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. | |
I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. -- David Bowie | |
It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre. -- Sam Goldwyn | |
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. -- H. L. Mencken | |
The streets were dark with something more than night. -- Raymond Chandler | |
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain | |
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 | |
Dear Sir, I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un- employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. Yours faithfully, Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. Sevenoaks -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London | |
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. | |
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" | |
`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] | |
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... | |
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 New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. -- Matthew 5:37 | |
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker | |
... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. -- Fred Brooks | |
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. | |
A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. | |
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. | |
Never promise more than you can perform. -- Publilius Syrus | |
One picture is worth more than ten thousand words. -- Chinese proverb | |
...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. - Fred Brooks, Jr. | |
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 | |
"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" | |
The typical page layout program is nothing more than an electronic light table for cutting and pasting documents. | |
"One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." -- The Godfather | |
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. | |
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 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 | |
We'll be more than happy to do so once Jim shows the slightest sign of interest in fixing his proposal to deal with the technical arguments that have *already* been made. Most engineers have learned there is little to be gained in fine-tuning the valve timing on a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine when the pistons and crankshaft are missing... -- Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu on NANOG | |
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. -- E. B. White | |
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 | |
Our congratulations go to a Burlington Vermont civilian employee of the local Army National Guard base. He recently received a substational cash award from our government for inventing a device for optical scanning. His device reportedly will save the government more than $6 million a year by replacing a more expensive helicopter maintenance tool with his own, home-made, hand-held model. Not suprisingly, we also have a couple of money-saving ideas that we submit to the Pentagon free of charge: (a) Don't kill anybody. (b) Don't build things that do. (c) And don't pay other people to kill anybody. We expect annual savings to be in the billions. -- Sojourners | |
Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. | |
Concept, n.: Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000. | |
Correspondence Corollary: An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half your data must be discarded to obtain correspondence with your theory. | |
Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. | |
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" | |
Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. -- N.R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960 Corollaries: (1) The bigger the theory, the better. (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory. | |
Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves. Peter's Principle of Success: Get up one time more than you're knocked down. | |
QOTD: All I want is a little more than I'll ever get. | |
QOTD: All I want is more than my fair share. | |
QOTD: Talk about willing people... over half of them are willing to work and the others are more than willing to watch them. | |
Steele's Law: There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men or fewer than one hundred. | |
The rules: (1) Thou shalt not worship other computer systems. (2) Thou shalt not impersonate Liberace or eat watermelon while sitting at the console keyboard. (3) Thou shalt not slap users on the face, nor staple their silly little card decks together. (4) Thou shalt not get physically involved with the computer system, especially if you're already married. (5) Thou shalt not use magnetic tapes as frisbees, nor use a disk pack as a stool to reach another disk pack. (6) Thou shalt not stare at the blinking lights for more than one eight hour shift. (7) Thou shalt not tell users that you accidentally destroyed their files/backup just to see the look on their little faces. (8) Thou shalt not enjoy cancelling a job. (9) Thou shalt not display firearms in the computer room. (10) Thou shalt not push buttons "just to see what happens". | |
Theorem: a cat has nine tails. Proof: No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, a cat has nine tails. | |
Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it. | |
Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. | |
I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting: a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower | |
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'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. | |
After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of any interest... but even then the interest items are usually buried deep around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont. on ...") page... The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa. The Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all. But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck. They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental woman who seemed to be in control." Now that's good journalism. Totally objective; very active and straight to the point. -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" | |
Hi! How are things going? (just fine, thank you...) Great! Say, could I bother you for a question? (you just asked one...) Well, how about one more? (one more than the first one?) Yes. (you already asked that...) [at this point, Alphonso gets smart... ] May I ask two questions, sir? (no.) May I ask ONE then? (nope...) Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question? (yes, you may.) Sir, how may I ask you a question? (you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that number plus two, one for the current question, and one for the next one) Sir, may I ask nine questions? (go right ahead...) | |
Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable British automotive electrical systems. Professionals call the company "The Prince of Darkness". Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground. The British don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do. The British drink warm beer because they have Lucas refrigerators. | |
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry. -- Bertrand Russell | |
More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects" | |
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 should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10^12 to 1. -- Ernest Rutherford | |
Never eat more than you can lift. -- Miss Piggy | |
Bit off more than my mind could chew, Shower or suicide, what do I do? -- Julie Brown, "Will I Make it Through the Eighties?" | |
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow-- Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball, And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all. -- R.L. Stevenson | |
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?" | |
There is something in the pang of change More than the heart can bear, Unhappiness remembering happiness. -- Euripides | |
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 | |
But I always fired into the nearest hill or, failing that, into blackness. I meant no harm; I just liked the explosions. And I was careful never to kill more than I could eat. -- Raoul Duke | |
It's more than magnificent-it's mediocre. -Samuel Goldwyn | |
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. | |
"Windows for Dummies" is much more than a book title, it's a Microsoft way of life! | |
"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981 "Windows 95 needs at least 8 MB RAM." -- Bill Gates, 1996 "Nobody will ever need Windows 95." -- logical conclusion | |
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) | |
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." | |
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. | |
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? | |
Tux Penguin Boxing Match LAS VEGAS, NV -- The unofficial Linux mascot Tux the Penguin will face his arch rival the BSD Daemon in a boxing match this Saturday night. The match is part of the International Computer Mascot Boxing Federation's First Annual World Championship Series. The winner will advance to face one of the Intel "Bunny People". Boxing pundits favor Tux as the winner. Last week Tux won his first match in the Championship Series against Wilbur the Gimp. "The Gimp didn't have a chance," one spectator said. "With Tux's ability to run at top speeds of over 100mph, I don't see how he could possibly lose." The BSD Daemon, however, is certainly a formidible opponent. While boxing rules prohibit the Daemon from using his patented pitchfork, his pointy horns are permitted in the ring. Some observers think the whole Computer Mascot Boxing Federation is a fake. "WWF is all scripted," one sports writer pointed out. "And so is this. You actually think that a penguin is capable of boxing? The idea of a penguin fighting a demon is patently absurd. This whole Championship Series has no doubt been scripted. It's probably nothing more than two little kids in penguin and demon suits duking it out in a boxing ring. What a waste of time." | |
Linux Ported to Homer Simpson's Brain SPRINGFIELD -- Slashdot recently reported on Homer Simpson's brain "upgrade" to an Intel CPU. Intel hails the CPU transplant as the "World's Greatest Technological Achievement". Intel originally planned to install Microsoft Windows CE (Cerebrum Enhanced) on Homer's new PentiumBrain II processor. However, due to delays in releasing Windows CE, Intel decided to install DebianBrain Linux, the new Linux port for brains. Computer industry pundits applaud the last minute switch from Windows to Linux. One said, "I was a bit concerned for Homer. With Windows CE, I could easily imagine Homer slipping into an infinite loop: "General Protection Fault. D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! D'oh..." Or, at the worst, the Blue Screen of Death could have become much more than a joke." Some pundits are more concerned about the quality of the Intel CPU. "Linux is certainly an improvement over Windows. But since it's running on a PentiumBrain chip, all bets are off. What if the chip miscalculates the core temperature of the power plant where Homer works? I can just imagine the story on the evening news: 'Springfield was obliterated into countless subatomic particles yesterday because Homer J. Simpson, power plant button-pusher, accidentally set the core temperature to 149.992322340948290 instead of 150...' If anything, an Alpha chip running Linux should have been used for Homer's new brain." | |
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" | |
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. | |
All most people want is a little more than they'll ever get. | |
Do more than anyone expects, and pretty soon everyone will expect more. | |
I've already told you more than I know. | |
The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. -- Albertano of Brescia | |
You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough. -- William Blake | |
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" | |
"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 | |
"Guys, if you want a large subtree in /proc - whack yourself over the head until you realize that you want an fs of your own. I'll be more than happy to help with both parts." - Al Viro | |
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 | |
<JALH> regex are more than some crappy posix thing <JALH> they are an art form - Marc Zealey on #kernelnewbies | |
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 | |
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 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. | |
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. | |
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. -- George Herbert | |
<Joy> wow... simple maths show that Debian developers have closed more than *31* *thousand* bug reports since our BTS exists! <Joy> that is about 30999 more than Microsoft ;) | |
<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. | |
A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he hates his wife. | |
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." | |
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 | |
In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months. | |
It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time. | |
He thought of Musashi, the Sword Saint, standing in his garden more than three hundred years ago. "What is the 'Body of a rock'?" he was asked. In answer, Musashi summoned a pupil of his and bid him kill himself by slashing his abdomen with a knife. Just as the pupil was about to comply, the Master stayed his hand, saying, "That is the 'Body of a rock'." -- Eric Van Lustbader | |
.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at number one antagonist in my life.. -- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com | |
Besides, its really not worthwhile to use more than two times your physical ram in swap (except in a select few situations). The performance of the system becomes so abysmal you'd rather heat pins under your toenails while reciting Windows95 source code and staring at porn flicks of Bob Dole than actually try to type something. -- seen on c.o.l.development.system, about the size of the swap space | |
A feature is nothing more than a bug with seniority. -- Unknown source | |
Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss put in an honest day's work. | |
Some people pray for more than they are willing to work for. | |
They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these things was itself the doing of them. To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not" | |
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent. | |
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> | |
I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last. -- Elvis Costello | |
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... | |
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" |