Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
"Spare no expense to save money on this one." -- Samuel Goldwyn | |
Police up your spare rounds and frags. Don't leave nothin' for the dinks. - Willem Dafoe in "Platoon" | |
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 | |
"Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of watching television." -- Cal Keegan | |
Beggar to well-dressed businessman: "Could you spare $20.95 for a fifth of Chivas?" | |
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" | |
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" | |
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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
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 | |
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." | |
Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. | |
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 | |
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 |