast... Isn't that what makes subs sink to the bottom of the ocean? <Knghtbrd> taniwha: that would explain why winboxes are always going down. | |
innovate /IN no vait/ vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology through purchase, imitation, or theft and to integrate it into a de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To lock-out competitors or to lock-in users. 4. To charge more money; to increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. To evade liability for wrong-doings; to get off. 8. To purchase legislation, legislators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power (coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym). -- csbruce, in a Slashdot post | |
<knghtbrd> *sigh* My todo list is like the fucking energizer bunny <knghtbrd> It keeps growing and growing and growing and ... | |
<Knghtbrd> It is when the example source won't compile ... <``Erik> then you fucked something up <Knghtbrd> Nope, I followed their instructions <``Erik> that may've been your problem :} | |
<Xavvy> is that really knghtbrd? <Knghtbrd> No, I'm an EVIL IMPOSTOR! <Knghtbrd> An evil impostor who LIKES HYBRID! <Xavvy> haha <Xavvy> ok, it's him :P | |
<Elric> no BSD fans ? <EvilTypeGuy> Elric: it's hard to be a gamer and a bsd fan :p | |
<wli> Yeah, I looked at esd and it looked like the kind of C code that an ex-JOVIAL/Algol '60 coder who had spent the last 20 years bouncing between Fortran-IV and Fortran '77 would write. | |
<|Rain|> *nod* I'm not fond of using smarthosts, myself <|Rain|> as it relies on both the remote host and your host being smart <|Rain|> and too often you miss one of both of those goals | |
* |Rain| prepares for polygon soup <|Rain|> sweet merciful crap, it works? * |Rain| faints | |
"Since it's a foregone conclusion that Microsoft will be littering its XML with pointers to Win32-based components, the best that can be said about its adoption of XML is that it will make it easier for browsers and applications on non-Windows platforms to understand which parts of the document it must ignore." -- Nicholas Petreley, "Computerworld", 3 September, 2001 | |
<robert> i understand there are some reasonable limits to free speech in america, for example I cannot scream Fire into a crowded theatre .. But can i scream fire into a theatre with only 5 or 6 poeple in it ? | |
Isn't it embarrassing when you have to go to the drugstore for some "special items", and when you're checking out, the cashier looks at you like, "oh, I know what YOU'RE doing tonight..." Yep, that cashier read all the signs... canned chicken soup, TheraFlu, Halls, NyQuil, the bigass bottles of OJ and grapefruit juice... he knew and I knew that I had a date with the teevee and a down comforter. Awww yeah. -- Elizabeth Kirkindall | |
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address | |
Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish a sufficiently broad range of tasks. -- Bill Garrett | |
<Sammy> that's *IT*. I'm never fucking attempting to install redhat again. <Sammy> this is like the 10th fucking machine on which the installer has imploded immediately after I went through the hell of their package selection process. <timball> Sammy: just use debian and never look back <Sammy> timball: debian iso's are being written at this very moment. | |
<DannyS> Hit the monkey to win $20(*)! * knghtbrd gets out his mallet. * knghtbrd plants it firmly on DannyS' head. * knghtbrd will take his $20 now. =D | |
"Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my "gold standard", and it has been quite a while since I have had to report a problem to them, and even their brand new extensions work as documented the first time I try them. When I have a problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else's drivers, I assume it is their fault. This has turned out correct almost all the time." -- John Carmack | |
<liiwi> so, what's the official way to get buildd to retry a package? prod it with a stick? <Joey> prod neuro <liiwi> with a stick? <Joey> yes. | |
<Knghtbrd> "... you will more than likely see all kinds of compiler warnings scrolling by on the screen. These are normal and can be safely ignored." <LordHavoc> Knghtbrd: is that a note attached to some M$ code? <Knghtbrd> No, it's a note about a bunch of GNU stuff. | |
<Hydroxide> knightbrd: from knightbrd.brain import * :) <knghtbrd> Oh gods if it were that easy .. <knghtbrd> from carmack.brain import OpenGL | |
<hop_> i had something that i think was chicken that was coated with a red paste that seemed to be composed of lye based on how much of my tounge it burned away. <hop_> our friend who is Indian said this is why most Indians are thin and i quote "It doesn't take very much of this food to get you satisfied enoguh to stop eating." | |
<Intention> "It's classic percolate-up economics, recognizing that money is like manure: It works best if you spread it around." <Knghtbrd> Intention: Carter's correlation: People with lots of either usually smell funny <Intention> Knghtbrd: You SO win. | |
A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when the door slammed shut, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot. Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business. The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out, silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could go on to the kitty afterworld complete. Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost, "I can't. You know the law -- no retailing spirits after 2:00 AM." | |
A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2. The housewife replied, "Four!". The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4. Let me run those figures through my spread sheet one more time." The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?" | |
A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone. After he had made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he would like on it. "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the lawyer. "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter. "In this state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave. However, I could put ``here lies an honest lawyer'', if that would be okay." "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. "Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter. "people will read it and exclaim, "That's Strange!" | |
After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp. | |
Be frank and explicit with your lawyer ... it is his business to confuse the issue afterwards. | |
... but as records of courts and 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, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Diogenes went to look for an honest lawyer. "How's it going?", someone asked him, after a few days. "Not too bad", replied Diogenes. "I still have my lantern." | |
First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer. But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all. Dial-A-Wombat. It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said. Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk. But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth. The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub. Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in another phone booth. There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth. The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and released it, too, in the scrub. But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat. After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect, and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons. Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in telephone booths. -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980. | |
For three years, the young attorney had been taking his brief vacations at this country inn. The last time he'd finally managed an affair with the innkeeper's daughter. Looking forward to an exciting few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, then stopped short. There sat his lover with an infant on her lap! "Helen, why didn't you write when you learned you were pregnant?" he cried. "I would have rushed up here, we could have gotten married, and the baby would have my name!" "Well," she said, "when my folks found out about my condition, we sat up all night talkin' and talkin' and finally decided it would be better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer." | |
Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: It is a rule of evidence deduced from the experience of mankind and supported by reason and authority that positive testimony is entitled to more weight than negative testimony, but by the latter term is meant negative testimony in its true sense and not positive evidence of a negative, because testimony in support of a negative may be as positive as that in support of an affirmative. -- 254 Pac. Rep. 472. | |
Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care, human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it seems to us that someone has been very careless. -- 78 So. 365. | |
Fortune Documents the Great Legal Decisions: We think that we may take judicial notice of the fact that the term "bitch" may imply some feeling of endearment when applied to a female of the canine species but that it is seldom, if ever, so used when applied to a female of the human race. Coming as it did, reasonably close on the heels of two revolver shots directed at the person of whom it was probably used, we think it carries every reasonable implication of ill-will toward that person. -- Smith v. Moran, 193 N.E. 2d 466. | |
Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky): No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it apply to female horses. | |
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41: Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated? A: By death. Q: And by whose death was it terminated? | |
Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie. | |
"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you probably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although of course every case is different, I would definitely say that based on my experience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come out of this thing with at least a cabin cruiser. "Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our motto is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'" -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering" | |
Humor in the Court: Q. And who is this person you are speaking of? A. My ex-widow said it. | |
Humor in the Court: Q: So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe with respect to your scalp? A: I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital. Q: It was covered? A: Yes, bandaged. Q: Then, later on.. what did you see? A: I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on top of my head. | |
Humor in the Court: Q: The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective witness, isn't it. You too were shot in the fracas? A: No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval. | |
Humor in the Court: Q: What is the meaning of sperm being present? A: It indicates intercourse. Q: Male sperm? A. That is the only kind I know. | |
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. -- Leo Kessler | |
I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving are worth considering, to wit: [110.13]: "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not to interfere with oncoming traffic." [22.17b]: "Learning to change lanes takes time and patience. The best recommendation that can be made is to go to a Celtics [basketball] game; study the fast break and then go out and practice it on the highway." [41.16]: "Never bump a baby carriage out of a crosswalk unless the kid's really asking for it." | |
I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving are worth considering, to wit: [131.16d]: "Directional signals are generally not used except during vehicle inspection; however, a left-turn signal is appropriate when making a U-turn on a divided highway." [96.7b]: "When paying tolls, remember that it is necessary to release the quarter a full 3 seconds before passing the basket if you are traveling more than 60 MPH." [110.13]: "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not to interfere with oncoming traffic." | |
I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving are worth considering, to wit: [173.15b]: "When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way." [141.2a]: "Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6' parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into a 5' parking space." [105.31]: "Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly. Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong." | |
Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds. | |
If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes guilty. -- Joseph C. Goulden | |
If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, it might well prolong his life. -- Charles Darling, "Scintillae Juris, 1877 | |
If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers. -- Michael Levin, "The Socratic Method | |
In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs. | |
In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order to get her attention. | |
In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride in any motor vehicle. | |
In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door neighbor. | |
In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset. | |
In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on the sidewalks when a concert is on. | |
In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket. | |
In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while either flying or waiting to board a plane. | |
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. | |
In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane. | |
In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that is over six feet in length. | |
In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile. | |
In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or a loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it to you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by forty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you stole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit punches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong enough to punch you. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without the supervision of a licensed engineer. | |
It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full of indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The jury is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be a victim of infanticide. -- Edmond About | |
It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of Urbana, Illinois. | |
It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time. | |
It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia. | |
It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it. -- Justice Robert H. Jackson | |
It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone. | |
It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air balloon to cross the United States. After forty hours in the air, George turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course! We need to find out where we are." Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the cloud cover. Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me! Can you please tell me where we are?" The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately fifty feet in the air!" George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer". Replies Harry, "How can you tell?". "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally useless!" That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer". | |
It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the municipality. -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio | |
It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse. | |
It's recently come to Fortune's attention that scientists have stopped using laboratory rats in favor of attorneys. Seems that there are not only more of them, but you don't get so emotionally attached. The only difficulty is that it's sometimes difficult to apply the experimental results to humans. [Also, there are some things even a rat won't do. Ed.] | |
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. -- Otto von Bismarck | |
Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as Mental Anguish. You would sue: * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls in there". * The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious cretin like yourself. * Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you a large cash settlement anyway. -- Dave Barry | |
Marijuana will be legal some day, because the many law students who now smoke pot will someday become congressmen and legalize it in order to protect themselves. -- Lenny Bruce | |
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time. | |
NEVER swerve to hit a lawyer riding a bicycle -- it might be your bicycle. | |
Of ______course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake? | |
... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself. -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!" | |
Pittsburgh driver's test (2) A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should (a) stop immediately. (b) proceed slowly through the intersection. (c) blow the horn. (d) floor it. The correct answer is (d). If you said (c), you were almost right, so give yourself a half point. | |
Pittsburgh driver's test (5) Your car's horn is a vital piece of safety equipment. How often should you test it? (a) once a year. (b) once a month. (c) once a day. (d) once an hour. The correct answer is (d). You should test your car's horn at least once every hour, and more often at night or in residential neighborhoods. | |
Sho' they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever'body git high, they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens. Hee-hee. -- Terry Southern | |
Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent I can find for "landskap"). These laws were written down sometime in the 13th century, but date back even down into Viking times. The oldest one is the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some Christian stuff. In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc. Here is an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of "lekare". "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it. If an artist is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring it out on the hillside. Then they shall shave off all hair from the heifer's tail, and grease the tail. Then the artist shall be given newly greased shoes. Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail, and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip. If he can hold her, he shall have the animal. If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what he received, shame and wounds." | |
The justifications for drug testing are part of the presently fashionable debate concerning restoring America's "competitiveness." Drugs, it has been revealed, are responsible for rampant absenteeism, reduced output, and poor quality work. But is drug testing in fact rationally related to the resurrection of competitiveness? Will charging the atmosphere of the workplace with the fear of excretory betrayal honestly spur productivity? Much noise has been made about rehabilitating the worker using drugs, but to date the vast majority of programs end with the simple firing or the not hiring of the abuser. This practice may exacerbate, not alleviate, the nation's productivity problem. If economic rehabilitation is the ultimate goal of drug testing, then criteria abandoning the rehabilitation of the drug-using worker is the purest of hypocrisy and the worst of rationalization. -- The concluding paragraph of "Constitutional Law: The Fourth Amendment and Drug Testing in the Workplace," Tim Moore, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, vol. 10, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 762-768. | |
The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine we own. -- H.G. Wells | |
The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal pay enforcement officer. The advertisement offered different salary scales for men and women. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. -- H. L. Mencken | |
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10. (Bill of Rights) | |
The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough voters to win the next election. | |
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. -- Christopher Morley | |
With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time they make a law it's a joke. -- Will Rogers | |
(1) Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. (2) If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. (3) Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. (4) Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as the social ramble ain't restful. (5) Avoid running at all times. (6) Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. -- S. Paige, c. 1951 | |
A clash of doctrine is not a disaster -- it is an opportunity. | |
A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, if feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul | |
A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance. -- Stanislaw Lem | |
A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about. | |
A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk. "It is right before your eyes," said the master. "Why do I not see it for myself?" "Because you are thinking of yourself." "What about you: do you see it?" "So long as you see double, saying `I don't', and `you do', and so on, your eyes are clouded," said the master. "When there is neither `I' nor `You', can one see it?" "When there is neither `I' nor `You', who is the one that wants to see it?" | |
A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?" | |
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And the Master answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. And that is Fate? said the priest. Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper vocation?" The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds. Others must use thier strong backs, legs and hands. This is the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual. "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the scholar sobbed. Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?" | |
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." | |
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. | |
And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. -- Kahlil Gibran | |
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. -- J.D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" | |
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here." -- Muad'dib, "Dune" | |
At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my ignorance upon the shore. -- Kahlil Gibran | |
"Cheshire-Puss," she began, "would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. "I don't care much where--" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. | |
Death is only a state of mind. Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else. | |
Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help the rabbit. -- R.E. Shay | |
Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. -- Joseph Heller, "God Knows" | |
Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. | |
Do what you can to prolong your life, in the hope that someday you'll learn what it's for. | |
Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. | |
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. -- Paul Tillich, German theologian. | |
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maughm, his last words | |
Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential death in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. -- Henry James Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William | |
Everything ends badly. Otherwise it wouldn't end. | |
Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last. -- Marcus Aurelius | |
Fill what's empty, empty what's full, scratch where it itches. -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth | |
For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. -- Albert Camus | |
**** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential. | |
Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have. | |
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -- Oscar Levant | |
...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating. -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose" | |
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. | |
I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives. I don't see why I should have to believe in it in this one. -- Strange de Jim | |
"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment." -- Gotama Buddha | |
I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -- A. R. Longworth | |
I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a living death? -- St. Augustine | |
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'" -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" | |
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and you had better be on speaking terms with it. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. | |
If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I'd travel and see. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hotwater bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more. I probably wouldn't make such good grades, but I'd learn more. I would ride on more merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies. | |
If men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death. If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means a man will be killed, Who will dare to break the law? There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand. -- Tao Te Ching, "Lao Tsu, #74" | |
If something has not yet gone wrong then it would ultimately have been beneficial for it to go wrong. | |
If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. -- Anatole France | |
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. -- Albert Camus | |
If you find a solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem. | |
If you fool around with something long enough, it will eventually break. | |
If you have to think twice about it, you're wrong. | |
If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away. | |
If you put it off long enough, it might go away. | |
If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. | |
If you wait long enough, it will go away... after having done its damage. If it was bad, it will be back. | |
In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice. | |
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations. | |
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
It is Fortune, not Wisdom, that rules man's life. | |
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed. -- Goethe | |
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true. -- William James | |
It is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. -- The Fox, 'The Little Prince" | |
It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? | |
It is so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the devil when he is the only explanation of it. -- Ronald Knox, "Let Dons Delight" | |
It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works and has his being. -- Thomas Carlyle | |
It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. | |
It's easier to take it apart than to put it back together. -- Washlesky | |
It's hard to drive at the limit, but it's harder to know where the limits are. -- Stirling Moss | |
It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things. | |
"It's today!" said Piglet. "My favorite day," said Pooh. | |
It's very inconvenient to be mortal -- you never know when everything may suddenly stop happening. | |
Joshu: What is the true Way? Nansen: Every way is the true Way. J: Can I study it? N: The more you study, the further from the Way. J: If I don't study it, how can I know it? N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open yourself as wide as the sky. | |
Life is a grand adventure -- or it is nothing. -- Helen Keller | |
Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. -- Tom Lehrer | |
Life may have no meaning, or, even worse, it may have a meaning of which you disapprove. | |
Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just last week. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better. | |
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" | |
Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. | |
Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone might steal it." | |
Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to serve him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk into your shop?" "Of course." "Have you ever seen me before?" "Never." "Then how do you know it was me?" | |
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 man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. -- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland" | |
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. | |
Nothing is as simple as it seems at first Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle Or as finished as it seems in the end. | |
Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example. | |
Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in. -- H.R. Haldeman | |
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. -- Richard Bach | |
Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier to change your mind. | |
One day it was announced that the young monk Kyogen had reached an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers went to speak with him. "We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?" his fellow students inquired. "It is", Kyogen answered. "Tell us", said a friend, "how do you feel?" "As miserable as ever", replied the enlightened Kyogen. | |
One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell the truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to a question which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth -- the alternative is death by hanging." "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!" "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth." | |
One meets his destiny often on the road he takes to avoid it. | |
One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How will it live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net, I'll tell you." | |
Push where it gives and scratch where it itches. | |
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". -- Philip K. Dick | |
Seeing is believing. You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't believed it. | |
Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter. -- Long Chen Pa | |
Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it. -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values | |
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. -- H.L. Mencken | |
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 optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it. -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" | |
The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses. -- Francis Bacon | |
The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon. -- Franz Kafka | |
The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it. -- Stanley Kubrick | |
The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it needs to be. | |
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 | |
There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine," said a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. "And yet just a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with an unanswerable question," said Nasrudin. "I could have answered it if I had been there." "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in the middle of the night?'" | |
Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man said, "This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The second man said, "He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his chambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded only in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to the courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the man whose ear was bitten. If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case is dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it and must pay three silver pieces." | |
Two men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things, with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that toast always falls on the buttered side," said one. "Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the dry side. "So, what have you to say for your theory now?" "What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side." | |
We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it. -- Yates | |
"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 | |
Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. Time passed, unheeded. Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes. -- Wayfarer | |
What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. | |
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. -- Gandhi | |
When it's dark enough you can see the stars. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, | |
When the wind is great, bow before it; when the wind is heavy, yield to it. | |
When you are young, you enjoy a sustained illusion that sooner or later something marvelous is going to happen, that you are going to transcend your parents' limitations... At the same time, you feel sure that in all the wilderness of possibility; in all the forests of opinion, there is a vital something that can be known -- known and grasped. That we will eventually know it, and convert the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. So that then one's true life -- the point of everything -- will emerge from the mist into a pure light, into total comprehension. But it isn't like that at all. But if it isn't, where did the idea come from, to torture and unsettle us? -- Brian Aldiss, "Helliconia Summer" | |
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. -- R. Bach, "Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul" | |
You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. | |
You can't take it with you -- especially when crossing a state line. | |
"You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?" "Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass." -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" | |
"You would do well not to imagine profundity," he said. "Anything that seems of momentous occasion should be dwelt upon as though it were of slight note. Conversely, trivialities must be attended to with the greatest of care. Because death is momentous, give it no thought; because victory is important, give it no thought; because the method of achievement and discovery is less momentous than the effect, dwell always upon the method. You will strengthen yourself in this way." -- Jessica Salmonson, "The Swordswoman" | |
Your picture of the world often changes just before you get it into focus. | |
...everything on this earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. Mourning Dove, (Salish 1888-1936) | |
"How do you pronounce SunOS?" "Just like you hear it, with a big SOS" -- dedicated to Roland Kaltefleiter | |
Linux ext2fs has been stable for a long time, now it's time to break it -- Linuxkongreß '95 in Berlin | |
Let's call it an accidental feature. --Larry Wall | |
I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. -- Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux | |
Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). -- Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device | |
Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was good. After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's unix tools ported to DOS and installed them. He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy. After a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file, and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do a compile. -- Erik Troan, ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu | |
> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I > > should use Linux over BSD? > > No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on > creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it > certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able > to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the > mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the > name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too > technical. -- Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux | |
> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF > being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that > it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it > happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does > mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid > reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing > negative so far). > > Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: > I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented > that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. > If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me > on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so > far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something > better of it (*). > > Linus > > (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does > somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. -- Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux | |
> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping > : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will > : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff. > : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so > : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed. > > It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there > really is a god. -- Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting | |
We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. -- Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu | |
Note that if I can get you to "su and say" something just by asking, you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should look into it. -- Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes | |
How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only coded it. -- Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting | |
If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work. -- Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications | |
Problem solving under Linux has never been the circus that it is under AIX. -- Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix | |
...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero outside. -- Linus Torvalds | |
I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of mice vs. trackballs... It was very silly. -- Matt Welsh | |
[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less abusive.') -- Matt Welsh | |
And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies. -- Linus Torvalds | |
Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. -- Craig E. Groeschel | |
We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. - Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amterdam Linux Symposium | |
Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM FOR THE 386. -- Matt Welsh | |
The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. -- Copyright notice for the chat program | |
But what can you do with it? -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner | |
MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development. -- dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca | |
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 | |
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X interfaces | |
After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or speaker of intuitive likes". -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac interface | |
Now, it we had this sort of thing: yield -a for yield to all traffic yield -t for yield to trucks yield -f for yield to people walking (yield foot) yield -d t* for yield on days starting with t ...you'd have a lot of dead people at intersections, and traffic jams you wouldn't believe... -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands | |
As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. -- Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 | |
It's now the GNU Emacs of all terminal emulators. -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the fact that Linux started off as a terminal emulator | |
... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT" -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26 | |
... of course, this probably only happens for tcsh which uses wait4(), which is why I never saw it. Serves people who use that abomination right 8^) -- Linus Torvalds, about a patch that fixes getrusage for 1.3.26 | |
It's a bird.. It's a plane.. No, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue. Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat.. -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 | |
Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the "happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 | |
> Linux is not user-friendly. It _is_ user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly. -- Seen somewhere on the net | |
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as I can tell even _they_ don't have it ;-) -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver | |
Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up space? A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words.. -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions | |
Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the "happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets and deliver this message of joy to the masses. -- Linus Torvalds, on releasing 1.3.27 | |
Those who don't understand Linux are doomed to reinvent it, poorly. -- unidentified source | |
MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it. -- from Lars Wirzenius' .sig | |
I mean, well, if it were not for Linux I might be roaming the streets looking for drugs or prostitutes or something. Hannu and Linus have my highest admiration (apple polishing mode off). -- Phil Lewis, plewis@nyx.nyx.net | |
> Is there any hope for me? Am I just thick? Does anyone remember the > Rubiks Cube, it was easier! I found that the Rubiks cube and Linux are alike. Looks real confusing until you read the right book. :-) -- seen on c.o.l.misc, about the "Linux Learning Curve" | |
> I've hacked the Xaw3d library to give you a Win95 like interface and it > is named Xaw95. You can replace your Xaw3d library. Oh God, this is so disgusting! -- seen on c.o.l.development.apps, about the "Win95 look-alike" | |
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 | |
The game, anoraks.2.0.0.tgz, will be available from sunsite until somebody responsible notices it and deletes it, and shortly from ftp.mee.tcd.ie/pub/Brian, though they don't know that yet. -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie | |
Q: Would you like to see the WINE list? A: What's on it, anything expensive? Q: No, just Solitaire and MineSweeper for now, but the WINE is free. -- Kevin M. Bealer, about the WINdows Emulator | |
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 | |
In short, at least give the penguin a fair viewing. If you still don't like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do. -- Linus "what, me arrogant?" Torvalds, on c.o.l.advocacy | |
It's easy to get on the internet and forget you have a life -- Topic on #LinuxGER | |
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 | |
Well, since MS cant be sure of the username of someone downloading things, they are going to play it safe and have everything dowloaded and executed by Explorer as suid root. That way, it will run on ANY system anywhere. :) -- George Bonser <grep@cris.com> | |
If you really want pure ASCII, save it as text... or browse it with your favorite browser... -- Alexandre Maret <amaret@infomaniak.ch> | |
Subject: Linux box finds it hard to wake up in the morning I've heard of dogs being like their owners, but Linux boxen? -- Peter Hunter <peter.hunter@blackfriars.oxford.ac.uk> | |
Win 95 is simplified for the user: User: What does this configuration thing do? You: It allows you to modify you settings, for networking, hardware, protocols, ... User: Whoa! Layman's terms, please! You: It changes stuff. User: That's what I'm looking for! What can it change? You: This part change IP forwarding. It allows ... User: Simplify, simplify! What can it do for ME? You: Nothing, until you understand it. User: Well it makes me uncomfortable. It looks so technical; Get rid of it, I want a system *I* can understand. You: But... User: Hey, who's system is this anyway? You: (... rm this, rm that, rm /etc/* ...) "All done." -- Kevin M. Bealer <kmb203@psu.edu> | |
I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon. By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses. -- Bruce Perens | |
If someone can point me to a good and _FREE_ backup software that keeps track of which files get stored on which tape, we can change to it. -- Mike Neuffer, admin of i-Connect Corp. | |
There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution | |
1648 files (84%) out of the files that I mirror disappeared. Since my delete threshold was set at 90%, all those files are now missing from my hard drive. It's going to take a loooong time to fetch those again via 14.4kbps! -- Brian C. White | |
Whoever asked if the debian organization was dead isn't reading debian-devel. 66 messages in one day, and it's not over. I find it difficult to keep up. -- Bruce Perens | |
Check it out, send me comments, and dance joyously in the streets, -- Linus Torvalds announcing 2.0.27 | |
AP/STT. Helsinki, Dec 5th, 6:22 AM. For immediate release. In order to allay fears about the continuity of the Linux project, Linus Torvalds together with his manager Tove Monni have released "Linus v2.0", affectionately known as "Kernel Hacker - The Next Generation". Linux stock prices on Wall Street rose sharply after the announcement; as one well-known analyst who wishes to remain anonymous says - "It shows a long-term commitment, and while we expect a short-term decrease in productivity, we feel that this solidifies the development in the long run". Other analysts downplay the importance of the event, and claim that just about anybody could have done it. "I'm glad somebody finally told them about the birds and the bees" one sceptic comments cryptically. But even the skeptics agree that it is an interesting turn of events. Others bring up other issues with the new version - "I'm especially intrigued by the fact that the new version is female, and look forward to seeing what the impact of that will be on future development. Will "Red Hat Linux" change to "Pink Hat Linux", for example?" -- Linus Torvalds announcing that he became father of a girl | |
I tried the clone syscall on me, but it didn't work. -- Mike Neuffer trying to fix a serious time problem | |
<Tazman> damn my office is cold. <Tazman> need a hot secretary to warm it up. -- Seen on #Linux | |
This is a scsi driver, scraes the shit out of me, therefore I tapdanced and wrote a unix clone around it (C) by linus -- Somewhere in the kernel tree | |
i dont even know if it makes sense at all :) This is an experimental patch for an experimental kernel :)) -- Ingo Molnar on linux-kernel | |
NEVER RESPOND TO CRITICAL PRESS. IT IS A GAME YOU CAN ONLY LOSE, AND IT MAKES US LOOK BAD. -- Bruce Perens | |
Winnuke in one line? No problem: perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)' And formatted so it's a little easier to read: #!/usr/bin/perl use IO::Socket; IO::Socket::INET ->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139") ->send("bye", MSG_OOB); -- Randal Schwartz | |
(It is an old Debian tradition to leave at least twice a year ...) -- Sven Rudolph | |
"We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates "The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates -- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212 | |
Software is like sex; it's better when it's free. -- Linus Torvalds | |
vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^ exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D -- Jesper Lauridsen <rorschak@daimi.aau.dk> from alt.religion.emacs | |
Make it idiot-proof, and someone will breed a better idiot. -- Oliver Elphick | |
Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't. Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms? Diety Is Excellent To You. Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow. Diety Is Eloping To Yokohama. I'll stop now. -- Guy Maor | |
<sct> Anyone want the new supermount? :) <klogd> whats new aboutit <sct> klogd: It cleans whiter than white. :) -- Seen on #Linux | |
It's computer hardware, of course it's worth having <g> -- Espy on #Debian | |
Alan E. Davis: Some files at llug.sep.bnl.gov/pub/debian/Incoming are stamped on 10 January 1998. As I write, nowhere on Earth is it now 10 January. Craig Sanders: That just proves how advanced debian is, doesn't it :-) -- debian-devel | |
The only really good reason I can think to not release specs is embarrassment on just how crappy some hardware out there is, or just how buggy it is. -- Chris Wedgwood <cw@ix.net.nz> | |
Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't morphed into another one? Not that I'm one to talk, but some people seriously need to get a life -- james on #Debian | |
Does biff in bo work coz it biffin doesn't beep an if biff in bo is broke then biff in bo I will delete I've tried biff in bo with 'y' I've tried biff in bo with '-y' no biffin output does it show so poor wee biff is gonna go. -- John Spence <jspence@lynx.net.au> on debian-user | |
Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it. -- Linus Torvalds | |
I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it. -- Sven Rudolph <sr1@os.inf.tu-dresden.de> | |
> I thing you're missing the capability of Makefiles. It takes several _hours_ to do `make' a second time on my machine with the latest glibc sources (and no files are recompiled a second time). I think I'll remove `build' after changing one file if I want to recompile it. -- Juan Cespedes <cespedes@debian.org> | |
* Linux Viruscan..... Windows 95 found. Remove it? (Y/y) -- Unknown source | |
Ooh, mommy, mommy, what I have now doesn't work in this extremely unlikely circumstance, so I'll just throw it away and write something completely new. -- Linus Torvalds | |
Linus Torvalds: > This is the special easter release of linux, more mundanely called 1.3.84 Winfried Truemper: > Umh, oh. What do you mean by "special easter release"?. Will it quit > working today and rise on easter? | |
I expect that noone has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of flames afterwards :) -- Christian Schwarz | |
Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed) -- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3 | |
<doogie> Thinking is dangerous. It leads to ideas. -- Seen on #Debian | |
<james> Are we going to make an emacs out of apt? APT - Debian in a program. It even does your laundry -- Seen on #Debian | |
Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. | |
The truth is not free. It's that simple. If you change the truth, it is no longer true - so the truth is not free! -- Jules Bean about freeness of documentation | |
<jim> Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity "important". True or false? <JHM> jim: "important" or higher. True. <jim> Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) * netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful <Joey> We still have rpm.... -- Seen on #Debian | |
The problem here (as someon else stated) is that when multiple dists use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility". -- Stephen Carpenter <sjc@delphi.com> | |
The most effective has probably been Linux/8086 - that was a joke that got out of hand. So far out of hand in fact its almost approaching usability because other folks thought it worth doing - Alistair Riddoch especially. -- Alan Cox | |
<dark> Turns out that grep returns error code 1 when there are no matches. I KNEW that. Why did it take me half an hour? -- Seen on #Debian | |
It's simply unbelievable how much energy and creativity people have invested into creating contradictory, bogus and stupid licenses... --- Sven Rudolph about licences in debian/non-free. | |
<dark> Looks like the channel is back to normal :) <jim> You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :) -- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0 | |
Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it recieves a response to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS service on a different platform. -- bugtraq | |
I am amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian yet - it is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, and I've played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to mention OS/2, Novell, Win95/NT) -- Nathan E. Norman | |
Jim> http://www.novare.net/~eam/kaffe/ Joey> ^ Joey> And now we all learn how to write Ean's name and the URL is complete. Jim> Hah! I noticed that the instead I sent it, and I tried to hit ^g, but I was too slow. :-) --- debian-devel | |
<\\swing> and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil? :) <joost> \\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked -- #Debian | |
I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel, but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this. -- Linus Torvalds | |
<stu> Stupid nick highlighting <stu> Whenever someone starts with "stupid" it highlights the nick. Hmm. -- #Debian | |
As to house maintenance, does it involve problem solfing? If so, your hacker can safely be left to deall with the panning (for the musement value, if nothering ese). -- Telsa Gwynne | |
<Skyhook> Where is 'bavaria' proper? I thought it was austria. -- Seen on #Linux | |
Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, please? I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds | |
I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' is a good rationale for doing something. -- Andrew Suffield in <20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel | |
< Overfiend> whew. < Overfiend> I really need to get some sleep. < Overfiend> but it sure was fun talking guitars, politics, and lesbians. | |
(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. (7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible and other good books. (8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. (9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. (10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the business permit it. -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 | |
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back the when it begins to rain. -- Robert Frost | |
A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson | |
A company is known by the men it keeps. | |
A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. | |
A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn. At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of this central section. Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy. | |
... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't force you down on the asking price. -- Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt" | |
A traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer sitting in the yard watching the pig. "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." "Amazing!" the salesman exlaimed. "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. Saved my life." "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has three wooden legs?" The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once." | |
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. -- Samuel Goldwyn | |
Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. -- Sinclair Lewis | |
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. | |
All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. Money's just the way we keep score. -- Henry Tyroon | |
American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors. -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister" | |
An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone who has seen the Managing Director face on). -- Katherine Whitehorn, "Roundabout" | |
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley | |
Anything free is worth what you pay for it. | |
At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume. -- Peter G. Alaquon | |
... before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling. -- Joseph Conrad | |
Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate. Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and great effort pushing boulders into a single word. It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow. Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass both Parliament and Party. It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other planets, this may be the first message received from us. -- The Realist, November, 1964. | |
But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were still five feet between rails. It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set, great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere was possible. -- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957 | |
Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. | |
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 0. integrated 0. management 0. options 1. total 1. organizational 1. flexibility 2. systematized 2. monitored 2. capability 3. parallel 3. reciprocal 3. mobility 4. functional 4. digital 4. programming 5. responsive 5. logistical 5. concept 6. optional 6. transitional 6. time-phase 7. synchronized 7. incremental 7. projection 8. compatible 8. third-generation 8. hardware 9. balanced 9. policy 9. contingency The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number, then select the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces "systematized logistical projection," a phrase that can be dropped into virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority. "No one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about," says Broughton, "but the important thing is that they're not about to admit it." -- Philip Broughton, "How to Win at Wordsmanship" | |
Competitive fury is not always anger. It is the true missionary's courage and zeal in facing the possibility that one's best may not be enough. -- Gene Scott | |
... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish. -- Thom McLeod | |
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. -- Josh Billings | |
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. | |
"Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" "I've never done anything illegal before." "I thought you said you were an accountant!" | |
Every cloud has a silver lining; you should have sold it, and bought titanium. | |
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you'd better be running. | |
Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed; otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off. Finally the company president called Sam into his office. "Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign, you're fired. As of right now." Sam signed the papers immediately. "Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you couldn't have signed earlier?" "Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so clearly before." | |
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: (1) They want it quick. (2) They want it good. (3) They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company | |
For every bloke who makes his mark, there's half a dozen waiting to rub it out. -- Andy Capp | |
Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ... Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week." -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. -- F.M. Hubbard | |
How come everyone's going so slow if it's called rush hour? | |
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; If it be man's work I will do it. | |
I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when it has been used to commit a murder. -- M. Gallaher | |
I don't do it for the money. -- Donald Trump, Art of the Deal | |
I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that can't be measured in monetary terms. Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly understand his long delay. | |
I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. | |
I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around. | |
I: The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money. II: If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was. III: There are no lazy veteran lion hunters. IV: If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to. V: One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average output. -- Norman Augustine | |
If a thing's worth doing, it is worth doing badly. -- G.K. Chesterton | |
If a thing's worth having, it's worth cheating for. -- W.C. Fields | |
If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it. | |
IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money. | |
If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. | |
If you always postpone pleasure you will never have it. Quit work and play for once! | |
If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are real good, you will get out of it. | |
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. | |
If you do something right once, someone will ask you to do it again. | |
If you don't have time to do it right, where are you going to find the time to do it over? | |
If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it. | |
If you hype something and it succeeds, you're a genius -- it wasn't a hype. If you hype it and it fails, then it was just a hype. -- Neil Bogart | |
If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. -- Dorthy Parker | |
If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?" Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This article can help you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them. | |
In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and make it better. | |
In every hierarchy the cream rises until it sours. -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter | |
In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it. | |
Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. | |
It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same. | |
It is better to live rich than to die rich. -- Samuel Johnson | |
It is better to travel hopefully than to fly Continental. | |
It is difficult to soar with the eagles when you work with turkeys. | |
It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" | |
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. -- Jerome Klapka Jerome | |
It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. | |
It is not enough that I should succeed. Others must fail. -- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's [Also attributed to David Merrick. Ed.] It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal [Great minds think alike? Ed.] | |
It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way of survival of the fittest. -- Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's | |
It's a poor workman who blames his tools. | |
It's been a business doing pleasure with you. | |
It's fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour! -- Macy's | |
It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off the ground. -- Daniel B. Luten | |
It's very glamorous to raise millions of dollars, until it's time for the venture capitalist to suck your eyeballs out. -- Peter Kennedy, chairman of Kraft & Kennedy. | |
Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it. | |
Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun. | |
Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these interest rates, we don't need it." | |
Management: How many feet do mice have? Reply: Mice have four feet. M: Elaborate! R: Mice have five appendages, and four of them are feet. M: No discussion of fifth appendage! R: Mice have five appendages; four of them are feet; one is a tail. M: What? Feet with no legs? R: Mice have four legs, four feet, and one tail per unit-mouse. M: Confusing -- is that a total of 9 appendages? R: Mice have four leg-foot assemblies and one tail assembly per body. M: Does not fully discuss the issue! R: Each mouse comes equipped with four legs and a tail. Each leg is equipped with a foot at the end opposite the body; the tail is not equipped with a foot. M: Descriptive? Yes. Forceful NO! R: Allotment of appendages for mice will be: Four foot-leg assemblies, one tail. Deviation from this policy is not permitted as it would constitute misapportionment of scarce appendage assets. M: Too authoritarian; stifles creativity! R: Mice have four feet; each foot is attached to a small leg joined integrally with the overall mouse structural sub-system. Also attached to the mouse sub-system is a thin tail, non-functional and ornamental in nature. M: Too verbose/scientific. Answer the question! R: Mice have four feet. | |
Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. | |
McDonald's -- Because you're worth it. | |
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" | |
Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable. -- C.B. Luce | |
Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position. -- Christopher Marlowe | |
Money doesn't talk, it swears. -- Bob Dylan | |
Money isn't everything -- but it's a long way ahead of what comes next. -- Sir Edmond Stockdale | |
My idea of roughing it is when room service is late. | |
My idea of roughing it turning the air conditioner too low. | |
Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. -- Thomas Jefferson | |
Never let someone who says it cannot be done interrupt the person who is doing it. | |
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. -- C. Schulz | |
No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. | |
None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work" | |
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. -- A.H. Weiler | |
Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question. Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct sunlight. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. | |
Once it hits the fan, the only rational choice is to sweep it up, package it, and sell it as fertilizer. | |
One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops -- a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, "Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back. Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't happy about it. Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the one after that, and so forth. This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself. So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, "And why not?" With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a bus pass." | |
One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's say your congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet. Just when he got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the plane door. It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law. ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as Cuticle Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, are already too large to fit on normal aircraft. -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" | |
Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. -- J. Wellington Wells | |
Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities, requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works. A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
Promising costs nothing, it's the delivering that kills you. | |
Retirement means that when someone says "Have a nice day", you actually have a shot at it. | |
"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. "Too proud?" the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older." "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass" | |
Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up like crabgrass all over the United States. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
Some people have a great ambition: to build something that will last, at least until they've finished building it. | |
Someday somebody has got to decide whether the typewriter is the machine, or the person who operates it. | |
Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to improve ... -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
Talent does what it can. Genius does what it must. You do what you get paid to do. | |
Telephone books are like dictionaries -- if you know the answer before you look it up, you can eventually reaffirm what you thought you knew but weren't sure. But if you're searching for something you don't already know, your fingers could walk themselves to death. -- Erma Bombeck | |
That's life. What's life? A magazine. How much does it cost? Two-fifty. I only have a dollar. That's life. | |
The annual meeting of the "You Have To Listen To Experience" Club is now in session. Our Achievement Awards this year are in the fields of publishing, advertising and industry. For best consistent contribution in the field of publishing our award goes to editor, R.L.K., [...] for his unrivalled alle- giance without variation to the statement: "Personally I'd love to do it, we'd ALL love to do it. But we're not going to do it. It's not the kind of book our house knows how to handle." Our superior performance award in the field of advertising goes to media executive, E.L.M., [...] for the continu- ally creative use of the old favorite: "I think what you've got here could be very exciting. Why not give it one more try based on the approach I've out- lined and see if you can come up with something fresh." Our final award for courageous holding action in the field of industry goes to supervisor, R.S., [...] for her unyielding grip on "I don't care if they fire me, I've been arguing for a new approach for YEARS but are we SURE that this is the right time--" I would like to conclude this meeting with a verse written specially for our prospectus by our founding president fifty years ago -- and now, as then, fully expressive of the emotion most close to all our hearts -- Treat freshness as a youthful quirk, And dare not stray to ideas new, For if t'were tried they might e'en work And for a living what woulds't we do? | |
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. -- Theodore Roosevelt | |
The Bible on letters of reference: Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you, or from you? No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on your heart; any man can see it for what it is and read it for himself. -- 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, New English translation | |
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to work. | |
The decision doesn't have to be logical; it was unanimous. | |
The departing division general manager met a last time with his young successor and gave him three envelopes. "My predecessor did this for me, and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said. "At the first sign of trouble, open the first envelope. Any further difficulties, open the second envelope. Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope. Good luck." The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes into a drawer. Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me." The next day, he held a press conference and did just that. The crisis passed. Six months later, sales dropped precipitously. The beleagured manager opened the second envelope. It said, "Reorganize." He held another press conference, announcing that the division would be restructured. The crisis passed. A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was blamed for all of it. The harried executive closed his office door, sank into his chair, and opened the third envelope. "Prepare three envelopes..." it said. | |
The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill. -- Robert Heller | |
The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest. | |
The King and his advisor are overlooking the battle field: King: "How goes the battle plan?" Advisor: "See those little black specks running to the right?" K: "Yes." A: "Those are their guys. And all those little red specks running to the left are our guys. Then when they collide we wait till the dust clears." K: "And?" A: "If there are more red specks left than black specks, we win." K: "But what about the ^#!!$% battle plan?" A: "So far, it seems to be going according to specks." | |
The meek don't want it. | |
The meek shall inherit the Earth. (But they're gonna have to fight for it.) | |
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" | |
The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in the country is the one on which you resell it. -- J. Brecheux | |
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 | |
The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up until 5 or 6 PM. | |
The person who can smile when something goes wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. | |
The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it. -- Anthony Burgess | |
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. -- Emerson | |
The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it. -- Josh Billings | |
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" | |
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made. -- Jean Giraudoux | |
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. | |
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. -- Franklin P. Jones | |
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. | |
The trouble with money is it costs too much! | |
The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work. -- Herbert V. Prochnow | |
The Worst Car Hire Service When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles. To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and he now has 26 thriving branches all over America. "People like driving round in the worst cars available," he said. Of course they do. "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'. If they bring a car back late we overlook it. If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle we might overlook that too." "Where's the ashtray?" asked on Los Angeles wife, as she settled into the ripped interior. "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the ash tray." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
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 never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. | |
"There is no Father Christmas. It's just a marketing ploy to make low income parents' lives a misery." "... I want you to picture the trusting face of a child, streaked with tears because of what you just said." "I want you to picture the face of its mother, because one week's dole won't pay for one Master of the Universe Battlecruiser!" -- Filthy Rich and Catflap | |
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence) | |
There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by going from house to house offering to do odd jobs. He explained this to a man who answered one door. "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man. "Forty dollars." "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes. Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again. "All done!", he says, and collects his money. "By the way," the student says, "That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari." | |
This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has "deregulated" the airline industry. What this means for you, the consumer, is that the airlines are no longer required to follow any rules whatsoever. They can show snuff movies. They can charge for oxygen. They can hire pilots right out of Vending Machine Refill Person School. They can conserve fuel by ejecting husky passengers over water. They can ram competing planes in mid-air. These innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which have been passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do apply, the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark, and you must pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out. -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations" | |
This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. -- Douglas Adams | |
To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan. Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse, an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna's loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly. -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?" | |
Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it. | |
We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why you are so tired. There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over 60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself! | |
What they said: What they meant: "I recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever." (Yes, that about sums it up.) "The amount of mathematics she knows will surprise you." (And I recommend not giving that school a dime...) "I simply can't say enough good things about him." (What a screw-up.) "I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine." (I can't tell you how happy I am that she left our firm.) "When this person left our employ, we were quite hopeful he would go a long way with his skills." (We hoped he'd go as far as possible.) "You won't find many people like her." (In fact, most people can't stand being around her.) "I cannot reccommend him too highly." (However, to the best of my knowledge, he has never committed a felony in my presence.) | |
What they said: What they meant: "If you knew this person as well as I know him, you would think as much of him as I do." (Or as little, to phrase it slightly more accurately.) "Her input was always critical." (She never had a good word to say.) "I have no doubt about his capability to do good work." (And it's nonexistent.) "This candidate would lend balance to a department like yours, which already has so many outstanding members." (Unless you already have a moron.) "His presentation to my seminar last semester was truly remarkable: one unbelievable result after another." (And we didn't believe them, either.) "She is quite uniform in her approach to any function you may assign her." (In fact, to life in general...) | |
What they said: What they meant: "You will be fortunate if you can get him to work for you." (We certainly never succeeded.) There is no other employee with whom I can adequately compare him. (Well, our rats aren't really employees...) "Success will never spoil him." (Well, at least not MUCH more.) "One usually comes away from him with a good feeling." (And such a sigh of relief.) "His dissertation is the sort of work you don't expect to see these days; in it he has definitely demonstrated his complete capabilities." (And his IQ, as well.) "He should go far." (The farther the better.) "He will take full advantage of his staff." (He even has one of them mowing his lawn after work.) | |
What they say: What they mean: A major technological breakthrough... Back to the drawing board. Developed after years of research Discovered by pure accident. Project behind original schedule due We're working on something else. to unforseen difficulties Designs are within allowable limits We made it, stretching a point or two. Customer satisfaction is believed So far behind schedule that they'll be assured grateful for anything at all. Close project coordination We're gonna spread the blame, campers! Test results were extremely gratifying It works, and boy, were we surprised! The design will be finalized... We haven't started yet, but we've got to say something. The entire concept has been rejected The guy who designed it quit. We're moving forward with a fresh We hired three new guys, and they're approach kicking it around. A number of different approaches... We don't know where we're going, but we're moving. Preliminary operational tests are Blew up when we turned it on. inconclusive Modifications are underway We're starting over. | |
What they say: What they mean: New Different colors from previous version. All New Not compatible with previous version. Exclusive Nobody else has documentation. Unmatched Almost as good as the competition. Design Simplicity The company wouldn't give us any money. Fool-proof Operation All parameters are hard-coded. Advanced Design Nobody really understands it. Here At Last Didn't get it done on time. Field Tested We don't have any simulators. Years of Development Finally got one to work. Unprecedented Performance Nothing ever ran this slow before. Revolutionary Disk drives go 'round and 'round. Futuristic Only runs on a next generation supercomputer. No Maintenance Impossible to fix. Performance Proven Worked through Beta test. Meets Tough Quality Standards It compiles without errors. Satisfaction Guaranteed We'll send you another pack if it fails. Stock Item We shipped it before and can do it again. | |
What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed. -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" | |
When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," it's the money. -- Kim Hubbard | |
When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision. | |
When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend. "Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!" "I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you might have some idea that you could borrow from me!" | |
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly. | |
While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery. | |
While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position. | |
Will you loan me $20.00 and only give me ten of it? That way, you will owe me ten, and I'll owe you ten, and we'll be even! | |
XI: If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off. XII: It costs a lot to build bad products. XIII: There are many highly successful businesses in the United States. There are also many highly paid executives. The policy is not to intermingle the two. XIV: After the year 2015, there will be no airplane crashes. There will be no takeoffs either, because electronics will occupy 100 percent of every airplane's weight. XV: The last 10 percent of performance generates one-third of the cost and two-thirds of the problems. -- Norman Augustine | |
XLI: The more one produces, the less one gets. XLII: Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing. XLIII: Hardware works best when it matters the least. XLIV: Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics. XLV: One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected. XLVI: A billion saved is a billion earned. -- Norman Augustine | |
XLVII: Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters. XLVIII: The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing. XLIX: Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds. L: The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times as long as the official's who created it. LI: By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more government workers than there are workers. LII: People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again. -- Norman Augustine | |
XVI: In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day. XVII: Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e., it always increases. XVIII: It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished. XIX: Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them. XX: In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the administration requests -- minus 4-percent tax. -- Norman Augustine | |
XXI: It's easy to get a loan unless you need it. XXII: If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice. XXIII: Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is currently estimated. XXIV: The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most costly action known to man. XXV: A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete or a new canvas to an artist. -- Norman Augustine | |
XXVI: If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance. XXVII: Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank. XXVIII: It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee. XXIX: Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade. XXX: By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, the people doing the work have lost track of the questions. -- Norman Augustine | |
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 | |
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken | |
You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. -- J. Wellington Wells | |
Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate to make 10 ways to do something. :-) -- Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
: And it goes against the grain of building small tools. Innocent, Your Honor. Perl users build small tools all day long. -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> | |
Besides, including <std_ice_cubes.h> is a fatal error on machines that don't have it yet. Bad language design, there... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com> | |
Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> | |
Does the same as the system call of that name. If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2) | |
echo "Hmmm...you don't have Berkeley networking in libc.a..." echo "but the Wollongong group seems to have hacked it in." -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution | |
I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get. :-) -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
If I don't document something, it's usually either for a good reason, or a bad reason. In this case it's a good reason. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan17.005405.16806@netlabs.com> | |
"I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation. Or is it a BUG?" "Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)" -- Larry Wall in <6909@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
If you want to program in C, program in C. It's a nice language. I use it occasionally... :-) -- Larry Wall in <7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
I know it's weird, but it does make it easier to write poetry in perl. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7865@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
I'll say it again for the logic impaired. -- Larry Wall | |
I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value, but it wouldn't be as clean. I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall | |
In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it usually is. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com> | |
Interestingly enough, since subroutine declarations can come anywhere, you wouldn't have to put BEGIN {} at the beginning, nor END {} at the end. Interesting, no? I wonder if Henry would like it. :-) --lwall | |
I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident. :-) -- Larry Wall on s/foo/bar/eieio in <10911@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
"It is easier to port a shell than a shell script." -- Larry Wall | |
It is, of course, written in Perl. Translation to C is left as an exercise for the reader. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7448@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
It's all magic. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7282@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
It's documented in The Book, somewhere... -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
> (It's sorta like sed, but not. It's sorta like awk, but not. etc.) Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative. -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> | |
It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers. :-) -- Larry Wall regarding 10_000_000 in <11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for something, after all... :-) -- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
: I've heard that there is a shell (bourne or csh) to perl filter, does : anyone know of this or where I can get it? Yeah, you filter it through Tom Christiansen. :-) -- Larry Wall | |
: I've tried (in vi) "g/[a-z]\n[a-z]/s//_/"...but that doesn't : cut it. Any ideas? (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution). In the first pass, install perl. :-) -- Larry Wall <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com> | |
Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-) -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> | |
Lispers are among the best grads of the Sweep-It-Under-Someone-Else's-Carpet School of Simulated Simplicity. [Was that sufficiently incendiary? :-)] -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan10.201804.11926@netlabs.com | |
No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't want to know anyway... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com> | |
Randal said it would be tough to do in sed. He didn't say he didn't understand sed. Randal understands sed quite well. Which is why he uses Perl. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7874@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending on how you look at it. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr22.175438.8564@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> | |
The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl. Horrors. :-) -- Larry Wall in <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
There are many times when you want it to ignore the rest of the string just like atof() does. Oddly enough, Perl calls atof(). How convenient. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Jun24.231628.14446@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> | |
There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity... :-) -- Larry Wall in <7886@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be, but don't think it. :-) Larry Wall in <7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution | |
> This made me wonder, suddenly: can telnet be written in perl? Of course it can be written in Perl. Now if you'd said nroff, that would be more challenging... -- Larry Wall | |
"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com> | |
What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords? :-) -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
"What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?" -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> | |
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
You have to admit that it's difficult to misplace the Perl sources. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com> | |
You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns? :-) -- Larry Wall in <7349@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt. It might seem easy enough, but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is. -- Larry Wall in <1994Jun15.074039.2654@netlabs.com> | |
If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them. -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org> | |
I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious. -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org> | |
: I used to think that this was just another demonstration of Larry's : enormous skill at pulling off what other people would fail or balk at. Well, everyone else knew it was impossible, so they didn't try. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> | |
(Presuming for the sake of argument that it's even *possible* to design better code in Perl than in C. :-) -- Larry Wall on core code vs. module code design | |
It's the Magic that counts. -- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness | |
True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting number than 0. -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> | |
We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short circuit. :-/ -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org> | |
But then it's a bit odd to think that declaring something int could actually slow down the program, if it ended up forcing more conversions back to string. -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> | |
It's possible that I'm just an idiot, and don't recognize a sleepy slavemaster when I see one. -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> | |
The computer should be doing the hard work. That's what it's paid to do, after all. -- Larry Wall in <199709012312.QAA08121@wall.org> | |
There's certainly precedent for that already too. (Not claiming it's *good* precedent, mind you. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org> | |
Part of language design is purturbing the proposed feature in various directions to see how it might generalize in the future. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> | |
It's appositival, if it's there. And it doesn't have to be there. And it's really obvious that it's there when it's there. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> | |
As with all the other proposals, it's basically just a list of words. You can deal with that... :-) -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> | |
It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't bothered. -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org> | |
One of the reasons Perl is faster than certain other unnamed interpreted languages is that it binds variable names to a particular package (or scope) at compile time rather than at run time. -- Larry Wall in <199709050035.RAA29328@wall.org> | |
You tell it that it's indicative by appending $!. That's why we made $! such a short variable name, after all. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199709081801.LAA20629@wall.org> | |
If you're going to define a shortcut, then make it the base [sic] darn shortcut you can. -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> | |
It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a pleasant day. -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org> | |
It's getting harder and harder to think out loud. One of these days someone's gonna go off and kill Thomas a'Becket for me... -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org> | |
But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for leaving capabilities out of Perl. -- Larry Wall in <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org> | |
Soitainly. I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it. -- Larry Wall in <199710011802.LAA21692@wall.org> | |
Because the demand for it is low enough that it would be best handled as an XSUB, and the demand for it is low enough that nobody has bothered to write it as an XSUB. -- Larry Wall on in-place Perl sorting | |
But that looks a little too much like a declaration for my tastes, when in fact it isn't one. So forget I mentioned it. -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> | |
I *know* it's weird, but strict vars already comes very, very close to partitioning the crowd into those who can deal with local lexicals and those who can't. -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> | |
The reason I like hitching a ride on strict vars is that it cuts down the number of rarely used pragmas people have to remember, yet provides a way to get to the point where we might, just maybe, someday, make local lexicals the default for everyone, without having useless pragmas wandering around various programs, or using up another bit in $^H. -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> | |
I don't think it's worth washing hogs over. -- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org> | |
It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl conferences. -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> | |
To ordinary folks, conversion is not always automatic. It's something that may or may not require explicit assistance. See Billy Graham. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org> | |
It may be possible to get this condition from within Perl if a signal handler runs at just the wrong moment. Another point for Chip... :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710161546.IAA07885@wall.org> | |
The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org> | |
You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org> | |
It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend. -- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org> | |
The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b". :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org> | |
People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else dictating how they can call it. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> | |
The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't been rethunk yet. -- Larry Wall in <199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org> | |
I'm afraid my gut level reaction is basically, "'proceed' is cute, but cute doesn't cut it in the emergency room." -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org> | |
Maybe it's time to break that. -- Larry Wall in <199710311718.JAA19082@wall.org> | |
Actually, it also looks like we should optimize (13,2,42,8,'hike') into a pp_padav copy as well. -- Larry Wall in <199711081945.LAA06315@wall.org> | |
It's hard to tune heavily tuned code. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org> | |
It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org> | |
A woman was in love with fourteen soldiers. It was clearly platoonic. | |
Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it. -- Hannah More | |
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 | |
Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to become good at it. | |
God is love, but get it in writing. -- Gypsy Rose Lee | |
HEY KIDS! ANN LANDERS SAYS: Be sure it's true, when you say "I love you". It's a sin to tell a lie. Millions of hearts have been broken, just because these words were spoken. | |
I don't want people to love me. It makes for obligations. -- Jean Anouilh | |
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 think a relationship is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies. Well, what we have on our hands here is a dead shark. -- Woody Allen | |
"I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got to undo it." | |
"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." | |
"I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with them, or something?" "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49" | |
It is far better to be deceived than to be undeceived by those we love. | |
Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs. -- Rebecca West | |
Love is always open arms. With arms open you allow love to come and go as it wills, freely, for it will do so anyway. If you close your arms about love you'll find you are left only holding yourself. | |
Love is dope, not chicken soup. I mean, love is something to be passed around freely, not spooned down someone's throat for their own good by a Jewish mother who cooked it all by herself. | |
Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. -- Jerome K. Jerome | |
Love is not enough, but it sure helps. | |
Love IS what it's cracked up to be. | |
Love isn't only blind, it's also deaf, dumb, and stupid. | |
"No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods -- it was so simple, really. "I didn't, for a long time, but I do now. You just can't hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same -- I mean `in love,' you know." There were those doubt-quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I can't." "You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand." -- Little, Big, "John Crowley" | |
Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well. -- Charles Bukowski | |
Oh, love is real enough, you will find it some day, but it has one arch-enemy -- and that is life. -- Jean Anouilh, "Ardele" | |
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky. -- Rainer Rilke | |
Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder... and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn. -- N.V. Plyter | |
That's life for you, said McDunn. Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving something more than that thing loves them. And after awhile you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can't hurt you no more. -- R. Bradbury, "The Fog Horn" | |
The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street... | |
The magic of our first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. -- Benjamin Disraeli | |
The myth of romantic love holds that once you've fallen in love with the perfect partner, you're home free. Unfortunately, falling out of love seems to be just as involuntary as falling into it. | |
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. | |
Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic... | |
What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice. -- Charles Baudelaire | |
Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but ... -- I have to floss my cat. -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. -- I need to spend more time with my blender. -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. -- I have some really hard words to look up. -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. | |
Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship. -- I have to sit up with a sick ant. -- I'm trying to be less popular. -- My bathroom tiles need grouting. -- I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner. -- My subconscious says no. -- I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I can't seem to put it down. -- My favorite commercial is on TV. -- I have to study for my blood test. -- I've been traded to Cincinnati. -- I'm having my baby shoes bronzed. -- I have to go to court for kitty littering. | |
Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. -- I'm attending the opening of my garage door. -- The monsters haven't turned blue yet, and I have to eat more dots. -- I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. -- I have to fulfill my potential. -- I don't want to leave my comfort zone. -- It's too close to the turn of the century. -- I have to bleach my hare. -- I'm worried about my vertical hold knob. -- I left my body in my other clothes. | |
Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. -- I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. -- I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. -- It's my parakeet's bowling night. -- I'm building a plant from a kit. -- There's a disturbance in the Force. -- I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. -- I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. -- My crayons all melted together. | |
"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing?" -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions | |
America!! I saw it all!! Vomiting! Waving! JERRY FALWELLING into your void tube of UHF oblivion!! SAFEWAY of the mind ... | |
BARRY ... That was the most HEART-WARMING rendition of "I DID IT MY WAY" I've ever heard!! | |
Boy, am I glad it's only 1971... | |
Catsup and Mustard all over the place! It's the Human Hamburger! | |
Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!! | |
Everybody is going somewhere!! It's probably a garage sale or a disaster Movie!! | |
Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES?? ... Now, it's time to "HAVE A NAGEELA"!! | |
How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE ... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! | |
How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS?? | |
I am having FUN... I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN? | |
I can't think about that. It doesn't go with HEDGES in the shape of LITTLE LULU -- or ROBOTS making BRICKS ... | |
I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more numbers!! | |
I don't know WHY I said that ... I think it came from the FILLINGS in my rear molars ... | |
I guess it was all a DREAM ... or an episode of HAWAII FIVE-O ... | |
I have a VISION! It's a RANCID double-FISHWICH on an ENRICHED BUN!! | |
I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT! Am I doing it correctly?? | |
I'm sitting on my SPEED QUEEN ... To me, it's ENJOYABLE ... I'm WARM ... I'm VIBRATORY ... | |
if it GLISTENS, gobble it!! | |
Is he the MAGIC INCA carrying a FROG on his shoulders?? Is the FROG his GUIDELIGHT?? It is curious that a DOG runs already on the ESCALATOR ... | |
Is it 1974? What's for SUPPER? Can I spend my COLLEGE FUND in one wild afternoon?? | |
Is it clean in other dimensions? | |
Is it NOUVELLE CUISINE when 3 olives are struggling with a scallop in a plate of SAUCE MORNAY? | |
It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!! | |
It was a JOKE!! Get it?? I was receiving messages from DAVID LETTERMAN!! YOW!! | |
It's a lot of fun being alive ... I wonder if my bed is made?!? | |
It's NO USE ... I've gone to "CLUB MED"!! | |
It's OBVIOUS ... The FURS never reached ISTANBUL ... You were an EXTRA in the REMAKE of "TOPKAPI" ... Go home to your WIFE ... She's making FRENCH TOAST! | |
It's OKAY -- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too. | |
It's the RINSE CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!! | |
Look! A ladder! Maybe it leads to heaven, or a sandwich! | |
My BIOLOGICAL ALARM CLOCK just went off ... It has noiseless DOZE FUNCTION and full kitchen!! | |
My uncle Murray conquered Egypt in 53 B.C. And I can prove it too!! | |
Now I'm being INVOLUNTARILY shuffled closer to the CLAM DIP with the BROKEN PLASTIC FORKS in it!! | |
Oh, I get it!! "The BEACH goes on", huh, SONNY?? | |
OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of JELL-O and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S the WASHING MACHINES? | |
On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS PHILBIN ... It's GREAT to be ALIVE!! | |
On the other hand, life can be an endless parade of TRANSSEXUAL QUILTING BEES aboard a cruise ship to DISNEYWORLD if only we let it!! | |
Once, there was NO fun ... This was before MENU planning, FASHION statements or NAUTILUS equipment ... Then, in 1985 ... FUN was completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP ... It contain 14,768 vaguely amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled snack cakes! | |
Pardon me, but do you know what it means to be TRULY ONE with your BOOTH! | |
So this is what it feels like to be potato salad | |
Somewhere in Tenafly, New Jersey, a chiropractor is viewing "Leave it to Beaver"! | |
Thank god!! ... It's HENNY YOUNGMAN!! | |
... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!! | |
Was my SOY LOAF left out in th'RAIN? It tastes REAL GOOD!! | |
Well, here I am in AMERICA.. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE it. I HATE it. I LIKE ... EMOTIONS are SWEEPING over me!! | |
When I met th'POPE back in '58, I scrubbed him with a MILD SOAP or DETERGENT for 15 minutes. He seemed to enjoy it ... | |
When this load is DONE I think I'll wash it AGAIN ... | |
When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING BILL ... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!! | |
Where does it go when you flush? | |
WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the NEGATIVE IONS!! | |
Why is it that when you DIE, you can't take your HOME ENTERTAINMENT CENTER with you?? | |
Will it improve my CASH FLOW? | |
Wow! Look!! A stray meatball!! Let's interview it! | |
Xerox your lunch and file it under "sex offenders"! | |
YOU!! Give me the CUTEST, PINKEST, most charming little VICTORIAN DOLLHOUSE you can find!! An make it SNAPPY!! | |
Yow! Is this sexual intercourse yet?? Is it, huh, is it?? | |
Yow! It's a hole all the way to downtown Burbank! | |
Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping! | |
YOW!! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!! | |
A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
"A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times." -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII | |
An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
Eight was also the Number of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard would never mention the number if he could avoid it. Or you'll be eight alive, apprentices were jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it were beachcombers on the shores of the unnatural, were already half-enmeshed in his nets. Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had been 7a. He hadn't been surprised. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Sending of Eight" | |
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the the heroes, why don't you ... -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
It is well known that *things* from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships for a few years. He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences change over fairly often, and he's got a good life. The only problem is the ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind his back!" Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the passengers. One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without a trace. Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the parrot. For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end. As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to the magician's end of the log. With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps "OK, you win, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?" | |
"Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling. Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." ... "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but heroes are meant to die for unicorns." -- Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" | |
There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your intelligence. -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII | |
Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be embarrassingly good at it ... -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
"Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good copy." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" | |
What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" | |
A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent disability you may have experienced. 5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be explained in terms that you would understand. 6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY. Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting research paper will surely be of widespread interest. | |
A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. 8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. 9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a sacred duty to protect him from exposure. 10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment. | |
A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. "Was it true," the woman inquired, "that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest of her life?" She was told that it was. There was just a moment of silence before the woman proceeded bravely on. "Well, I'm wondering, then, how serious my condition is. This prescription is marked `NO REFILLS'". | |
After his legs had been broken in an accident, Mr. Miller sued for damages, claming that he was crippled and would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Although the insurance-company doctor testified that his bones had healed properly and that he was fully capable of walking, the judge decided for the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000. When he was wheeled into the insurance office to collect his check, Miller was confronted by several executives. "You're not getting away with this, Miller," one said. "We're going to watch you day and night. If you take a single step, you'll not only repay the damages but stand trial for perjury. Here's the money. What do you intend to do with it?" "My wife and I are going to travel," Miller replied. "We'll go to Stockholm, Berlin, Rome, Athens and, finally, to a place called Lourdes -- where, gentlemen, you'll see yourselves one hell of a miracle." | |
Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed, then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work. -- Peter Nelson | |
As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy for more than 15 percent of their life span. The words "I am sorry" and "I am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. They will stab you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying: "Sure, I put your dog in the microwave. But I feel *better* for doing it." -- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" | |
At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news to the patients. The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to die in six months. Go in and tell him." The intern boldly walks into the room, over to the man's bedisde and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!" The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot. The doctor grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron? You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject. Now this man in 213 has about a week to live. Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me, gently!" The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!" "Wonderful day, no? Say... guess who's going to die soon!" | |
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Fortune's Exercising Truths: 1: Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic. You don't. 2. Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart. So do heart attacks. 3. Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life. 4. Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing. 5. No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done quietly at your desk at work. People will suspect manic tendencies as you twitter around in your chair. 6. Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers. 7. Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity. 8. Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups, followed by one throw-up. 9. Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided. | |
Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. | |
If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. -- Sir Peter Medawar, "The Art of the Soluble" | |
If you look like your driver's license photo -- see a doctor. If you look like your passport photo -- it's too late for a doctor. | |
It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression. -- Oscar Wilde. | |
It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like. -- Jackie Mason | |
It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's what you're taking for it... | |
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. | |
My doctorate's in Literature, but it seems like a pretty good pulse to me. | |
page 46 ...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative. "The group on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers, "had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were on placebo." page 56 The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body. Illness is always an interaction between both. It can begin in the mind and affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human body functions. -- Norman Cousins, "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient" | |
Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself a therapy. -- Karl Kraus | |
Psychology. Mind over matter. Mind under matter? It doesn't matter. Never mind. | |
Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away. -- Robert Orben | |
Stress has been pinpointed as a major cause of illness. To avoid overload and burnout, keep stress out of your life. Give it to others instead. Learn the "Gaslight" treatment, the "Are you talking to me?" technique, and the "Do you feel okay? You look pale." approach. Start with negotiation and implication. Advance to manipulation and humiliation. Above all, relax and have a nice day. | |
We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that said "ELECTROCUTION". Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the police would find you. You know the kind of flu I'm talking about. -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide" | |
When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured. -- Anton Chekhov, "The Cherry Orchard" | |
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" |