Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
___ ______ Frobtech, Inc. /__/\ ___/_____/\ \ \ \ / /\\ \ \ \_/__ / \ "If you've got the job, _\ \ \ /\_____/___ \ we've got the frob." // \__\/ / \ /\ \ _______//_______/ \ / _\/______ / / \ \ / / / /\ __/ / \ \ / / / / _\__ / / / \_______\/ / / / / /\ /_/______/___________________/ /________/ /___/ \ \ \ \ ___________ \ \ \ \ \ / \_\ \ / /\ \ \ \ \___\/ \ \/ / \ \ \ \ / \_____/ / \ \ \________\/ /__________/ \ \ / \ _____ \ /_____\/ \ / /\ \ / \ \ \ /____/ \ \ / \ \ \ \ \ /___\/ \ \ \ \____\/ \__\/ | |
Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual | |
`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] | |
LOGO for the Dead LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from "The Other Side." The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic Bulletin Board System). LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101. -- '80 Microcomputing | |
Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more "user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover. -- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc. [Pot. Kettle. Black.] | |
"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" | |
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. | |
"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 | |
"In corporate life, I think there are three important areas which contracts can't deal with, the area of conflict, the area of change and area of reaching potential. To me a covenant is a relationship that is based on such things as shared ideals and shared value systems and shared ideas and shared agreement as to the processes we are going to use for working together. In many cases they develop into real love relationships." -- 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 | |
In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, J. DePree, co-founder of the company with herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: 'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in whatever potential there is.'" -- 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 | |
"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 | |
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 | |
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" | |
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. | |
Could You Get Fired for Visiting Slashdot? PADUCAH, KY -- Matt Johnson, an employee at Paradigm Shift Consulting, Inc., was fired from his programming job because of his addiction to Slashdot. Johnson typically visited Slashdot several times a day during working hours. Citing productivity problems, Johnson's boss gave him the pink slip and instituted a 'NoDot' policy -- no visiting Slashdot or related sites from the office, ever. Now Johnson has filed a lawsuit, claiming that his Slashdot addiction is protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act. Matt Johnson explained, "They discriminated against me because I'm a Dothead. Drug abuse and alcoholism are often considered handicaps. Why not Slashdot addiction?" Johnson's boss sees the situation differently. "Matt never got any work done. He was always visiting Slashdot, Freshmeat, or some other nerd website. And when he wasn't, he suffered withdrawl symptoms and couldn't think straight. A few months ago he spent eight consecutive hours posting comments in a KDE vs. GNOME flame war. I tried to offer assistance to overcome his addiction, but he refused. Enough is enough." The company's 'NoDot' policy has been under fire as well. One anonymous employee said, "We can't visit Slashdot because of Matt's addiction. This just sucks. I really don't see anything wrong with visiting Slashdot during breaks or after hours." | |
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. | |
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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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
Solving The Virus Problem Once And For All System administrators across the globe have tried installing anti-virus software. They've tried lecturing employees not to open unsolicited email attachments. They've tried installing firewalls and the latest security patches. But even with these precautions, email viruses continue to rank third only to Solitaire and the Blue Screen Of Death in the amount of lost productivity they cause. Meanwhile, Microsoft Exchange and LookOut! remain as the number one virus delivery products on the market today. But maybe not for much longer. A group of disgruntled administrators have teamed up to produce and sell a brand new way to fight viruses, one that attacks the root of the problem: stupid users. Salivating Dogs, Inc. of Ohio has unveiled the "Clue Delivery System" (CDS), a small device that plugs into the back of a standard PC keyboard and delivers a mild electric shock whenever the luser does something stupid. The device is triggered by a Windows program that detects when the luser attempts to open an unsolicited email attachment or perform another equally dangerous virus-friendly action. | |
Linus, Alan - Please apply the following self-explanatory patch. + /* LynuxWorks are politely reminded that removing copyright + notices is an offence under the Copyright Design and + Patents Act 1988, and under equivalent non-UK law in + accordance with the Berne Convention. */ + printk("Portions (C) 2000, 2001 Red Hat, Inc.\n"); - David Woodhouse on linux-kernel | |
... Where was Stac Electronics when Microsoft invented Doublespace? Where were Xerox and Apple when Microsoft invented the GUI? Where was Apple's QuickTime when Microsoft invented Video for Windows? Where was Spyglass Inc.'s Mosaic when Microsoft invented Internet Explorer? Where was Sun when Microsoft invented Java? | |
* Equivalent code is available from RSA Data Security, Inc. * This code has been tested against that, and is equivalent, * except that you don't need to include two pages of legalese * with every copy. -- public domain MD5 source | |
In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value to product." According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has 10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have been an efficiency expert? -- Motor Trend, May 1983 | |
NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the true value of the company. Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story. Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of their major Middle East subsidiaries. To a person, the board voted to reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth. |