Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
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... | |
Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... -- Richard Harter | |
... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidcence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. ... - Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215 | |
"Yes, I am a real piece of work. One thing we learn at Ulowell is how to flame useless hacking non-EE's like you. I am superior to you in every way by training and expertise in the technical field. Anyone can learn how to hack, but Engineering doesn't come nearly as easily. Actually, I'm not trying to offend all you CS majors out there, but I think EE is one of the hardest majors/grad majors to pass. Fortunately, I am making it." -- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM) "Being both an EE and an asshole at the same time must be a terrible burden for you. This isn't really a flame, just a casual observation. Makes me glad I was a CS major, life is really pleasant for me. Have fun with your chosen mode of existence!" -- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu) | |
Bug, n.: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. -- Ray Simard | |
Newman's Discovery: Your best dreams may not come true; fortunately, neither will your worst dreams. | |
I'd be a poorer man if I'd never seen an eagle fly. -- John Denver [I saw an eagle fly once. Fortunately, I had my eagle fly swatter handy. Ed.] | |
Moishe Margolies, who weighed all of 105 pounds and stood an even five feet in his socks, was taking his first airplane trip. He took a seat next to a hulking bruiser of a man who happened to be the heavyweight champion of the world. Little Moishe was uneasy enough before he even entered the plane, but now the roar of the engines and the great height absolutely terrified him. So frightened did he become that his stomach turned over and he threw up all over the muscular giant siting beside him. Fortunately, at least for Moishe, the man was sound asleep. But now the little man had another problem. How in the world would he ever explain the situation to the burly brute when he awakened? The sudden voice of the stewardess on the plane's intercom, finally woke the bruiser, and Moishe, his heart in his mouth, rose to the occasion. "Feeling better now?" he asked solicitously. | |
There was this New Yorker that had a lifelong ambition to be an Texan. Fortunately, he had an Texan friend and went to him for advice. "Mike, you know I've always wanted to be a Texan. You're a *____real* Texan, what should I do?" "Well," answered Mike, "The first thing you've got to do is look like a Texan. That means you have to dress right. The second thing you've got to do is speak in a southern drawl." "Thanks, Mike, I'll give it a try," replied the New Yorker. A few weeks passed and the New Yorker saunters into a store dressed in a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, Levi jeans and a bandanna. "Hey, there, pardner, I'd like some beef, not too rare, and some of them fresh biscuits," he tells the counterman. The guy behind the counter takes a long look at him and then says, "You must be from New York." The New Yorker blushes, and says, "Well, yes, I am. How did you know?" "Because this is a hardware store." | |
Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidcence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. -- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 215 | |
Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately, it can still be changed today. | |
You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately, they're not all recommended. |