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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

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"
She ran the gamut of emotions from 'A' to 'B'.
                -- Dorothy Parker, on a Kate Hepburn performance
        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"
The MGs ran out of gas.
We ran out of dial tone and we're and waiting for the phone company to deliver another bottle.
Trojan horse ran out of hay
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie;
and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head
into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently
married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand
Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all
fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran
out at the heels of their boots.
                -- Samuel Foote
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"
        Price Wang's programmer was coding software.  His fingers danced upon
the keyboard.  The program compiled without an error message, and the program
ran like a gentle wind.
        Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!"
        "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I
follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique.  When I first began to program I
would see before me the whole program in one mass.  After three years I no
longer saw this mass.  Instead, I used subroutines.  But now I see nothing.
My whole being exists in a formless void.  My senses are idle.  My spirit,
free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct.  In short, my program
writes itself.  True, sometimes there are difficult problems.  I see them
coming, I slow down, I watch silently.  Then I change a single line of code
and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke.  I then compile the
program.  I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being.  I close my
eyes for a moment and then log off."
        Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!"
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
        The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the
forest, hunting bear.  They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took
their backpacks off and put them inside.  At which point the salesman turned
to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear."
        Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down
on the porch.  Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest.  The noises
got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like
hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and
most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen.
        "Open the door!", screamed the salesman.
        The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door,
suddenly stopped, and stepped aside.  The bear, unable to stop, continued
through the door and into the cabin.  The salesman slammed the door closed
and grinned at his friend.  "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this
one and I'll go rustle us up another!"
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)]
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
"It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington."
-- Admiral Grace Hopper
        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
We tried to close Ohio's borders and ran into a Constitutional problem.
There's a provision in the Constitution that says you can't close your
borders to interstate commerce, and garbage is a form of interstate commerce.
                -- Ohio Lt. Governor Paul Leonard
Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mice ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
The others escaped with minor injuries.
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
In /users3 did Kubla Kahn
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where /bin, the sacred river ran
Through Test Suites measureless to Man
Down to a sunless C.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forest ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
                -- S.T. Coleridge, "Kubla Kahn"
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"
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!
        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
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"
A couple of young fellers were fishing at their special pond off the
beaten track when out of the bushes jumped the Game Warden.  Immediately,
one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods
like the proverbial bat out of hell, and hot on his heels ran the Game
Warden.  After about a half mile the fella stopped and stooped over with
his hands on his thighs, whooping and heaving to catch his breath as the
Game Warden finally caught up to him.
        "Let's see yer fishin' license, boy," the Warden gasped.  The
man pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing
license.
        "Well, son", snarled the Game Warden, "You must be about as dumb
as a box of rocks!  You didn't have to run if you have a license!"
        "Yes, sir," replied his victim, "but, well, see, my friend back
there, he don't have one!"
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 put contact lenses in my dog's eyes.  They had little pictures of cats
on them.  Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.
                -- Steven Wright
Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity...
If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your
head... if you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick...
                -- Steven Wright
I'll never forget the first time I ran Windows, but I'm trying...
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."
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.
        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"
I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
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"
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
<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
A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing
into trees.  At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same
forest, with identical results.  They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing.
        "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally,"
apologized the rabbit.
        "That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same
problem!"
        "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do
you think you could help me find out?"
        "I'll try," said the snake.  He gently coiled himself around the
rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail
and long ears.  You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!"
        "Great!" said the rabbit.  "Thanks, I really owe you one!"
        "Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either.  Do you
suppose you could try and tell me?"
        The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake.  "Well, you're low, cold
and slimey..."  And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have
no balls.  You must be an attorney!"
Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers
gathered around to hear what had passed.  "At this time," said Nasrudin, "I
only want to say that the King spoke to me."  All the villagers but the
stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news.  The remaining villager
asked, "What did the King say to you?"  "What he said -- and quite distinctly,
for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed;
he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they
were spoken to.
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.
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"
A woman went into a hospital one day to give birth.  Afterwards, the doctor
came to her and said, "I have some... odd news for you."
        "Is my baby all right?" the woman anxiously asked.
        "Yes, he is," the doctor replied, "but we don't know how.  Your son
(we assume) was born with no body.  He only has a head."
        Well, the doctor was correct.  The Head was alive and well, though no
one knew how.  The Head turned out to be fairly normal, ignoring his lack of
a body, and lived for some time as typical a life as could be expected under
the circumstances.
        One day, about twenty years after the fateful birth, the woman got a
phone call from another doctor.  The doctor said, "I have recently perfected
an operation.  Your son can live a normal life now: we can graft a body onto
his head!"
        The woman, practically weeping with joy, thanked the doctor and hung
up.  She ran up the stairs saying, "Johnny, Johnny, I have a *wonderful*
surprise for you!"
        "Oh no," cried The Head, "not another HAT!"
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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