Dictionary De - En
De - Es
De - Pt| Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
| A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased -- he hates all creative people equally. | |
| A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. | |
| A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to Madonna, a young puppy. It hitched its waggin' to a star. | |
| A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. -- Shaw | |
| Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
| Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" | |
| Best Mistakes In Films In his "Filmgoer's Companion", Mr. Leslie Halliwell helpfully lists four of the cinema's greatest moments which you should get to see if at all possible. In "Carmen Jones", the camera tracks with Dorothy Dandridge down a street; and the entire film crew is reflected in the shop window. In "The Wrong Box", the roofs of Victorian London are emblazoned with television aerials. In "Decameron Nights", Louis Jourdain stands on the deck of his fourteenth century pirate ship; and a white lorry trundles down the hill in the background. In "Viking Queen", set in the times of Boadicea, a wrist watch is clearly visible on one of the leading characters. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| But if you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable nowdays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study. -- Leslie Stephen, "Sketches from Cambridge" | |
| Everyone is in the best seat. -- John Cage | |
| For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. -- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888 | |
| George Bernard Shaw once sent two tickets to the opening night of one of his plays to Winston Churchill with the following note: "Bring a friend, if you have one." Churchill wrote back, returning the two tickets and excused himself as he had a previous engagement. He also attached the following: "Please send me two tickets for the next night, if there is one." | |
| Hoaars-Faisse Gallery presents: An exhibit of works by the artist known only as Pretzel. The exhibit includes several large conceptual works using non-traditional media and found objects including old sofa-beds, used mace canisters, discarded sanitary napkins and parts of freeways. The artist explores our dehumanization due to high technology and unresponsive governmental structures in a post-industrial world. She/he (the artist prefers to remain without gender) strives to create dialogue between viewer and creator, to aid us in our quest to experience contemporary life with its inner-city tensions, homelessness, global warming and gender and class-based stress. The works are arranged to lead us to the essence of the argument: that the alienation of the person/machine boundary has sapped the strength of our voices and must be destroyed for society to exist in a more fundamental sense. | |
| I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| I have a very strange feeling about this... -- Luke Skywalker | |
| I have had my television aerials removed. It's the moral equivalent of a prostate operation. -- Malcolm Muggeridge | |
| I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 | |
| If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. -- Paul Beatty | |
| If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner, and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops, not just because you fear she might be crazy. If she tells her tale on camera, you might listen. Watching strangers on television , even responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community. Never have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little. -- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional". | |
| If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. | |
| In the Old West a wagon train is crossing the plains. As night falls the wagon train forms a circle, and a campfire is lit in the middle. After everyone has gone to sleep two lone cavalry officers stand watch over the camp. After several hours of quiet, they hear war drums starting from a nearby Indian village they had passed during the day. The drums get louder and louder. Finally one soldier turns to the other and says, "I don't like the sound of those drums." Suddenly, they hear a cry come from the Indian camp: "IT'S NOT OUR REGULAR DRUMMER." | |
| It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke. | |
| It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years. -- Tom Lehrer | |
| It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, flyboy! -- Princess Leia Organa | |
| IV. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken. Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful. V. All principles of gravity are negated by fear. Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight. VI. As speed increases, objects can be in several places at once. This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A "wacky" character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 | |
| 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" | |
| JOHN PAUL ELECTED POPE!! (George and Ringo miffed.) | |
| Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. -- Ira Kaplan | |
| Like ya know? Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving the earth, like because the first thing in saving this world, is getting rid of stupid and square attitudes and having fun. -- Senior Year Quote | |
| Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser. -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" | |
| Many of the characters are fools and they are always playing tricks on me and treating me badly. -- Jorge Luis Borges, from "Writers on Writing" by Jon Winokur | |
| My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked. -- Peter Stack, movie review His performance is so wooden you want to spray him with Liquid Pledge. -- John Stark, movie review | |
| Satire is what closes Saturday night. -- George Kaufman | |
| So do the noble fall. For they are ever caught in a trap of their own making. A trap -- walled by duty, and locked by reality. Against the greater force they must fall -- for, against that force they fight because of duty, because of obligations. And when the noble fall, the base remain. The base -- whose only purpose is the corruption of what the noble did protect. Whose only purpose is to destroy. The noble: who, even when fallen, retain a vestige of strength. For theirs is a strength born of things other than mere force. Theirs is a strength supreme... theirs is the strength -- to restore. -- Gerry Conway, "Thor", #193 | |
| The big problem with pornography is defining it. You can't just say it's pictures of people naked. For example, you have these primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal saying goes: "N'wam k'honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of Northern Mali that you may be interested in." So it's not considered pornographic when National Geographic publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason naked, or whatever. But if National Geographic were to publish an article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography. But others would not. And still others, such as the Spectacularly Rev. Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" | |
| The Great Movie Posters: Different! Daring! Dynamic! Defying! Dumbfounding! SEE Uncle Tom lead the Negroes to FREEDOM! ... Now, all the SENSUAL and VIOLENT passions Roots couldn't show on TV! -- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1972) An appalling amalgam of carnage and carnality! -- Flesh and Blood Show (1973) WHEN THE CATS ARE HUNGRY... RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Alone, only a harmless pet... One Thousand Strong, They Become a Man-Eating Machine! -- The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972) They're Over-Exposed But Not Under-Developed! -- Cover Girl Models (1976) | |
| The Great Movie Posters: HOODLUMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD ON A RAY-GUN RAMPAGE! -- Teenagers from Outher Space (1959) Which will be Her Mate... MAN OR BEAST? Meet Velda -- the Kind of Woman -- Man or Gorilla would kill... to Keep. -- Untamed Mistress (1960) NOW AN ALL-MIGHTY ALL-NEW MOTION PICTURE BRINGS THEM TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME... HISTORY'S MOST GIGANTIC MONSTERS IN COMBAT ATOP MOUNT FUJI! -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) | |
| The Great Movie Posters: KATHERINE HEPBURN as the lying, stealing, singing, preying witch girl of the Ozarks... "Low down white trash"? Maybe so -- but let her hear you say it and she'll break your head to prove herself a lady! -- Spitfire (1934) Do Native Women Live With Apes? -- Love Life of a Gorilla (1937) JUNGLE KISS!! When she looked into his eyes, felt his arms around her -- she was no longer Tura, mysterious white goddess of the jungle tribes -- she was no longer the frozen-hearted high priestess under whose hypnotic spell the worshippers of the great crocodile god meekly bowed -- she was a girl in love! SEE the ravening charge of the hundred scared CROCODILES! -- Her Jungle Love (1938) LOVE! HATE! JOY! FEAR! TORMENT! PANIC! SHAME! RAGE! -- Intermezzo (1939) | |
| The Great Movie Posters: POWERFUL! SHOCKING! RAW! ROUGH! CHALLENGING! SEE A LITTLE GIRL MOLESTED! -- Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1963) She Sins in Mobile -- Marries in Houston -- Loses Her Baby in Dallas -- Leaves Her Husband in Tuscon -- MEETS HARRU IN SAN DIEGO!... FIRST -- HARLOW! THEN -- MONROE! NOW -- McCLANAHAN!!! -- The Rotten Apple (1963), Rue McClanahan *NOT FOR SISSIES! DON'T COME IF YOU'RE CHICKEN! A Horrifying Movie of Wierd Beauties and Shocking Monsters... 1001 WIERDEST SCENES EVER!! MOST SHOCKING THRILLER OF THE CENTURY! -- Teenage Psycho meets Bloody Mary (1964) (Alternate Title: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies) | |
| The Great Movie Posters: SEE rebel guerrillas torn apart by trucks! SEE corpses cut to pieces and fed to dogs and vultures! SEE the monkey trained to perform nursing duties for her paralyzed owner! -- Sweet and Savage (1983) What a Guy! What a Gal! What a Pair! -- Stroker Ace (1983) It's always better when you come again! -- Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) You Don't Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre! -- Pieces (1983) | |
| The Great Movie Posters: SHE TOOK ON A WHOLE GANG! A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog on a roaring rampage of revenge! -- Bury Me an Angel (1972) WHAT'S THE SECRET INGREDIENT USED BY THE MAD BUTCHER FOR HIS SUPERB SAUSAGES? -- Meat is Meat (1972) TODAY the Pond! TOMORROW the World! -- Frogs (1972) | |
| The Great Movie Posters: The Miracle of the Age!!! A LION in your lap! A LOVER in your arms! -- Bwana Devil (1952) OVERWHELMING! ELECTRIFYING! BAFFLING! Fire Can't Burn Them! Bullets Can't Kill Them! See the Unfolding of the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the Earth! You've Never Seen Anything Like It! Neither Has the World! SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!! -- Robot Monster (1953) 1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes, 802 scared bulls! -- The Egyptian (1954) | |
| The human brain is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you are born, and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. -- Sir George Jessel | |
| The key to building a superstar is to keep their mouth shut. To reveal an artist to the people can be to destroy him. It isn't to anyone's advantage to see the truth. -- Bob Ezrin, rock music producer | |
| The old complaint that mass culture is designed for eleven-year-olds is of course a shameful canard. The key age has traditionally been more like fourteen. -- Robert Christgau, "Esquire" | |
| The only real advantage to punk music is that nobody can whistle it. | |
| The Worst Musical Trio There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite unhampered by great musical talent. Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, "and it will be a sell out." Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and asked for someone to turn his pages. In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who volunteered and made his way to the stage. The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out. The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well. It's hard to recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind, back in the dugout or the office. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along -- quite gracefully. -- Ellen Goodman | |
| This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message; I'll get back to you. This is Maria, Liberty Bail Bonds. Your client, Todd Lieman, skipped and his bail is forfeit. That's the pink slip on your '74 Firebird, I believe. Sorry, Jim, bring it on over. This is Marilyn Reed, I wanta talk to you... Is this a machine? I don't talk to machines! [Click] -- "The Rockford Files" | |
| Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of thirty-five. -- Joel Hildebrand | |
| VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 | |
| Why are you doing this to me? Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before there is change. -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29 | |
| Why not? -- What? -- Why not? -- Why should I not send it? -- Why should I not dispatch it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I don't know why I shouldn't -- Well, then -- You will do me this favor. -- Why not? -- Why should you not do it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I shall do the same for you, when you want me to. Why not? Why should I not do it for you? Strange! Why not? -- I can't think why not. -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from a letter to his cousin Maria, "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele | |
| Year Name James Bond Book ---- -------------------------------- -------------- ---- 50's James Bond TV Series Barry Nelson 1962 Dr. No Sean Connery 1958 1963 From Russia With Love Sean Connery 1957 1964 Goldfinger Sean Connery 1959 1965 Thunderball Sean Connery 1961 1967* Casino Royale David Niven 1954 1967 You Only Live Twice Sean Connery 1964 1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service George Lazenby 1963 1971 Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery 1956 1973 Live And Let Die Roger Moore 1955 1974 The Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore 1965 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me Roger Moore 1962 (novelette) 1979 Moonraker Roger Moore 1955 1981 For Your Eyes Only Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) 1983 Octopussy Roger Moore 1965 1983* Never Say Never Again Sean Connery 1985 A View To A Kill Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) 1987 The Living Daylights Timothy Dalton 1965 (novelette) * -- Not a Broccoli production. | |
| Hi! You have reached 555-0129. None of us are here to answer the phone and the cat doesn't have opposing thumbs, so his messages are illegible. Please leave your name and message after the beep... | |
| If you are a police dog, where's your badge? -- Question James Thurber used to drive his German Shepherd crazy. | |
| If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedication ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. -- Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" | |
| The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you. | |
| "All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory..." (By Larry Wall) | |
| Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. (From the killall manual page) | |
| /* * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to * terminate things with extreme prejudice. */ die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); (From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c) | |
| /* * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP * to talk to the University of Mars. * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented * ftp to mars will work nicely. */ (from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [retransmission timeout]) | |
| "I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')" (By Olaf Kirch) | |
| "Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night hacking (and/or conversations with God)." (By Matt Welsh) | |
| 'Mounten' wird fuer drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. (Christa Keil in a German posting: "Mounting is used for three things: climbing on a horse, linking in a hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, mounting during sex".) | |
| Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... (More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc) | |
| Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator. (By jdege@winternet.com, Jeff Dege) | |
| quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" will cause bc to terminate. (Seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic) | |
| Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. (Craig E. Groeschel) | |
| This message was brought to you by Linux, the free unix. Windows without the X is like making love without a partner. Sex, Drugs & Linux Rules win-nt from the people who invented edlin apples have meant trouble since eden Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses (By mwikholm@at8.abo.fi, MaDsen Wikholm) | |
| We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. (Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software) | |
| excess surge protection | |
| Change in Earth's rotational speed | |
| Internet outage | |
| Power company testing new voltage spike (creation) equipment | |
| monitor VLF leakage | |
| Reformatting Page. Wait... | |
| Post-it Note Sludge leaked into the monitor. | |
| Change your language to Finnish. | |
| Fanout dropping voltage too much, try cutting some of those little traces | |
| Plate voltage too low on demodulator tube | |
| Scheduled global CPU outage | |
| We've picked COBOL as the language of choice. | |
| Operators killed when huge stack of backup tapes fell over. | |
| Sysadmin accidentally destroyed pager with a large hammer. | |
| operation failed because: there is no message for this error (#1014) | |
| Mailer-daemon is busy burning your message in hell. | |
| A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) -- by Charles Dickens A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place. The Metamorphosis LITE(tm) -- by Franz Kafka A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed. Lord of the Rings LITE(tm) -- by J.R.R. Tolkien Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano. Hamlet LITE(tm) -- by Wm. Shakespeare A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age. | |
| All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and put him at the head of the procession. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| For courage mounteth with occasion. -- William Shakespeare, "King John" | |
| His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circum- stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could. It was in the days of the rains that their prayers went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri, goddess of the Night. The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday. Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique... -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" | |
| I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone! -- Charles Dickens | |
| In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and struggled and had lots of children. There was a Frenchman who talked funny and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to the crunch he was all courage. Those novels would make you retch. -- Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian novel. | |
| It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read. -- Mark Twain | |
| Many a writer seems to think he is never profound except when he can't understand his own meaning. -- George D. Prentice | |
| Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. -- Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol" | |
| No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large. -- Mark Twain | |
| ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. | |
| 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 | |
| Stop! There was first a game of blindman's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. | |
| The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Richard II" | |
| The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is held ever year at San Jose State Univ. by Professor Scott Rice. It is held in memory of Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a rather prolific and popular (in his time) novelist. He is best known today for having written "The Last Days of Pompeii." Whenever Snoopy starts typing his novel from the top of his doghouse, beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." he is borrowing from Lord Bulwer-Lytton. This was the line that opened his novel, "Paul Clifford," written in 1830. The full line reveals why it is so bad: It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. | |
| The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably -- the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career. -- Winning sentence, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. | |
| The Least Perceptive Literary Critic The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to give a public reading of his latest poem. Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me." Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark the place and consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better turn." After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the lines," he said. "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event." Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem exactly as it was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of their edge. "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can be better." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. -- Arthur Clarke | |
| Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" | |
| Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took *thousands* of words to say it. Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father. Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a major world power. I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me." Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words: * "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and will kill you. * "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. -- Dave Barry | |
| You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. -- Saul Bellow | |
| You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet" | |
| "Good afternoon, madam. How may I help you?" "Good afternoon. I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please." "A--? Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady. I mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I say they have a right to. But I think... I might... Let's have a look down here. I might have just the thing for you. Yes, here we are! Look at that, isn't it neat? Now that is a FrintArms product as well, but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call them. Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a tonne of iron around with you. We do a range of matching accessories, including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster. Wish I got to do the fitting for that! Ha -- just my little joke. And there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun, charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your next battery. Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free lessons at your local gun club or range. Or there's the *special* presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two* charged batteries and a night-sight, too. Here, feel that -- don't worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat? Feel how light it is? Smooth, see? No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and* beautifully balanced. And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's no recoil. Because it's shooting light, you see? Beautiful gun, beautiful gun; my wife has one. Really. That's not a line, she really has. Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for one-forty-nine." "I'll take the special." "Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice. Now, do--?" "And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is compatible?" "Aah... yes, And how does madam wish to pay?" She slapped her credit card on the counter. "Eventually." -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background" | |
| A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers. Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the speed of light?" Computer: 186,282 miles per second. Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" Computer: George Washington. President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?" Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!" Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass. | |
| A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. | |
| A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie | |
| A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt | |
| A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new disciples." Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. | |
| *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what you should blame when you make a mistake. Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) *** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** | |
| A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. Why is this so?" The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package. The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial. When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. "Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| 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 | |
| A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they made rude noises during my presentation." The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother with social conventions?" "They are alive within the Tao." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant. | |
| A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire going to it is so large. Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] | |
| About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger Dijkstra | |
| Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. -- George Washington, 1732-1799 | |
| After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." -- DECWARS | |
| Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language yet developed. -- T. Cheatham | |
| === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, please communicate them by one of the following paths: ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket Non-network sites: Federal Express to: Wastebasket Room NE43-926 Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* * Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. | |
| === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== CAR and CDR now return extra values. The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because it cold boots the machine so often. | |
| === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, (NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. | |
| An interpretation _I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated by the corresponding row and column labels. -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial Intelligence" | |
| Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. | |
| APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 | |
| APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; ...and is best for educational purposes. -- A. Perlis | |
| APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir | |
| As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies on the austerity of the word. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 | |
| As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: how do I run C code received from sources Keywords: C sources Distribution: na I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that must be done? | |
| As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 | |
| Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity and understanding of how computers work that it provides. -- D. Gries | |
| At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 | |
| Avoid strange women and temporary variables. | |
| Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." | |
| Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. | |
| But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a kludge, after all, but not enough K's, not enough ROM's, not enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes? | |
| By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. -- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April Fool's column. | |
| Dear Emily, what about test messages? -- Concerned Dear Concerned: It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth by all USEnauts. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
| Dear Emily: How can I choose what groups to post in? -- Confused Dear Confused: Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in the fringe groups. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
| Dear Ms. Postnews: I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What should I do? -- Eager Beaver Dear Eager: No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm posting it. All others please ignore." This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, so post it as many places as you can. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette | |
| *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to try this simple test: (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? (3) What is the state capital of Idaho? If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. | |
| Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 | |
| Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis- trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the "granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in question." [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.] | |
| FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse using ad hoc techniques. -- D. Gries [What's good about it? Ed.] | |
| FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers. -- Steven Feiner | |
| Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! Try: [Where is Jimmy Hoffa? (C shell) ^How did the^sex change operation go? (C shell) "How would you rate BSD vs. System V? %blow (C shell) 'thou shalt not mow thy grass at 8am' (C shell) got a light? (C shell) !!:Say, what do you think of margarine? (C shell) PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Bourne shell) make love make "the perfect dry martini" man -kisses dog (anything up to 4.3BSD) i=Hoffa ; >$i; $i; rm $i; rm $i (Bourne shell) | |
| From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new experience in sound: 5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading sound is normal for this type of connector. | |
| Garbage In -- Gospel Out. | |
| Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 | |
| God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. | |
| Hacker's Guide To Cooking: 2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) 1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) 1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) 8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) "Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off the ceiling(3m). "Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. "...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. | |
| Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. | |
| I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky | |
| I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" | |
| I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new science of data processing), c. 1957 | |
| 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" | |
| I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it was by the time I find it. I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe "The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left blank." -- Alex Crain | |
| If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape at about 30 miles/second. -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming | |
| If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What's the first question that the computer community asks? "Is it PC compatible?" | |
| **** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. | |
| In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network anyway. -- The 5th Wave | |
| In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the five year period will begin. | |
| In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home. The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| ... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable ... -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 | |
| Is a computer language with goto's totally Wirth-less? | |
| It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. -- J. Sammet | |
| 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" | |
| It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. | |
| It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension should be used in its proper place. -- Christopher Strachey | |
| It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 | |
| It's multiple choice time... What is FORTRAN? a: Between thre and fiv tran. b: What two computers engage in before they interface. c: Ridiculous. | |
| `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] | |
| Lisp Users: Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection. | |
| 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 | |
| Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window... -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" | |
| Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. | |
| Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide | |
| Many of the convicted thieves Parker has met began their life of crime after taking college Computer Science courses. -- Roger Rapoport, "Programs for Plunder", Omni, March 1981 | |
| Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton | |
| 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... | |
| MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. | |
| Message from Our Sponsor on ttyTV at 13:58 ... | |
| No extensible language will be universal. -- T. Cheatham | |
| No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval system, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of the author. -- Chris Shaw | |
| 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 | |
| Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. "The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very *essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. "This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" | |
| Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in the code over again, since I also removed the source. | |
| On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage | |
| One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to each cons." Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector..." | |
| One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.] | |
| Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 | |
| Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the system. -- A.L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4. | |
| Pascal is a language for children wanting to be naughty. -- Dr. Kasi Ananthanarayanan | |
| Pascal is not a high-level language. -- Steven Feiner | |
| Pause for storage relocation. | |
| Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them. | |
| 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" | |
| Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. | |
| Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: DC Divide and Conquer DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key DO Divide and Overflow EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator EPI Execute Programmer Immediately EROS Erase Read Only Storage EXCE Execute Customer Engineer HCF Halt and Catch Fire IBP Insert Bug and Proceed INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out]) PBC Print and Break Chain PDSK Punch Disk | |
| PURGE COMPLETE. | |
| Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store? -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President | |
| Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA. | |
| Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room. | |
| Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness. This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package. | |
| "Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a multiline message byte. In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message must be sent passive true. The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: (1) The ANRS if DAV is false (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: (a) The LADS is active (b) Nor LACS is active" -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for Programmable Instrumentation | |
| Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 | |
| Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? | |
| ***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration. | |
| Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first these questions three, ere the other side he see! "What is your name?" "Sir Brian of Bell." "What is your quest?" "I seek the Holy Grail." "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" | |
| *** System shutdown message from root *** System going down in 60 seconds | |
| TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. -- Gordon Bell | |
| The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. -- Andy Purshottam | |
| "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." | |
| The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous. -- Bjarne Stroustrup | |
| The disks are getting full; purge a file today. | |
| The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Description: Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. Feathering: HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. Song: A rather plaintive "Is it up?" | |
| The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Plumage: All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black plastic digital watch with calculator. | |
| The first time, it's a KLUDGE! The second, a trick. Later, it's a well-established technique! -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics | |
| The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals: As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. . . . Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge of the hyper-cube. | |
| The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said to be useful in protheththing lithtth. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #14 -- VALGOL VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry. VALGOL commands include REALLY, LIKE, WELL, and Y*KNOW. Variables are assigned with the =LIKE and =TOTALLY operators. Other operators include the "California booleans", AX and NOWAY. Loops are accomplished with the FOR SURE construct. A simple example: LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START IF PIZZA =LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY =LIKE TUBULAR AND VALLEY GIRL =LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN FOR I =LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100 DO*WAH - (DITTY**2); BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) SURE LIKE, BAG THIS PROGRAM; REALLY; LIKE TOTALLY(Y*KNOW); IM*SURE GOTO THE MALL VALGOL is also characterized by its unfriendly error messages. For example, when the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message GAG ME WITH A SPOON! A successful compile may be termed MAXIMALLY AWESOME! | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: C- This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: FIFTH FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers who end up using this language. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. | |
| THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can you find the time to try it again?" | |
| The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence. "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?" The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said. "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?" "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased. Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?" "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers | |
| The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. -- Paul Licker | |
| There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor. | |
| There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" "An operating system," replied the programmer. The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?" The programmer made no reply. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, "I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow | |
| This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87. One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one computer language to another and has a built-in editing system which identifies errors in the original program. | |
| Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. | |
| Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers. | |
| Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years. BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was discontinued in favor of a lager. SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of stout or the sweetness of ale. | |
| UNIX Trix For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea either. If you need some help, give us a call. -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems | |
| Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1 ... | |
| Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir | |
| We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends | |
| "We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 | |
| "We've got a problem, HAL". "What kind of problem, Dave?" "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, they're not selling." "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." [...] "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters I, B, and M. That is a IBM compatible as I can be." "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." "What kludge is that, Dave?" "I'm going to disconnect your brain." -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" | |
| Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence Jane went to the store to buy bread should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) | |
| When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to roll in. Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon be solved. Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" | |
| When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. | |
| When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before -- except our fingertips will have been singed. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 | |
| Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars. | |
| Within a computer, natural language is unnatural. | |
| Worthless. -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September 15, 1842. | |
| X windows: Accept any substitute. If it's broke, don't fix it. If it ain't broke, fix it. Form follows malfunction. The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence. The trailing edge of software technology. Armageddon never looked so good. Japan's secret weapon. You'll envy the dead. Making the world safe for competing window systems. Let it get in YOUR way. The problem for your problem. If it starts working, we'll fix it. Pronto. It could be worse, but it'll take time. Simplicity made complex. The greatest productivity aid since typhoid. Flakey and built to stay that way. One thousand monkeys. One thousand MicroVAXes. One thousand years. X windows. | |
| X windows: The ultimate bottleneck. Flawed beyond belief. The only thing you have to fear. Somewhere between chaos and insanity. On autopilot to oblivion. The joke that kills. A disgrace you can be proud of. A mistake carried out to perfection. Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set. To err is X windows. Ignorance is our most important resource. Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. Built to fall apart. Nullifying centuries of progress. Falling to new depths of inefficiency. The last thing you need. The defacto substandard. Elevating brain damage to an art form. 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. | |
| Yes, we will be going to OSI, Mars, and Pluto, but not necessarily in that order. -- George Michaelson | |
| You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself killed, as well. You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. | |
| You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers. -- Steven Feiner | |
| You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish. -- from the tunefs(8) man page | |
| You have a massage (from the Swedish prime minister). | |
| You have a message from the operator. | |
| "The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will never solve - politics." -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired by working on a large project beseiged by politics | |
| A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" | |
| A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice. | |
| A day without sunshine is like a day without orange juice. | |
| A father gave his teen-age daughter an untrained pedigreed pup for her birthday. An hour later, when wandering through the house, he found her looking at a puddle in the center of the kitchen. "My pup," she murmured sadly, "runneth over." | |
| Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. | |
| Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. -- Dorothy Parker | |
| "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge." | |
| He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die. -- Giacomo Leopardi | |
| If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. -- Leonard Levinson | |
| It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. | |
| Knowledge is power. -- Francis Bacon | |
| Knowledge without common sense is folly. | |
| Nothing endures but change. -- Heraclitus | |
| One man's Mede is another man's Persian. -- George M. Cohan | |
| Plus ,ca change, plus c'est la m^eme chose. [The more things change, the more they remain the same.] -- Alphonse Karr, "Les Gu^epes" | |
| -- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin. -- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. -- Surveillance should precede saltation. -- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. -- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lacteal fluid. -- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude. -- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. -- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. -- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Farenheit. | |
| Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. [If youth but knew, if old age but could.] -- Henri Estienne | |
| Small change can often be found under seat cushions. -- One of Lazarus Long's most penetrating insights | |
| The more things change, the more they stay insane. | |
| The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again. | |
| The only constant is change. | |
| You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. | |
| "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde | |
| When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many. - General James Gavin | |
| Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missle defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. - C. A. R. Hoare | |
| In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool -- programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they describe. - Fred Brooks, Jr. | |
| Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build: They hyave very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing, and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states than computers do. - Fred Brooks, Jr. | |
| The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous. - Bjarne Stroustrup in "The C++ Programming Language" | |
| The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. - Brian Kernighan | |
| Your own mileage may vary. | |
| "Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; Love is not music; Music is the best." -- Frank Zappa | |
| One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.) -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 | |
| Regarding astral projection, Woody Allen once wrote, "This is not a bad way to travel, although there is usually a half-hour wait for luggage." | |
| Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 | |
| Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. - Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" | |
| 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. Futhermore, 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" | |
| "Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin." -- Michael O'Donohugh | |
| ...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" | |
| The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge | |
| It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack, and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy. -- B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System", Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20 | |
| The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin | |
| Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400 | |
| I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. - Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher | |
| How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? "Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem." | |
| "Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!" - Alex in "Clockwork Orange" | |
| "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" | |
| Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. - Oscar Wilde | |
| People are very flexible and learn to adjust to strange surroundings -- they can become accustomed to read Lisp and Fortran programs, for example. - Leon Sterling and Ehud Shapiro, Art of Prolog, MIT Press | |
| "I am your density." -- George McFly in "Back to the Future" | |
| Operating-system software is the program that orchestrates all the basic functions of a computer. - The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 15, 1987, page 40 | |
| I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - Francis Bellamy, 1892 | |
| People think my friend George is weird because he wears sideburns...behind his ears. I think he's weird because he wears false teeth...with braces on them. -- Steven Wright | |
| The typical page layout program is nothing more than an electronic light table for cutting and pasting documents. | |
| If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 | |
| I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new conciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation. - Dr. Albert Hoffman | |
| "Largely because it is so tangible and exciting a program and as such will serve to keep alive the interest and enthusiasm of the whole spectrum of society...It is justified because...the program can give a sense of shared adventure and achievement to the society at large." - Dr. Colin S. Pittendrigh, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" | |
| The challenge of space exploration and particularly of landing men on the moon represents the greatest challenge which has ever faced the human race. Even if there were no clear scientific or other arguments for proceeding with this task, the whole history of our civilization would still impel men toward the goal. In fact, the assembly of the scientific and military with these human arguments creates such an overwhelming case that in can be ignored only by those who are blind to the teachings of history, or who wish to suspend the development of civilization at its moment of greatest opportunity and drama. - Sir Bernard Lovell, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" | |
| To date, the firm conclusions of Project Blue Book are: 1. no unidentified flying object reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; 2. there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and 3. there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED are extraterrestrial vehicles. - the summary of Project Blue Book, an Air Force study of UFOs from 1950 to 1965, as quoted by James Randi in Flim-Flam! | |
| If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. - Woody Allen | |
| I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. - Joe Mullally, computer salesman | |
| "Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry" - An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the PDP-11 | |
| How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. | |
| The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. - H. L. Mencken | |
| The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... - H. L. Mencken, 1930 | |
| ...there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. - George Jacob Holyoake | |
| On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader. "...stupid creatures unworthy of the name `sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof..." The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow deaths. - David Brin, Startide Rising | |
| I know engineers. They love to change things. - Dr. McCoy | |
| On our campus the UNIX system has proved to be not only an effective software tool, but an agent of technical and social change within the University. - John Lions (University of New South Wales) | |
| Most people exhibit what political scientists call "the conservatism of the peasantry." Don't lose what you've got. Don't change. Don't take a chance, because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much as you need. Don't waste time. When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play the game as it must be played. - David Lammers, "Yakitori", Electronic Engineering Times, January 18, 1988 | |
| Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements of individual human brains. - Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 | |
| I am here by the will of the people and I won't leave until I get my raincoat back. - a slogan of the anarchists in Richard Kadrey's "Metrophage" | |
| How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb ? Seven: One to install the new bulb, and six to determine what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years. | |
| This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is now in the American experience... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address in 1961 | |
| The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. - Albert Einstein | |
| The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast powers in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. - Albert Einstein | |
| Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. - Voltaire | |
| ...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman | |
| A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. - Winston Churchill | |
| Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent. - George Orwell | |
| As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman | |
| If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and superficial answer is not far to seek.... The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival denomination would get an unfair advantage. - John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 | |
| History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another... Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained. - Charles Darwin, from "Origin of the Species" | |
| Brain damage is all in your head. -- Karl Lehenbauer | |
| "Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectualy heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise? -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 | |
| 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 | |
| "By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun." -- P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in April 88's "Computer Language" | |
| "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." -- B. L. Whorf | |
| The language provides a programmer with a set of conceptual tools; if these are inadequate for the task, they will simply be ignored. For example, seriously restricting the concept of a pointer simply forces the programmer to use a vector plus integer arithmetic to implement structures, pointer, etc. Good design and the absence of errors cannot be guaranteed by mere language features. -- Bjarne Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language" | |
| "An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments | |
| While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs [temporal-lobe epileptics] are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of the recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against invoking spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will suffice. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255 | |
| 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. | |
| "jackpot: you may have an unneccessary change record" -- message from "diff" | |
| "There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction." -- John Cage, composer | |
| "I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard." -- composer John Cage, 1937 | |
| I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy that they didn't rehearse at all. And so the first time when I found that out, I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece _Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed. The Dutch people were ashamed and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to rehearse. And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and again, they hadn't rehearsed. So they were no more prepared the second time than they had been the first. I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen." Can you believe it? -- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89 | |
| "Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries." -- William George Jordan | |
| "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| "The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults." -- Peter De Vries | |
| "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." -- Albert Einstein | |
| "Success covers a multitude of blunders." -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average. | |
| "I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, unless he has an atomic weapon." -- Howard Chaykin | |
| "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin | |
| "During the race We may eat your dust, But when you graduate, You'll work for us." -- Reed College cheer | |
| "There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again." -- Clint Eastwood | |
| "The sixties were good to you, weren't they?" -- George Carlin | |
| "Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk." -- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode _Amok_Time_ | |
| "Poor man... he was like an employee to me." -- The police commisioner on "Sledge Hammer" laments the death of his bodyguard | |
| "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." -- Sledge Hammer | |
| "Hi. This is Dan Cassidy's answering machine. Please leave your name and number... and after I've doctored the tape, your message will implicate you in a federal crime and be brought to the attention of the F.B.I... BEEEP" -- Blue Devil comics | |
| "Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves around than any other city in the world." -- David Letterman | |
| Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| Politician: An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| Inadmissible: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identy is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law... But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. --Ambrose Bierce | |
| Marriage Ceremony: An incredible metaphysical sham of watching God and the law being dragged into the affairs of your family. -- O. C. Ogilvie | |
| "Emergency!" Sgiggs screamed, ejecting himself from the tub like it was a burning car. "Dial 'one'! Get room service! Code red!" Stiggs was on the phone immediately, ordering more rose blossoms, because, according to him, the ones floating in the tub had suddenly lost their smell. "I demand smell," he shrilled. "I expecting total uninterrupted smell from these f*cking roses." Unfortunately, the service captain didn't realize that the Stiggs situation involved fifty roses. "What am I going to do with this?" Stiggs sneered at the weaseling hotel goon when he appeared at our door holding a single flower floating in a brandy glass. Stiggs's tirade was great. "Do you see this bathtub? Do you notice any difference between the size of the tub and the size of that spindly wad of petals in your hand? I need total bath coverage. I need a completely solid layer of roses all around me like puffing factories of smell, attacking me with their smell and power-ramming big stinking concentrations of rose odor up my nostrils until I'm wasted with pleasure." It wasn't long before we got so dissatisfied with this incompetence that we bolted. -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, National Lampoon, October 1982 | |
| This is, of course, totally uninformed specualation that I engage in to help support my bias against such meddling... but there you have it. -- Peter da Silva, speculating about why a computer program that had been changed to do something he didn't approve of, didn't work | |
| "This knowledge I pursure is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath." -- Paolo Uccello, Renaissance artist, discoverer of the laws of perspective | |
| "Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and become a free, open society, forget it!" -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 | |
| "I knew then (in 1970) that a 4-kbyte minicomputer would cost as much as a house. So I reasoned that after college, I'd have to live cheaply in an apartment and put all my money into owning a computer." -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 | |
| HP had a unique policy of allowing its engineers to take parts from stock as long as they built something. "They figured that with every design, they were getting a better engineer. It's a policy I urge all companies to adopt." -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "Will Wozniak's class give Apple to teacher?" EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 | |
| "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 | |
| 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 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 | |
| Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond 1988. -- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45 | |
| The essential ideas of Algol 68 were that the whole language should be precisely defined and that all the pieces should fit together smoothly. The basic idea behind Pascal was that it didn't matter how vague the language specification was (it took *years* to clarify) or how many rough edges there were, as long as the CDC Pascal compiler was fast. -- Richard A. O'Keefe | |
| "Pseudocode can be used to some extent to aid the maintenance process. However, pseudocode that is highly detailed - approaching the level of detail of the code itself - is not of much use as maintenance documentation. Such detailed documentation has to be maintained almost as much as the code, thus doubling the maintenance burden. Furthermore, since such voluminous pseudocode is too distracting to be kept in the listing itself, it must be kept in a separate folder. The result: Since pseudocode - unlike real code - doesn't have to be maintained, no one will maintain it. It will soon become out of date and everyone will ignore it. (Once, I did an informal survey of 42 shops that used pseudocode. Of those 42, 0 [zero!], found that it had any value as maintenance documentation." --Meilir Page-Jones, "The Practical Guide to Structured Design", Yourdon Press (c) 1988 | |
| "Only a brain-damaged operating system would support task switching and not make the simple next step of supporting multitasking." -- George McFry | |
| The magician is seated in his high chair and looks upon the world with favor. He is at the height of his powers. If he closes his eyes, he causes the world to disappear. If he opens his eyes, he causes the world to come back. If there is harmony within him, the world is harmonious. If rage shatters his inner harmony, the unity of the world is shattered. If desire arises within him, he utters the magic syllables that causes the desired object to appear. His wishes, his thoughts, his gestures, his noises command the universe. -- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 107 | |
| A comment on schedules: Ok, how long will it take? For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month. For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month. For each unique end-user type add one month. For each unknown software package to be employed add two months. For each unknown hardware device add two months. For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month. For each type of communication channel add one month. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM system add 6 months. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM system add 9 months. Round up to the nearest half-year. --Brad Sherman By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all. | |
| 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. | |
| "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge." -- Bakunin [ed. note - I would say: The urge to destroy may sometimes be a creative urge.] | |
| "A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus- sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fal- lacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them- selves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in what- ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too ear- nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties." -- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850 | |
| 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. | |
| To write good code is a worthy challenge, and a source of civilized delight. -- stolen and paraphrased from William Safire | |
| It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. -- Machiavelli | |
| God grant me the senility to accept the things I cannot change, The frustration to try to change things I cannot affect, and the wisdom to tell the difference. | |
| First as to speech. That privilege rests upon the premise that there is no proposition so uniformly acknowledged that it may not be lawfully challenged, questioned, and debated. It need not rest upon the further premise that there are no propositions that are not open to doubt; it is enough, even if there are, that in the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. Hence it has been again and again unconditionally proclaimed that there are no limits to the privilege so far as words seek to affect only the hearers' beliefs and not their conduct. The trouble is that conduct is almost always based upon some belief, and that to change the hearer's belief will generally to some extent change his conduct, and may even evoke conduct that the law forbids. [cf. Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1952; The Art and Craft of Judging: The Decisions of Judge Learned Hand, edited and annotated by Hershel Shanks, The MacMillian Company, 1968.] | |
| "Nine years of ballet, asshole." -- Shelly Long, to the bad guy after making a jump over a gorge that he couldn't quite, in "Outrageous Fortune" | |
| Garbage In, Gospel Out | |
| interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify -- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language | |
| "The medium is the message." -- Marshall McLuhan | |
| "The medium is the massage." -- Crazy Nigel | |
| Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the tip of the West Village. Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary level, living or dead. Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts, The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load. Nobody knows what goes on in these places. Only the heavy faggots know. Even Fielding seems somewhat vague on the question. You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time. The average patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock in two. And then the next night he shows up for more. They shackle themselves to racks, they bask in urinals. Their folks have a lot of explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums. Sorry to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere. A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed. In the meantime, Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks her tongue. Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy new diseases. She just isn't going to stand for it. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ | |
| "People should have access to the data which you have about them. There should be a process for them to challenge any inaccuracies." -- Arthur Miller | |
| "Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads." -- John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ | |
| "An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt." -- a saying at RPI | |
| How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb? Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does it need a C program? | |
| ... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually we were all forced to turn to it. By the summer of '85, the valley had more satellite dishes per capita than an Eskimo village on the north slope of Alaska. Mine was one of the last to go in. I had been nervous from the start about the hazards of too much input, which is a very real problem with these things. Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull. -- Hunter Thompson, "Full-time scrambling", _Generation of Swine_ | |
| "Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something monstrous before we die." -- Message from Ralph Steadman to Hunter Thompson | |
| David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page. George Will: I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages. The comics are making no truth claim. Brinkley: Where would you put it? Will: I wouldn't put it in the newspaper. I think it's transparent rubbish. It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe. We are not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care. The star's alignment at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish. It is not funny to have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons. Sam Donaldson: This isn't something new. Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars said it was a propitious time. Will: They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities. They could apply to anyone and anything. Brinkley: When is the exact moment [of birth]? I don't think the nurse is standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad. Donaldson: If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie thing. People want to know. -- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988, excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan | |
| The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much merriment. It is not funny. Astrological gibberish, which means astrology generally, has no place in a newspaper, let alone government. Unlike comics, which are part of a newspaper's harmless pleasure and make no truth claims, astrology is a fraud. The idea that it gets a hearing in government is dismaying. -- George Will, Washing Post Writers Group | |
| A serious public debate about the validity of astrology? A serious believer in the White House? Two of them? Give me a break. What stifled my laughter is that the image fits. Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward science. Facts, like numbers, roll off his back. And we've all come to accept it. This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually got equal time with evolutionists. The public was supposed to be open-minded to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense. The same people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of laetrile to eye of newt to the movment of planets. We lose the capacity to make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same. -- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers Group | |
| The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright. The easiest response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign. A contagious good cheer is the hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned. But this time, it isn't funny. It's plain scary. -- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in "Newsday", May 5, 1988 | |
| With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately. Sadly, such happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies. They are manifestations of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately, could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . . The manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its industrial equals. To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically, with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society. -- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988 | |
| "I remember when I was a kid I used to come home from Sunday School and my mother would get drunk and try to make pancakes." -- George Carlin | |
| "My father? My father left when I was quite young. Well actually, he was asked to leave. He had trouble metabolizing alcohol." -- George Carlin | |
| "I turn on my television set. I see a young lady who goes under the guise of being a Christian, known all over the nation, dressed in skin-tight leather pants, shaking and wiggling her hips to the beat and rythm of the music as the strobe lights beat their patterns across the stage and the band plays the contemporary rock sound which cannot be differentiated from songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, or anyone else. And you may try to tell me this is of God and that it is leading people to Christ, but I know better. -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. | |
| "Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time." -- a coffee cup | |
| "We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to know what we do not know." -- Plato | |
| "An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - H.L. Mencken | |
| Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak, include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some- thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti- ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on. -- Jeff G. Bone | |
| So we get to my point. Surely people around here read things that aren't on the *Officially Sanctioned Cyberpunk Reading List*. Surely we don't (any of us) really believe that there is some big, deep political and philosophical message in all this, do we? So if this `cyberpunk' thing is just a term of convenience, how can somebody sell out? If cyberpunk is just a word we use to describe a particular style and imagery in sf, how can it be dead? Where are the profound statements that the `Movement' is or was trying to make? I think most of us are interested in examining and discussing literary (and musical) works that possess a certain stylistic excellence and perhaps a rather extreme perspective; this is what CP is all about, no? Maybe there should be a newsgroup like, say, alt.postmodern or somthing. Something less restrictive in scope than alt.cyberpunk. -- Jeff G. Bone | |
| It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages. The original announcement for the group called for an all inclusive discussion ranging from the writings of Gibson and Vinge and movies like Bladerunner to real world things like Brands' description of the work being done at the MIT Media Lab. It was meant as a haven for people with vision of this scope. If you want to create a haven for people with narrower visions, feel free. But I feel sad for anyone who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in dire need of being subdivided. Heaven help them if they ever start reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers. -- Bob Webber | |
| Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following TETflame programme: 1) For a negotiated price (no quatloos accepted) one of our flaming representatives will flame the living shit out of the poster of your choice. The price is inversly proportional to how much of an asshole the target it. We cannot be convinced to flame Dennis Ritchie. Matt Crawford flames are free. 2) For a negotiated price (same arrangement) the TETflame programme is offering ``flame insurence''. Under this arrangement, if one of our policy holders is flamed, we will cancel the offending article and flame the flamer, to a crisp. 3) The TETflame flaming representatives include: Richard Sexton, Oleg Kisalev, Diane Holt, Trish O'Tauma, Dave Hill, Greg Nowak and our most recent aquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his kill file. Weemba by special arrangement. -- Richard Sexton | |
| "As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of their Proverbs..." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" | |
| HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 4 proof by personal communication: 'Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete [Karp, personal communication].' proof by reduction to the wrong problem: 'To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem.' proof by reference to inaccessible literature: The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883. proof by importance: A large body of useful consequences all follow from the proposition in question. | |
| "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished." -- Goethe | |
| "The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity." -- Edward Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ | |
| "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage | |
| "I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind." -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
| Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What should I do? A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the correction. And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform the whole net right away! -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
| Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do? A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that soiled clothing would when addressing an audience. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
| How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it and one not to change it. | |
| "Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo." -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| "Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out." -- Montaigne | |
| "Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it." -- Baskins | |
| Marriage is the sole cause of divorce. | |
| Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. | |
| "Pull the trigger and you're garbage." -- Lady Blue | |
| "If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't worry about who makes its laws. Today, television tells most of the stories to most of the people most of the time." -- George Gerbner | |
| "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present". When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | |
| "If I ever get around to writing that language depompisifier, it will change almost all occurences of the word "paradigm" into "example" or "model." -- Herbie Blashtfalt | |
| "Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many men happy." -- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage | |
| "Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser." -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" | |
| "(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied mathematics, business data handling, or whatever." -- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_ | |
| Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." -- David Guaspari | |
| A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill | |
| All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second. -- Jim Fiebig | |
| Bedfellows make strange politicians. | |
| C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre! [It is magnificent, but it is not war] -- Pierre Bosquet, witnessing the charge of the Light Brigade | |
| Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage. -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post | |
| Concerning the war in Vietnam, Senator George Aiken of Vermount noted in January, 1966, "I'm not very keen for doves or hawks. I think we need more owls." -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" | |
| Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. | |
| Every one says that politicians lie all the time, and that just isn't so! But you do have to understand body language to know when they're lying and when they aren't. When a politician rubs his nose, he isn't lying. When a politician tugs on his ear, he isn't lying. When a politician scratches his collar bone, he isn't lying. When his mouth starts moving, that's when he's lying! | |
| Fanaticism consists of redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim. -- George Santayana | |
| Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason. -- Charles Curtis, "A Commonplace Book" | |
| Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. War is peace. -- George Orwell | |
| George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0. -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82 | |
| George Orwell was an optimist. | |
| George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend. -- Ashley Cooper | |
| Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
| Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage. -- John Updike, "Couples" | |
| Graduating seniors, parents and friends... Let me begin by reassuring you that my remarks today will stand up to the most stringent requirements of the new appropriateness. The intra-college sensitivity advisory committee has vetted the text of even trace amounts of subconscious racism, sexism and classism. Moreover, a faculty panel of deconstructionists have reconfigured the rhetorical components within a post-structuralist framework, so as to expunge any offensive elements of western rationalism and linear logic. Finally, all references flowing from a white, male, eurocentric perspective have been eliminated, as have any other ruminations deemed denigrating to the political consensus of the moment. Thank you and good luck. -- Doonesbury, the University Chancellor's graduation speech. | |
| History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another... Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained. -- Charles Darwin, from "Origin of the Species" | |
| I am convinced that the truest act of courage is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. -- Cesar Chavez | |
| I find this corpse guilty of carrying a concealed weapon and I fine it $40. -- Judge Roy Bean, finding a pistol and $40 on a man he'd just shot. | |
| I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. -- Francis Bellamy, 1892 | |
| I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that the whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile so we can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the plumber. But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such as this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of the world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never win large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually write about, such as nose-picking. -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against Political Fallout" | |
| I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out. -- Judge Harold T. Stone | |
| If voting could change the system, it would be illegal. If not voting could change the system, it would be illegal. | |
| If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom. -- Samuel Adams | |
| If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word "National." -- George Will | |
| It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first thing a principle does -- if it really is a principle -- is to kill somebody. -- Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night" | |
| It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair. -- George Burns | |
| Life is a concentration camp. You're stuck here and there's no way out and you can only rage impotently against your persecutors. -- Woody Allen | |
| Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out the right thing to do. Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing, but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the right thing to do and what is the right way to do it. That is the problem. But this economy of ours is not so simple that it obeys to the opinion of bias or the pronouncements of any particular individual, even to the President. This is an economy that is made up of 173 million people, and it reflects their desires, they're ready to buy, they're ready to spend, it is a thing that is too complex and too big to be affected adversely or advantageously just by a few words or any particular -- say, a little this and that, or even a panacea so alleged. -- D.D. Eisenhower, in response to: "Has the government been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to the recession?" | |
| Many a bum show has been saved by the flag. -- George M. Cohan | |
| Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. | |
| My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights -- or very early mornings -- when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour ... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turnoff to take when I got to the other end ... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that. -- Hunter S. Thompson | |
| Nobody shot me. -- Frank Gusenberg, his last words, when asked by police who had shot him 14 times with a machine gun in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Only Capone kills like that. -- George "Bugs" Moran, on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran. -- Al Capone, on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre | |
| O'Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. "How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?" "Four." "And if the Party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?" "Four." The word ended in a gasp of pain. -- George Orwell | |
| Once there was a marine biologist who loved dolphins. He spent his time trying to feed and protect his beloved creatures of the sea. One day, in a fit of inventive genius, he came up with a serum that would make dolphins live forever! Of course he was ecstatic. But he soon realized that in order to mass produce this serum he would need large amounts of a certain compound that was only found in nature in the metabolism of a rare South American bird. Carried away by his love for dolphins, he resolved that he would go to the zoo and steal one of these birds. Unbeknownst to him, as he was arriving at the zoo an elderly lion was escaping from its cage. The zookeepers were alarmed and immediately began combing the zoo for the escaped animal, unaware that it had simply lain down on the sidewalk and had gone to sleep. Meanwhile, the marine biologist arrived at the zoo and procured his bird. He was so excited by the prospect of helping his dolphins that he stepped absentmindedly stepped over the sleeping lion on his way back to his car. Immediately, 1500 policemen converged on him and arrested him for transporting a myna across a staid lion for immortal porpoises. | |
| 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 | |
| Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'. We their sons are more worthless than they: so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) | |
| Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel, he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform. -- Sen. Roscoe Conkling Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -- Boies Penrose | |
| People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. -- John Kenneth Galbraith | |
| Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. -- Nikita Khrushchev | |
| Politics makes strange bedfellows, and journalism makes strange politics. -- Amy Gorin | |
| Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or help speed the change by breaking them? | |
| Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that never comes again. San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost ___see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. -- Hunter S. Thompson | |
| Support your right to bare arms! -- A message from the National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association | |
| The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. -- Bertrand Russell, in "Marriage and Morals", 1929 | |
| 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 | |
| The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return. -- Gore Vidal | |
| The hater of property and of government takes care to have his warranty deed recorded, and the book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title page. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831 | |
| The Least Successful Police Dogs America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida in 1978. He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or offend the criminal classes. His handling officer, Rick Grim, had to admit: "He just won't go up and bite them. I got sick and tired of doing that dog's work for him." The British contenders in this category, however, took things a stage further. "Laddie" and "Boy" were trained as detector dogs for drug raids. Their employment was terminated following a raid in the Midlands in 1967. While the investigating officer questioned two suspects, they patted and stroked the dogs who eventually fell asleep in front of the fire. When the officer moved to arrest the suspects, one dog growled at him while the other leapt up and bit his thigh. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to grey and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And, as some of the men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought." -- Alistair Cooke | |
| The Worst Prison Guards The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, near Lisbon in Portugal. During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were "covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back the next morning. "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the "legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within. I'm coming now I'm coming to reward them. First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I'm guided by a signal in the heavens. I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin. I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons. First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I'd really like to live beside you, baby. I love your body and your spirit and your clothes. But you see that line there moving through the station? I told you I told you I told you I was one of those. -- Leonard Cohen, "First We Take Manhattan" | |
| Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the Captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow." "Is it steady or moving astern?" the Captain called out. Lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The Captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees." Back came a signal "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees." In reply, the Captain said, "Send: I'm a Captain, change course 20 degrees!" "I'm a seaman second class," came the reply, "You had better change course 20 degrees." By that time, the Captain was furious. He spit out, "Send: I'm a battleship, change course 20 degrees." Back came the flashing light: "I'm a lighthouse!" We changed course. -- The Naval Institute's "Proceedings" | |
| Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| "Violence accomplishes nothing." What a contemptible lie! Raw, naked violence has settled more issues throughout history than any other method ever employed. Perhaps the city fathers of Carthage could debate the issue, with Hitler and Alexander as judges? | |
| Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Salvor Hardin | |
| War is like love, it always finds a way. -- Bertolt Brecht, "Mother Courage" | |
| We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. -- Calvin Coolidge | |
| ... we must not judge the society of the future by considering whether or not we should like to live in it; the question is whether those who have grown up in it will be happier than those who have grown up in our society or those of the past. -- Joseph Wood Krutch | |
| We should be glad we're living in the time that we are. If any of us had been born into a more enlightened age, I'm sure we would have immediately been taken out and shot. -- Strange de Jim | |
| 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 | |
| What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -- WOP, "War Games" | |
| "What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try anyway, George." -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA | |
| When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes, it means that they want you to change first. | |
| When the revolution comes, count your change. | |
| When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many. -- General James Gavin | |
| The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net paranoia quotient; it simply redirects it, drives it underground, where it festers into more dangerous hysterias. In the words of Justice Brandeis, "Men feared witches and burned women." -- Rodney Smolla, "Free Speech in an Open Society", p. 43. | |
| The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. -- Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), French novelist, political writer. "Why Freedom?" The last essays of George Bernanos (1955) | |
| 17th Rule of Friendship: A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is noncancellable. -- Esquire, May 1977 | |
| Adler's Distinction: Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, and from the bureaucrats. | |
| Age, n.: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| Arthur's Laws of Love: (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person. | |
| Bagbiter: 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING. | |
| Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. | |
| BASIC, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. | |
| Bloom's Seventh Law of Litigation: The judge's jokes are always funny. | |
| Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. | |
| brain-damaged, generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in Multics, adj: Obviously wrong; cretinous; demented. There is an implication that the person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he/she should have known better. Calling something brain-damaged is bad; it also implies it is unusable. | |
| Brontosaurus Principle: Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when this occurs, they are an endangered species. -- Thomas K. Connellan | |
| C, n: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard | |
| Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| cerebral atrophy, n: The phenomena which occurs as brain cells become weak and sick, and impair the brain's performance. An abundance of these "bad" cells can cause symptoms related to senility, apathy, depression, and overall poor academic performance. A certain small number of brain cells will deteriorate due to everday activity, but large amounts are weakened by intense mental effort and the assimilation of difficult concepts. Many college students become victims of this dread disorder due to poor habits such as overstudying. cerebral darwinism, n: The theory that the effects of cerebral atrophy can be reversed through the purging action of heavy alcohol consumption. Large amounts of alcohol cause many brain cells to perish due to oxygen deprivation. Through the process of natural selection, the weak and sick brain cells will die first, leaving only the healthy cells. This wonderful process leaves the imbiber with a healthier, more vibrant brain, and increases mental capacity. Thus, the devastating effects of cerebral atrophy are reversed, and academic performance actually increases beyond previous levels. | |
| Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage. | |
| College: The fountains of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink. | |
| Computer science: (1) A study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the precision of the former and the success of the latter. (2) The protracted value analysis of algorithms. (3) The costly enumeration of the obvious. (4) The boring art of coping with a large number of trivialities. (5) Tautology harnessed in the service of Man at the speed of light. (6) The Post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. | |
| Computer, n.: An electronic entity which performs sequences of useful steps in a totally understandable, rigorously logical manner. If you believe this, see me about a bridge I have for sale in Manhattan. | |
| Consultant, n.: [From con "to defraud, dupe, swindle," or, possibly, French con (vulgar) "a person of little merit" + sult elliptical form of "insult."] A tipster disguised as an oracle, especially one who has learned to decamp at high speed in spite of a large briefcase and heavy wallet. | |
| divorce, n: A change of wife. | |
| Engram, n.: 1. The physical manifestation of human memory -- "the engram." 2. A particular memory in physical form. [Usage note: this term is no longer in common use. Prior to Wilson and Magruder's historic discovery, the nature of the engram was a topic of intense speculation among neuroscientists, psychologists, and even computer scientists. In 1994 Professors M. R. Wilson and W. V. Magruder, both of Mount St. Coax University in Palo Alto, proved conclusively that the mammalian brain is hardwired to interpret a set of thirty seven genetically transmitted cooperating TECO macros. Human memory was shown to reside in 1 million Q-registers as Huffman coded uppercase-only ASCII strings. Interest in the engram has declined substantially since that time.] -- New Century Unabridged English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2007 A.D. | |
| enhance, v.: To tamper with an image, usually to its detriment. | |
| Envy, n.: Wishing you'd been born with an unfair advantage, instead of having to try and acquire one. | |
| fenderberg, n.: The large glacial deposits that form on the insides of car fenders during snowstorms. -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends | |
| Flon's Law: There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. | |
| Frobnicate, v.: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a frob." See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. | |
| genius, n.: Person clever enough to be born in the right place at the right time of the right sex and to follow up this advantage by saying all the right things to all the right people. | |
| 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. | |
| Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. | |
| Grelb's Reminder: Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers. | |
| gyroscope, n.: A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpindicular to each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin. -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary | |
| hacker, n.: Originally, any person with a knack for coercing stubborn inanimate things; hence, a person with a happy knack, later contracted by the mythical philosopher Frisbee Frobenius to the common usage, 'hack'. In olden times, upon completion of some particularly atrocious body of coding that happened to work well, culpable programmers would gather in a small circle around a first edition of Knuth's Best Volume I by candlelight, and proceed to get very drunk while sporadically rending the following ditty: Hacker's Fight Song He's a Hack! He's a Hack! He's a guy with the happy knack! Never bungles, never shirks, Always gets his stuff to work! All take a drink (important!) | |
| Hale Mail Rule, The: When you are ready to reply to a letter, you will lack at least one of the following: (a) A pen or pencil or typewriter. (b) Stationery. (c) Postage stamp. (d) The letter you are answering. | |
| Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. | |
| Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| Impartial, adj.: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| Jim Nasium's Law: In a large locker room with hundreds of lockers, the few people using the facility at any one time will all have lockers next to each other so that everybody is cramped. | |
| Karlson's Theorem of Snack Food Packages: For all P, where P is a package of snack food, P is a SINGLE-SERVING package of snack food. Gibson the Cat's Corrolary: For all L, where L is a package of lunch meat, L is Gibson's package of lunch meat. | |
| Kludge, n.: An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole. -- Jackson Granholm, "Datamation" | |
| knowledge, n.: Things you believe. | |
| Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage. Jenning's Corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. | |
| lawsuit, n.: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| leverage, n.: Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out. | |
| Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever. | |
| Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism. Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet. The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| marriage, n.: An old, established institution, entered into by two people deeply in love and desiring to make a committment to each other expressing that love. In short, committment to an institution. | |
| marriage, n.: Convertible bonds. | |
| Marriage, n.: The evil aye. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. | |
| Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it. | |
| mixed emotions: Watching a bus-load of lawyers plunge off a cliff. With five empty seats. | |
| nolo contendere: A legal term meaning: "I didn't do it, judge, and I'll never do it again." | |
| One Page Principle: A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood. -- Mark Ardis | |
| Pascal: A programming language named after a man who would turn over in his grave if he knew about it. -- Datamation, January 15, 1984 | |
| Pedaeration, n.: The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
| Peterson's Rules: (1) Trucks that overturn on freeways are filled with something sticky. (2) No cute baby in a carriage is ever a girl when called one. (3) Things that tick are not always clocks. (4) Suicide only works when you're bluffing. | |
| politics, n.: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| Poorman's Rule: When you pull a plastic garbage bag from its handy dispenser package, you always get hold of the closed end and try to pull it open. | |
| program, n.: A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. tr.v. To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward. | |
| prototype, n.: First stage in the life cycle of a computer product, followed by pre-alpha, alpha, beta, release version, corrected release version, upgrade, corrected upgrade, etc. Unlike its successors, the prototype is not expected to work. | |
| Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand. | |
| QOTD: "If you keep an open mind people will throw a lot of garbage in it." | |
| QOTD: "Our parents were never our age." | |
| Reappraisal, n.: An abrupt change of mind after being found out. | |
| Reception area, n.: The purgatory where office visitors are condemned to spend innumerable hours reading dog-eared back issues of trade magazines like Modern Plastics, Chain Saw Age, and Chicken World, while the receptionist blithely reads her own trade magazine -- Cosmopolitan. | |
| Revolution, n.: In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
| Rhode's Law: When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe. | |
| Rules for Writers: Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. Don't use no double negatives. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't. Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed. No sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are unnecessary. Eschew dialect, irregardless. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens. Write all adverbial forms correct. Don't use contractions in formal writing. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'" | |
| Savage's Law of Expediency: You want it bad, you'll get it bad. | |
| Secretary's Revenge: Filing almost everything under "the". | |
| serendipity, n.: The process by which human knowledge is advanced. | |
| Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. | |
| Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization. | |
| SUN Microsystems: The Network IS the Load Average. | |
| Swahili, n.: The language used by the National Enquirer to print their retractions. -- Johnny Hart | |
| TCP/IP Slang Glossary, #1: Gong, n: Medieval term for privy, or what pased for them in that era. Today used whimsically to describe the aftermath of a bogon attack. Think of our community as the Galapagos of the English language. "Vogons may read you bad poetry, but bogons make you study obsolete RFCs." -- Dave Mills | |
| Technicality, n.: In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused a neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| The Modelski Chain Rule: (1) Look intently at the problem for several minutes. Scratch your head at 20-30 second intervals. Try solving the problem on your Hewlett-Packard. (2) Failing this, look around at the class. Select a particularly bright-looking individual. (3) Procure a large chain. (4) Walk over to the selected student and threaten to beat him severely with the chain unless he gives you the answer to the problem. Generally, he will. It may also be a good idea to give him a sound thrashing anyway, just to show you mean business. | |
| The real man's Bloody Mary: Ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Tobasco, Worcestershire sauce, A-1 steak sauce, ice, salt, pepper, celery. Fill a large tumbler with vodka. Throw all the other ingredients away. | |
| The Third Law of Photography: If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out. | |
| TIPS FOR PERFORMERS: Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters. There are a finite number of jokes in the universe. Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than they would ordinarily. There is no music in space. People will pay to watch people make sounds. Everything on stage should be larger than in real life. | |
| Tsort's Constant: 1.67563, or precisely 1,237.98712567 times the difference between the distance to the sun and the weight of a small orange. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" (slightly modified) | |
| Udall's Fourth Law: Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences you don't like. | |
| vacation, n.: A two-week binge of rest and relaxation so intense that it takes another 50 weeks of your restrained workaday life-style to recuperate. | |
| well-adjusted, adj.: The ability to play bridge or golf as if they were games. | |
| Whistler's Law: You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge. | |
| Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation): We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage any thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. | |
| Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985: From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?" | |
| write-protect tab, n.: A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary inconvenience. -- Robb Russon | |
| McJob: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by those who have never held one. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Poverty Jet Set: A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed and extremely expensive phone-call relationships with people named Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Boomer Envy: Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Ozmosis: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Mid-Twenties Breakdown: A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Divorce Assumption: A form of Safety Net-ism, the belief that if a marriage doesn't work out, then there is no problem because partners can simply seek a divorce. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| The Emperor's New Mall: The popular notion that shopping malls exist on the insides only and have no exterior. The suspension of visual disbelief engendered by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement blocks thrust into their environment do not, in fact, exist. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Architectural Indigestion: The almost obsessive need to live in a "cool" architectural environment. Frequently related objects of fetish include framed black-and-white art photography (Diane Arbus a favorite); simplistic pine furniture; matte black high-tech items such as TVs, stereos, and telephones; low-wattage ambient lighting; a lamp, chair, or table that alludes to the 1950s; cut flowers with complex names. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Rebellion Postponement: The tendency in one's youth to avoid traditionally youthful activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career experience. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about age thirty, followed by silly haircuts and expensive joke-inducing wardrobes. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Bradyism: A multisibling sensibility derived from having grown up in large families. A rarity in those born after approximately 1965, symptoms of Bradyism include a facility for mind games, emotional withdrawal in situations of overcrowding, and a deeply felt need for a well-defined personal space. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| African violet: Such worth is rare Apple blossom: Preference Bachelor's button: Celibacy Bay leaf: I change but in death Camelia: Reflected loveliness Chrysanthemum, red: I love Chrysanthemum, white: Truth Chrysanthemum, other: Slighted love Clover: Be mine Crocus: Abuse not Daffodil: Innocence Forget-me-not: True love Fuchsia: Fast Gardenia: Secret, untold love Honeysuckle: Bonds of love Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage Jasmine: Amiablity, transports of joy, sensuality Leaves (dead): Melancholy Lilac: Youthful innocence Lilly: Purity, sweetness Lilly of the valley: Return of happiness Magnolia: Dignity, perseverance * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. | |
| Age is a tyrant who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. | |
| "Do you believe in intuition?" "No, but I have a strange feeling that someday I will." | |
| Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. | |
| Dreams are free, but there's a small charge for alterations. | |
| Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the window. | |
| Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week: Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige. | |
| Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you. -- Albert Einstein | |
| [I plan] to see, hear, touch, and destroy everything in my path, including beets, rutabagas, and most random vegetables, but excluding yams, as I am absolutely terrified of yams... Actually, I think my fear of yams began in my early youth, when many of my young comrades pelted me with same for singing songs of far-off lands and deep blue seas in a language closely resembling that of the common sow. My psychosis was further impressed into my soul as I reached adolescence, when, while skipping through a field of yams, light-heartedly tossing flowers into the stratosphere, a great yam-picking machine tore through the fields, pursuing me to the edge of the great plantation, where I escaped by diving into a great ditch filled with a mixture of water and pig manure, which may explain my tendency to scream, "Here come the Martians! Hide the eggs!" every time I have pork. But I digress. The fact remains that I cannot rationally deal with yams, and pigs are terrible conversationalists. | |
| I will always love the false image I had of you. | |
| If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers. -- Doug Larson [Not to mention, butterfly would be flutterby. Ed.] | |
| If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past is subject to change in times to come? | |
| Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, luggage in Brazil. | |
| Language is a virus from another planet. -- William Burroughs | |
| Let he who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. | |
| Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. -- Paul Gauguin | |
| Marigold: Jealousy Mint: Virute Orange blossom: Your purity equals your loveliness Orchid: Beauty, magnificence Pansy: Thoughts Peach blossom: I am your captive Petunia: Your presence soothes me Poppy: Sleep Rose, any color: Love Rose, deep red: Bashful shame Rose, single, pink: Simplicity Rose, thornless, any: Early attachment Rose, white: I am worthy of you Rose, yellow: Decrease of love, rise of jealousy Rosebud, white: Girlhood, and a heart ignorant of love Rosemary: Remembrance Sunflower: Haughtiness Tulip, red: Declaration of love Tulip, yellow: Hopeless love Violet, blue: Faithfulness Violet, white: Modesty Zinnia: Thoughts of absent friends * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. | |
| May a hundred thousand midgets invade your home singing cheesy lounge-lizard versions of songs from The Wizard of Oz. | |
| Odets, where is thy sting? -- George S. Kaufman | |
| Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or help speed the change by breaking them? | |
| Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. | |
| The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptizing it. -- George Meredith | |
| The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its message and then disappears. | |
| The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe. | |
| The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate. -- Doug Sneyd | |
| The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed. | |
| The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing. -- Judge Harold T. Stone | |
| The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. | |
| Two cars in every pot and a chicken in every garage. | |
| We'll cross that bridge when we come back to it later. | |
| "What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" -- The Doctor | |
| When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it. -- Billy Sunday | |
| You can cage a swallow, can't you, but you can't swallow a cage, can you? Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing boy, finds boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl. A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! -- The Palindromist | |
| [ ] Safeguard this message - it is an important historical document. [ ] Delete after reading -- Subversive Literature. [ ] Ignore and go back to what you were doing. | |
| 1/2 oz. gin 1/2 oz. vodka 1/2 oz. rum (preferably dark) 3/4 oz. tequilla 1/2 oz. triple sec 1/2 oz. orange juice 3/4 oz. sour mix 1/2 oz. cola shake with ice and strain into frosted glass. Long Island Iced Tea | |
| 6 oz. orange juice 1 oz. vodka 1/2 oz. Galliano Harvey Wallbangers | |
| Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| ELECTRIC JELL-O 2 boxes JELL-O brand gelatin 2 packages Knox brand unflavored gelatin 2 cups fruit (any variety) 2+ cups water 1/2 bottle Everclear brand grain alcohol Mix JELL-O and Knox gelatin into 2 cups of boiling water. Stir 'til fully dissolved. Pour hot mixture into a flat pan. (JELL-O molds won't work.) Stir in grain alcohol instead of usual cold water. Remove any congealing glops of slime. (Alcohol has an unusual effect on excess JELL-O.) Pour in fruit to desired taste, and to absorb any excess alcohol. Mix in some cold water to dilute the alcohol and make it easier to eat for the faint of heart. Refrigerate overnight to allow mixture to fully harden. (About 8-12 hours.) Cut into squares and enjoy! WARNING: Keep ingredients away from open flame. Not recommended for children under eight years of age. | |
| FORTUNE'S FAVORITE RECIPES: #8 Christmas Rum Cake 1 or 2 quarts rum 1 tbsp. baking powder 1 cup butter 1 tsp. soda 1 tsp. sugar 1 tbsp. lemon juice 2 large eggs 2 cups brown sugar 2 cups dried assorted fruit 3 cups chopped English walnuts Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Good, isn't it? Now select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It must be just right. Be sure the rum is of the highest quality. Pour one cup of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric mixer, beat one cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of tugar and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the rum teh absolutely highest quality. Sample another cup. Open second quart as necessary. Add 2 orge laggs, 2 cups of fried druit and beat untill high. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters, just pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the rum again, checking for toncisticity. Next sift 3 cups of baking powder, a pinch of rum, a seaspoon of toda and a cup of pepper or salt (it really doesn't matter). Sample some more. Sift 912 pint of lemon juice. Fold in schopped butter and strained chups. Add bablespoon of brown gugar, or whatever color you have. Mix mell. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees and rake until poothtick comes out crean. | |
| Glogg (a traditional Scandinavian holiday drink): fifth of dry red wine fifth of Aquavit 1 and 1/2 inch piece of cinnamon 10 cardamom seeds 1 cup raisins 4 dried figs 1 cup blanched or flaked almonds a few pieces of dried orange peel 5 cloves 1/2 lb. sugar cubes Heat up the wine and hard stuff (which may be substituted with wine for the faint of heart) in a big pot after adding all the other stuff EXCEPT the sugar cubes. Just when it reaches boiling, put the sugar in a wire strainer, moisten it in the hot brew, lift it out and ignite it with a match. Dip the sugar several times in the liquid until it is all dissolved. Serve hot in cups with a few raisins and almonds in each cup. N.B. Aquavit may be hard to find and expensive to boot. Use it only if you really have a deep-seated desire to be fussy, or if you are of Swedish extraction. | |
| I drink to make other people interesting. -- George Jean Nathan | |
| I will not drink! But if I do... I will not get drunk! But if I do... I will not in public! But if I do... I will not fall down! But if I do... I will fall face down so that they cannot see my company badge. | |
| I've never been drunk, but often I've been overserved. -- George Gobel | |
| In a whiskey it's age, in a cigarette it's taste and in a sports car it's impossible. | |
| Look at it this way: Your wife's spending $280 a month on meditation lessons to forget $26,000 of college education. And you're still drinking ordinary scotch? | |
| My uncle was the town drunk -- and we lived in Chicago. -- George Gobel | |
| Said the attractive, cigar-smoking housewife to her girl-friend: "I got started one night when George came home and found one burning in the ashtray." | |
| Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. | |
| So, is the glass half empty, half full, or just twice as large as it needs to be? | |
| Some people have no respect for age unless it's bottled. | |
| Symptom: Floor swaying. Fault: Excessive air turbulence, perhaps due to air-hockey game in progress. Action Required: Insert broom handle down back of jacket. Symptom: Everything has gone dim, strange taste of peanuts and pretzels or cigarette butts in mouth. Fault: You have fallen forward. Action Required: See above. Symptom: Opposite wall covered with acoustic tile and several flourescent light strips. Fault: You have fallen over backward. Action Required: If your glass is full and no one is standing on your drinking arm, stay put. If not, get someone to help you get up, lash yourself to bar. -- Bar Troubleshooting | |
| The father, passing through his son's college town late one evening on a business trip, thought he would pay his boy a suprise visit. Arriving at the lad's fraternity house, dad rapped loudly on the door. After several minutes of knocking, a sleepy voice drifted down from a second-floor window, "Whaddaya want?" "Does Ramsey Duncan live here?" asked the father. "Yeah," replied the voice. "Dump him on the front porch." | |
| The mark of a good party is that you wake up the next morning wanting to change your name and start a new life in different city. -- Vance Bourjaily, "Esquire" | |
| To one large turkey add one gallon of vermouth and a demijohn of Angostura bitters. Shake. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, recipe for turkey cocktail. | |
| When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
| Woody: How are you feeling today, Mr. Peterson? Norm: Poor. Woody: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Norm: No, I meant `pour'. -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 3 Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, what's the story? Norm: Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy gets another beer. -- Cheers, The Proposal Paul: Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you? Norm: Like a baby treats a diaper. -- Cheers, Tan 'n Wash | |
| Woody: What's happening, Mr. Peterson? Norm: The question is, Woody, why is it happening to me? -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 1 Woody: What's going down, Mr. Peterson? Norm: My cheeks on this barstool. -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, can I pour you a beer? Norm: Well, okay, Woody, but be sure to stop me at one. ... Eh, make that one-thirty. -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2 | |
| Q: How many Bell Labs Vice Presidents does it take to change a light bulb? A: That's proprietary information. Answer available from AT&T on payment of license fee (binary only). | |
| Q: How many college football players does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Only one, but he gets three credits for it. | |
| Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. We'll fix it in software. Q: How many system programmers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The application can work around it. Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. We'll document it in the manual. Q: How many tech writers does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The user can figure it out. | |
| Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks". | |
| Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: One. Only it's his light bulb when he's done. | |
| Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes. Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable. The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership. | |
| Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? A: You won't find a lawyer who can change a light bulb. Now, if you're looking for a lawyer to screw a light bulb... | |
| Q: How many marketing people does it take to change a light bulb? A: I'll have to get back to you on that. | |
| Q: How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a light bulb? A: Seven. Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim that he's a doctor, not an electrician). Scotty, after checking around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains that he "canna" see in the dark. Kirk will make an emergency stop at the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured. As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand, Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must warp out of orbit. Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been given all light bulbs they can carry. The new bulb is then inserted and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission. | |
| Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Only one, but it takes a long time, and the light bulb has to really want to change. | |
| Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. | |
| Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools. [Surrealist jokes just aren't my cup of fur. Ed.] | |
| Q: How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? A: One. | |
| Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? A: 9 edge down. | |
| Q: What is orange and goes "click, click?" A: A ball point carrot. | |
| Q: What's the difference betweeen USL and the Graf Zeppelin? A: The Graf Zeppelin represented cutting edge technology for its time. | |
| Q: Where's the Lone Ranger take his garbage? A: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump! Q: What's the Pink Panther say when he steps on an ant hill? A: Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant dead ant dead ant... | |
| Q: Why was Stonehenge abandoned? A: It wasn't IBM compatible. | |
| A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second language?" | |
| A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi | |
| An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. -- Benjamin Franklin | |
| Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." -- David Guaspari | |
| Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. | |
| Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton -- born 1608 of John Milton, who was born in 1608, is the combination of beauty and power. Few have excelled him in the use of the English language, or for that matter, in lucidity of verse form, 'Paradise Lost' being said to be the greatest single poem ever written." Current historians have come to Most of the problems that now doubt the complete advantageousness face the United States are of some of Roosevelt's policies... directly traceable to the bungling and greed of President Roosevelt. ... it is possible that we simply do Professor Mitchell is a not understand the Russian viewpoint... communist. | |
| Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays. -- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn | |
| 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. | |
| Higher education helps your earning capacity. Ask any college professor. | |
| I came out of twelve years of college and I didn't even know how to sew. All I could do was account -- I couldn't even account for myself. -- Firesign Theatre | |
| "I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage." -- English Professor, Providence College | |
| If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
| If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. -- Wittgenstein | |
| If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. -- Marguerite Emmons | |
| If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions. | |
| Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow. -- Franklin K. Dane | |
| In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, Junior, what are you up to?" "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one will publish such rubbish!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves." "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody remnants of the wolf and the fox. The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. | |
| 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. | |
| Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks at college sailing his frisbee. -- Snoopy | |
| Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. | |
| Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree. -- Professor, EECS, George Washington University I'm looking forward to working with you on this next year. -- Professor, Harvard, on a senior thesis. | |
| `O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit will be given to candidates who self-actualise. (1) Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why neither has street credibility. (2) "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth and inner city. (3) Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked into a black hole. (4) "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult. (5) Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics. (6) "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing up of western dualism? (7) Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss. | |
| Periphrasis is the putting of things in a round-about way. "The cost may be upwards of a figure rather below 10m#." is a periphrasis for The cost may be nearly 10m#. "In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable news" is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris. "Rarely does the 'Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month" contains a periphrasis for November, and another for lingers. "The answer is in the negative" is a periphrasis for No. "Was made the recipient of" is a periphrasis for Was presented with. The periphrasis style is hardly possible on any considerable scale without much use of abstract nouns such as "basis, case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, nature, reference, regard, respect". The existence of abstract nouns is a proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory developments." -- Fowler's English Usage | |
| Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem Eng. 130 midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%. | |
| Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years. -- George Burns | |
| The 'A' is for content, the 'minus' is for not typing it. Don't ever do this to my eyes again. -- Professor Ronald Brady, Philosophy, Ramapo State College | |
| The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another. -- J. Frank Dobie, "A Texan in England" | |
| The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness. -- Robert M. Hutchins | |
| Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates. | |
| We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge. -- George Will | |
| We're fantastically incredibly sorry for all these extremely unreasonable things we did. I can only plead that my simple, barely-sentient friend and myself are underprivileged, deprived and also college students. -- Waldo D.R. Dobbs | |
| What's page one, a preemptive strike? -- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College | |
| "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. -- George Ade | |
| A Hen Brooding Kittens A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861 | |
| A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs. -- Audobon Society Magazine | |
| 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" | |
| Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. -- Erwin Knoll | |
| Once Again From the Top Correction notice in the Miami Herald: "Last Sunday, The Herald erroneously reported that original Dolphin Johnny Holmes had been an insurance salesman in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he had won the New York lottery in 1982 and lost the money in a land swindle, that he had been charged with vehicular homicide, but acquitted because his mother said she drove the car, and that he stated that the funniest thing he ever saw was Flipper spouting water on George Wilson. Each of these items was erroneous material published inadvertently. He was not an insurance salesman in Raleigh, did not win the lottery, neither he nor his mother was charged or involved in any way with vehicular homicide, and he made no comment about Flipper or George Wilson. The Herald regrets the errors." -- "The Progressive", March, 1987 | |
| The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. | |
| You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night, you can always change the channel. -- Jim Ignatowski | |
| alta, v: To change; make or become different; modify. ansa, v: A spoken or written reply, as to a question. baa, n: A place people meet to have a few drinks. Baaston, n: The capital of Massachusetts. baaba, n: One whose business is to cut or trim hair or beards. beea, n: An alcoholic beverage brewed from malt and hops, often found in baas. caaa, n: An automobile. centa, n: A point around which something revolves; axis. (Or someone involved with the Knicks.) chouda, n: A thick seafood soup, often in a milk base. dada, n: Information, esp. information organized for analysis or computation. -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary | |
| I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| In California they don't throw their garbage away -- they make it into television shows. -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall" | |
| It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case. -- Sydney J. Harris | |
| "Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..." -- "The Begatting of a President" | |
| Seems that a pollster was taking a worldwide opinion poll. Her question was, "Excuse me; what's your opinion on the meat shortage?" In Texas, the answer was "What's a shortage?" In Poland, the answer was "What's meat?" In the Soviet Union, the answer was "What's an opinion?" In New York City, the answer was "What's excuse me?" | |
| The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen. -- Winston Churchill, 1942 | |
| The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. -- G. B. Shaw | |
| The only cultural advantage LA has over NY is that you can make a right turn on a red light. -- Woody Allen | |
| There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan. Seems one day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver. Well, the owner of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra change at his customer's expense. Turning quietly to the counterman, he whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!" | |
| Traveling through New England, a motorist stopped for gas in a tiny village. "What's this place called?" he asked the station attendant. "All depends," the native drawled. "Do you mean by them that has to live in this dad-blamed, moth-eaten, dust-covered, one-hoss dump, or by them that's merely enjoying its quaint and picturesque rustic charms for a short spell?" | |
| Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the men are strong, the women are pretty, and the children are above-average. -- Garrison Keillor | |
| 1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1. | |
| 1 Billion dollars of budget deficit = 1 Gramm-Rudman 6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power alligator pears = Avocado's number 2 pints = 1 Cavort Basic unit of Laryngitis = The Hoarsepower Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line 6 Curses = 1 Hexahex 3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound 1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents 1 Mole = 25 Cagey Bees 1 Dog Pound = 16 oz. of Alpo 1000 beers served at a Twins game = 1 Killibrew 2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League 2000 pounds of chinese soup = 1 Won Ton 10 to the minus 6th power mouthwashes = 1 Microscope Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier = 1 Machturtle 8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss 365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer. = 1 Lite-year 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton to 1 meter per second One half large intestine = 1 Semicolon 10 to the minus 6th power Movie = 1 Microfilm 1000 pains = 1 Megahertz 1 Word = 1 Millipicture 1 Sagan = Billions & Billions 1 Angstrom: measure of computer anxiety = 1000 nail-bytes 10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone 10 to the 6th power Bicycles = 2 megacycles The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen | |
| A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West. They drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple pole in a complex plane." | |
| A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald | |
| A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the monkey and its mother is thirty years. One half of the weight of the monkey, plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she she was half as old as the monkey will be when when it is as old as its mother will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana? | |
| A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 | |
| After this was written there appeared a remarkable posthumous memoir that throws some doubt on Millikan's leading role in these experiments. Harvey Fletcher (1884-1981), who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, at Millikan's suggestion worked on the measurement of electronic charge for his doctoral thesis, and co-authored some of the early papers on this subject with Millikan. Fletcher left a manuscript with a friend with instructions that it be published after his death; the manuscript was published in Physics Today, June 1982, page 43. In it, Fletcher claims that he was the first to do the experiment with oil drops, was the first to measure charges on single droplets, and may have been the first to suggest the use of oil. According to Fletcher, he had expected to be co-authored with Millikan on the crucial first article announcing the measurement of the electronic charge, but was talked out of this by Millikan. -- Steven Weinberg, "The Discovery of Subatomic Particles" Robert Millikan is generally credited with making the first really precise measurement of the charge on an electron and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923. | |
| An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space" | |
| Chapter 2: Newtonian Growth and Decay The growth-decay formulas were developed in the trivial fashion by Isaac Newton's famous brother Phigg. His idea was to provide an equation that would describe a quantity that would dwindle and dwindle, but never quite reach zero. Historically, he was merely trying to work out his mortgage. Another versatile equation also emerged, one which would define a function that would continue to grow, but never reach unity. This equation can be applied to charging capacitors, over-damped springs, and the human race in general. | |
| Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" | |
| Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. -- Edgar R. Fiedler | |
| Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my joules!" "Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux a moment. Perhaps they're mislead." "No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them in my burette ... We must call a copper." Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms, said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name of Lawrence Ium. "We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ... -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations" | |
| For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two. | |
| FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2 What to do... if you get a phone call from Mars: Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen. if he, she or it doesn't speak English? Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone. If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before calling. if you get a phone call from Jupiter? Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter, he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the charges may have been reversed. | |
| Going the speed of light is bad for your age. | |
| I myself have dreamed up a structure intermediate between Dyson spheres and planets. Build a ring 93 million miles in radius -- one Earth orbit -- around the sun. If we have the mass of Jupiter to work with, and if we make it a thousand miles wide, we get a thickness of about a thousand feet for the base. And it has advantages. The Ringworld will be much sturdier than a Dyson sphere. We can spin it on its axis for gravity. A rotation speed of 770 m/s will give us a gravity of one Earth normal. We wouldn't even need to roof it over. Place walls one thousand miles high at each edge, facing the sun. Very little air will leak over the edges. Lord knows the thing is roomy enough. With three million times the surface area of the Earth, it will be some time before anyone complains of the crowding. -- Larry Niven, "Ringworld" | |
| I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget or do not know. -- Plato, Dialogs, Theateus 191 [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to image activation and termination.] | |
| If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number. | |
| If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. -- Albert Einstein | |
| Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein | |
| In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address | |
| In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to large numbers and prospered. One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. -- The Story of Babel | |
| In the course of reading Hadamard's "The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field", I have come across evidence supporting a fact which we coffee achievers have long appreciated: no really creative, intelligent thought is possible without a good cup of coffee. On page 14, Hadamard is discussing Poincare's theory of fuchsian groups and fuchsian functions, which he describes as "... one of his greatest discoveries, the first which consecrated his glory ..." Hadamard refers to Poincare having had a "... sleepless night which initiated all that memorable work ..." and gives the following, very revealing quote: "One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination." Too bad drinking black coffee was contrary to his custom. Maybe he could really have amounted to something as a coffee achiever. | |
| Is knowledge knowable? If not, how do we know that? | |
| Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously? | |
| It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level language named "research student". | |
| Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | |
| My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on the alter of human limitations. I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the earth really does revolve about the sun. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
| Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. -- Fran Lebowitz | |
| Once, when the secrets of science were the jealously guarded property of a small priesthood, the common man had no hope of mastering their arcane complexities. Years of study in musty classrooms were prerequisite to obtaining even a dim, incoherent knowledge of science. Today all that has changed: a dim, incoherent knowledge of science is available to anyone. -- Tom Weller, "Science Made Stupid" | |
| One of the chief duties of the mathematician in acting as an advisor... is to discourage... from expecting too much from mathematics. -- N. Wiener | |
| Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is always fatal. However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning. Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings in question. Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is too late. -- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956 | |
| Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction. This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction techniques are very popular, even the military used them. SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction. We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just about _n. QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?") | |
| "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe again..." An unusually long pause followed, "...but I don't know which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the starfield surrounding the ship. "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious." -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star" | |
| Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin | |
| Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. -- William Buckley | |
| Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand. | |
| The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the redoubtable John W. Campbell: The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the people who were ever born in the history of the world are now dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is being read by a corpse. | |
| The Commandments of the EE: (1) Beware of lightning that lurketh in an uncharged condenser lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most embarrassing manner. (2) Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this earthly vale of tears. (3) Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth, and upon which the worketh, are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift thee to a radio frequency potential and causeth thee to make like a radiator too. (4) Tarry thou not amongst these fools that engage in intentional shocks for they are not long for this world and are surely unbelievers. | |
| The Commandments of the EE: (5) Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takest the measures of high-voltage circuits too, that thou dost not incinerate both thee and thy test meter, for verily, though thou has no company property number and can be easily surveyed, the test meter has one and, as a consequence, bringeth much woe unto a purchasing agent. (6) Take care that thou tamperest not with interlocks and safety devices, for this incurreth the wrath of the chief electrician and bring the fury of the engineers on his head. (7) Work thou not on energized equipment for if thou doest so, thy friends will surely be buying beers for thy widow and consoling her in certain ways not generally acceptable to thee. (8) Verily, verily I say unto thee, never service equipment alone, for electrical cooking is a slow process and thou might sizzle in thy own fat upon a hot circuit for hours on end before thy maker sees fit to end thy misery and drag thee into his fold. | |
| There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements. We must provide a Great Age or see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race. -- Alfred North Whitehead | |
| This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly. -- Lancelot Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 1938 | |
| This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. -- Alfred Bester, "The Stars My Destination" | |
| ... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" | |
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| Two is not equal to three, even for large values of two. | |
| We dedicate this book to our fellow citizens who, for love of truth, take from their own wants by taxes and gifts, and now and then send forth one of themselves as dedicated servant, to forward the search into the mysteries and marvelous simplicities of this strange and beautiful Universe, Our home. -- "Gravitation", Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler | |
| We laugh at the Indian philosopher, who to account for the support of the earth, contrived the hypothesis of a huge elephant, and to support the elephant, a huge tortoise. If we will candidly confess the truth, we know as little of the operation of the nerves, as he did of the manner in which the earth is supported: and our hypothesis about animal spirits, or about the tension and vibrations of the nerves, are as like to be true, as his about the support of the earth. His elephant was a hypothesis, and our hypotheses are elephants. Every theory in philosophy, which is built on pure conjecture, is an elephant; and every theory that is supported partly by fact, and partly by conjecture, is like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose feet were partly of iron, and partly of clay. -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 | |
| ... we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. I do not doubt that natural selection acted in building our oversized brains -- and I am equally confident that our brains became large as an adaptation for definite roles (probably a complex set of interacting functions). But these assumptions do not lead to the notion, often uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians, that all major capacities of the brain must arise as direct products of natural selection. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
| "What I've done, of course, is total garbage." -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a | |
| What is research but a blind date with knowledge? -- Will Harvey | |
| Why do mathematicians insist on using words that already have another meaning? "It is the complex case that is easier to deal with." "If it doesn't happen at a corner, but at an edge, it nonetheless happens at a corner." | |
| You will never amount to much. -- Munich Schoolmaster, to Albert Einstein, age 10 | |
| Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat? Answer: Yes. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" | |
| Do you feel personally responsible for the world food shortage? Every time you go to the beach, does the tide come in? Have you ever eaten an entire moose? Can you see your neck? Do joggers take laps around you for exercise? If so, welcome to National Fat Week. This week we'll eat without guilt, and kick off our membership campaign, ...by force-feeding a box of cornstarch to a skinny person. -- Garfield | |
| Even a cabbage may look at a king. | |
| Home on the Range was originally written in beef-flat. | |
| I just ate a whole package of Sweet Tarts and a can of Coke. I think I saw God. -- B. Hathrume Duk | |
| Kissing don't last, cookery do. -- George Meredith | |
| Life is like a tin of sardines. We're, all of us, looking for the key. -- Beyond the Fringe | |
| Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. | |
| No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut. -- Channing Pollock | |
| Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself the following questions: (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a food? (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like longer.) That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. | |
| The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage and tourist handouts. This bear has learned to open car doors in Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens of thousands of dollars a year. Campaigns to bearproof all garbage containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." | |
| The most exquisite peak in culinary art is conquered when you do right by a ham, for a ham, in the very nature of the process it has undergone since last it walked on its own feet, combines in its flavor the tang of smoky autumnal woods, the maternal softness of earthy fields delivered of their crop children, the wineyness of a late sun, the intimate kiss of fertilizing rain, and the bite of fire. You must slice it thin, almost as thin as this page you hold in your hands. The making of a ham dinner, like the making of a gentleman, starts a long, long time before the event. -- W.B. Courtney, "Reflections of Maryland Country Ham", from "Congress Eate It Up" | |
| The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. -- George Miller | |
| There is no sincerer love than the love of food. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| This is Betty Frenel. I don't know who to call but I can't reach my Food-a-holics partner. I'm at Vido's on my second pizza with sausage and mushroom. Jim, come and get me! | |
| To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable, too -- it really was -- to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite. -- Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit" | |
| Too Late A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by the two o'clock boats. If their object in going down was to participate in the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby. -- Sacramento Daily Union, November 29, 1861 | |
| You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years. The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear safety glasses. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" | |
| A cousin of mine once said about money, money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money. -- Gertrude Stein | |
| A mighty creature is the germ, Though smaller than the pachyderm. His customary dwelling place Is deep within the human race. His childish pride he often pleases By giving people strange diseases. Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? You probably contain a germ. -- Ogden Nash | |
| A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage. -- Blake | |
| A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid. -- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter. -- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". | |
| A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; "My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose. -- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose" | |
| All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg, It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen With all the words gone, They all had their day What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin' But of all the words written The bird is a strange one, And all the lines read, So small and so tender There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown, And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender. It reminds me of days of So what is this line Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown? I've read all the greats Both starving and fat, But none was as great as "I tot I taw a puddy tat." -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood" | |
| An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport. A manly man, to be a wizard able; Many a protected file he had sitting on his table. His console, when he typed, a man might hear Clicking and feeping wind as clear, Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell. The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor As old and strict he tended to ignore; He let go by the things of yesterday And took the modern world's more spacious way. He did not rate that text as a plucked hen Which says that Hackers are not holy men. And that a hacker underworked is a mere Fish out of water, flapping on the pier. That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister. That was a text he held not worth an oyster. And I agreed and said his views were sound; Was he to study till his head wend round Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil As Andy bade and till the very soil? Was he to leave the world upon the shelf? Let Andy have his labor to himself! -- Chaucer [well, almost. Ed.] | |
| And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, I've worried and worried and worried away. Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, I've worried about it with all of my heart. "BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better - it's not. So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. "It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! "You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. And truffula trees are what everyone needs. Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care. Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!" | |
| And as we stand on the edge of darkness Let our chant fill the void That others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC. | |
| And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines, The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts, And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs. We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb, But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover, Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged- Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage And code in a queue Have been biding their time, Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs, We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme. Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead. We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed. Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab. You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean hand... | |
| Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies, Shy little angels as gentle as puppies, Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish, They were just some of my tropical fish. Then I got mantas that sting in the water, Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter, Savage male betas that bite with a squish, Now I have many less tropical fish. If you think that Fish are peaceful That's an empty wish. Just dump them together And leave them alone, And soon you will have -- no fish. -- To My Favorite Things | |
| Blackout, heatwave, .44 caliber homicide, The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side, A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide, She wants to hit those bricks, 'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline, While the millionaires hide in Beekman place, The bag ladies throw their bones in my face, I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound, I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down... -- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses" | |
| Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; Less dear than army ants in apple pies Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose They suck, and like the double-breasted suit Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. | |
| Cecil, you're my final hope Of finding out the true Straight Dope For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat But none of my cats are at all like that. This unusual animal (so it is said) Is simultaneously alive and dead! What I don't understand is just why he Can't be one or the other, unquestionably. My future now hangs in between eigenstates. In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't. If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way And rescue my psyche from quantum decay. But if this queer thing has perplexed even you, Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams | |
| Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse That no compunctious visiting of nature Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall the in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry `Hold, hold!' -- Lady MacBeth | |
| Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
| Ever since I was a young boy, I've hacked the ARPA net, From Berkeley down to Rutgers, He's on my favorite terminal, Any access I could get, He cats C right into foo, But ain't seen nothing like him, His disciples lead him in, On any campus yet, And he just breaks the root, That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Always has full SYS-PRIV's, Sure sends a mean packet. Never uses lint, That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Sure sends a mean packet. He's a UNIX wizard, There has to be a twist. The UNIX wizard's got Ain't got no distractions, Unlimited space on disk. Can't hear no whistles or bells, How do you think he does it? Can't see no message flashing, I don't know. Types by sense of smell, What makes him so good? Those crazy little programs, The proper bit flags set, That deaf, dumb, and blind kid, Sure sends a mean packet. -- UNIX Wizard | |
| Every night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day; And every day that I've been good, I get an orange after food. The child that is not clean and neat, With lots of toys and things to eat, He is a naughty child, I'm sure-- Or else his dear papa is poor. -- Robert Louis Stevenson | |
| F: When into a room I plunge, I Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. Then I linger, darkly brooding On the poison they're exuding. -- The Roguelet's ABC | |
| Five names that I can hardly stand to hear, Including yours and mine and one more chimp who isn't here, I can see the ladies talking how the times is gettin' hard, And that fearsome excavation on Magnolia boulevard, Yes, I'm goin' insane, And I'm laughing at the frozen rain, Well, I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? Bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend, Stopping on the avenue by Radio City, with a Transistor and a large sum of money to spend... You fellah, you tearin' up the street, You wear that white tuxedo, how you gonna beat the heat, Do you take me for a fool, do you think that I don't see, That ditch out in the Valley that they're diggin' just for me, Yes, and goin' insane, You know I'm laughin' at the frozen rain, Feel like I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home? (chorus) -- Bad Sneakers, "Steely Dan" | |
| Friends, Romans, Hipsters, Let me clue you in; I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him. The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes; If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, And, like, old Caesar really set them straight. Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat; So are they all, all cool cats, -- Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down. | |
| Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, Bold I can meet -- perhaps may turn his blow! But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save me, oh save me from the candid friend. -- George Canning | |
| Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there may be in Science. As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system. Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results. And listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, for they are sales reps. If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised, for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched. Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real hassle and could change your fortunes in time. Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of bugs. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations. Strive for proportionality. Especially, do not faint when it occurs. Neither be cyclical about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed. Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points. Gracefully pass them on to the youth at the next desk. Nurture some mutual funds to shield you in times of sudden layoffs. But do not distress yourself with imaginings -- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly. Murphy's Law runs the Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt <Curl>B*n dS = 0. Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you can conceive of to try. With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary. Be linear. Strive to stay employed. -- Technolorata, "Analog" | |
| Have you seen the old man in the closed down market, Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes? In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news. How can you tell me you're lonely, And say for you the sun don't shine? Let me take you by the hand Lead you through the streets of London I'll show you something to make you change your mind... Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears. In our winter city the rain cries a little pity For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care... | |
| He thought he saw an albatross That fluttered 'round the lamp. He looked again and saw it was A penny postage stamp. "You'd best be getting home," he said, "The nights are rather damp." | |
| Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy, Burn that sausage just a match or two more done. Pour my black old coffee longer, While that smell is gettin' stronger A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want. Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me, With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun, If that coat'll fit you're wearin', The Lord'll bless your sharin' A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want. And let me halfway fall in love, For part of a lonely night, With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. Yes, I could halfway fall in deep-- Into a snugglin', lovin' heap, With a semi-pretty woman in my arms. -- Elroy Blunt | |
| I have that old biological urge, I have that old irresistible surge, I'm hungry. | |
| I sent a message to another time, But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe, I sent a message to another plane, Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive. ... I met someone who looks at lot like you, She does the things you do, but she is an IBM. She's only programmed to be very nice, But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near, She tells me that she likes me very much, But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear. ... I realize that it must seem so strange, That time has rearranged, but time has the final word, She knows I think of you, she reads my mind, She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world. -- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095" | |
| I shot a query into the net. I haven't got an answer yet, A posted message called me rotten But seven people gave me hell For ignoring mail I'd never gotten; And said I ought to learn to spell; An angry message asked me, Please Don't send such drivel overseas; A lawyer sent me private mail And swore he'd slap my ass in jail -- One netter thought it was a hoax: I'd mentioned Un*x in my gem "Hereafter, post to net dot jokes!"; And failed to add the T and M; Another called my grammar vile And criticized my writing style. Each day I scan each Subject line In hopes the topic will be mine; I shot a query into the net. I haven't got an answer yet... -- Ed Nather | |
| I stood on the leading edge, The eastern seaboard at my feet. "Jump!" said Yoko Ono I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried. Go on and give it a try, Why prolong the agony, all men must die. -- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" | |
| I've built a better model than the one at Data General For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality; My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality. My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity, You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity; There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting; My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting. I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point: There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point, Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral I've built a better model than the one at Data General. -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance", by Gilbert & Sullivan) | |
| IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. | |
| If a system is administered wisely, its users will be content. They enjoy hacking their code and don't waste time implementing labor-saving shell scripts. Since they dearly love their accounts, they aren't interested in other machines. There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp, but these don't access any hosts. There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware, but nobody ever uses them. People enjoy reading their mail, take pleasure in being with their newsgroups, spend weekends working at their terminals, delight in the doings at the site. And even though the next system is so close that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps, they are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it. | |
| If I could stick my pen in my heart, I would spill it all over the stage. Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, Would you think the boy was strange? Ain't he strange? ... If I could stick a knife in my heart, Suicide right on the stage, Would it be enough for your teenage lust, Would it help to ease the pain? Ease your brain? -- Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock'N Roll" | |
| Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex, Et le m^omerade horgrave. Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-mumsige Burggoven Dir mohmen Rath ausgraben. -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
| 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 is not good for a man to be without knowledge, and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. -- Proverbs 19:2 | |
| `Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair. 'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.' | |
| `Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair. `Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.' | |
| Ladles and Jellyspoons! I come before you to stand behind you, To tell you something I know nothing about. Since next Thursday will be Good Friday, There will be a fathers' meeting, for mothers only. Wear your best clothes, if you don't have any, And please stay at home if you can possibly be there. Admission is free, please pay at the door. Have a seat on me: please sit on the floor. No matter where you manage to sit, The man in the balcony will certainly spit. We thank you for your unkind attention, And would now like to present our next act: "The Four Corners of the Round Table." | |
| Latin is a language, As dead as can be. First it killed the Romans, And now it's killing me. | |
| Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. | |
| Life is like a tin of sardines. We're, all of us, looking for the key. -- Beyond the Fringe | |
| Meanehwael, baccat meaddehaele, monstaer lurccen; Fulle few too many drincce, hie luccen for fyht. [D]en Hreorfneorht[d]hwr, son of Hrwaerow[p]heororthwl, AEsccen aewful jeork to steop outsyd. [P]hud! Bashe! Crasch! Beoom! [D]e bigge gye Eallum his bon brak, byt his nose offe; Wicced Godsylla waeld on his asse. Monstaer moppe fleor wy[p] eallum men in haelle. Beowulf in bacceroome fonecall bemaccen waes; Hearen sond of ruccus saed, "Hwaet [d]e helle?" Graben sheold strang ond swich-blaed scharp Sond feorth to fyht [d]e grimlic foe. "Me," Godsylla saed, "mac [d]e minsemete." Heoro cwyc geten heold wi[p] faemed half-nelson Ond flyng him lic frisbe bac to fen. Beowulf belly up to meaddehaele bar, Saed, "Ne foe beaten mie faersom cung-fu." Eorderen cocca-colha yce-coeld, [d]e reol [p]yng. -- Not Chaucer, for certain | |
| Mummy dust to make me old; To shroud my clothes, the black of night; To age my voice, an old hag's cackle; To whiten my hair, a scream of fright; A blast of wind to fan my hate; A thunderbolt to mix it well -- Now begin thy magic spell! -- Walter Disney, "Snow White" | |
| My pen is at the bottom of a page, Which, being finished, here the story ends; 'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done, But stories somehow lengthen when begun. -- Byron | |
| "No program is perfect," They said with a shrug. "The customer's happy-- What's one little bug?" But he was determined, Then change two, then three more, The others went home. As year followed year. He dug out the flow chart And strangers would comment, Deserted, alone. "Is that guy still here?" Night passed into morning. He died at the console The room was cluttered Of hunger and thirst With core dumps, source listings. Next day he was buried "I'm close," he muttered. Face down, nine edge first. Chain smoking, cold coffee, And his wife through her tears Logic, deduction. Accepted his fate. "I've got it!" he cried, Said "He's not really gone, "Just change one instruction." He's just working late." -- The Perfect Programmer | |
| No, his mind is not for rent To any god or government. Always hopeful, yet discontent, He knows changes aren't permanent - But change is. | |
| Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan" | |
| Now I lay me back to sleep. The speaker's dull; the subject's deep. If he should stop before I wake, Give me a nudge for goodness' sake. -- Anonymous | |
| Now's the time to have some big ideas Now's the time to make some firm decisions We saw the Buddha in a bar down south Talking politics and nuclear fission We see him and he's all washed up -- Moving on into the body of a beetle Getting ready for a long long crawl He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all... Death and Money make their point once more In the shape of Philosophical assassins Mark and Danny take the bus uptown Deadly angels for reality and passion Have the courage of the here and now Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas When you think you got it paid in full You got nothing -- you got nothing at all... We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. We know his name and he mustn't get away. We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha. It would take one shot -- to blow him away... -- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah" | |
| Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus Where the three-body problem is solved, Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K, And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus) We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high, Our ball bearings are perfectly round. Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed, And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus) If we run out of space for our burgeoning race No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart, If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus) I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space, And living up here is a bore. Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye 'Cause I'm moving next week to L4! (chorus) CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange, Where the space debris always collects, We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams: Solar power and zero-gee sex. -- to Home on the Range | |
| On the good ship Enterprise Every week there's a new surprise Where the Romulans lurk And the Klingons often go berserk. Yes, the good ship Enterprise There's excitement anywhere it flies Where Tribbles play And Nurse Chapel never gets her way. See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, Mr. Spock is at his side. The weekly menace, ooh-ooh It gets fried, scattered far and wide. It's the good ship Enterprise Heading out where danger lies And you live in dread If you're wearing a shirt that's red. -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics, "The Good Ship Enterprise," to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop" | |
| One reason why George Washington Is held in such veneration: He never blamed his problems On the former Administration. -- George O. Ludcke | |
| Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'. We their sons are more worthless than they: so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) | |
| Please stand for the National Anthem: Australians all, let us rejoice, For we are young and free. We've golden soil and wealth for toil Our home is girt by sea. Our land abounds in nature's gifts Of beauty rich and rare. In history's page, let every stage Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair. Thank you. You may resume your seat. | |
| Proposed Country & Western Song Titles I Don't Mind If You Lie to Me, As Long As I Ain't Lyin' Alone I Wouldn't Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win If You Leave Me, Walk Out Backwards So I'll Think You're Comin' In Since You Learned to Lip-Sync, I'm At Your Disposal My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was Breaking My Heart Don't Cry, Little Darlin', You're Waterin' My Beer Tennis Must Be Your Racket, 'Cause Love Means Nothin' to You When You Say You Love Me, You're Full of Prunes, 'Cause Living With You Is the Pits I Wanted Your Hand in Marriage but All I Got Was the Finger -- "Wordplay" | |
| Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
| So... so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell? Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts? From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees? A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze? Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange A walk on part in a war For the lead role in a cage? -- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here" | |
| Sometimes the light's all shining on me, Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me What a long strange trip it's been. -- The Grateful Dead, "American Beauty" | |
| 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" | |
| The good life was so elusive It really got me down I had to regain some confidence So I got into camouflage | |
| The little town that time forgot, Where all the women are strong, The men are good-looking, And the children above-average. -- Prairie Home Companion | |
| The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in a position of negative need. He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area. He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous liquid. He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup. He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal prestige of His identity. It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbragious inter-hill mortality slot, terror sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena. Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood state. You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements. You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis. It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended time basis. | |
| The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age, But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything. I know I keep you amused, But I feel I'm being used. Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face. You took me away from home, Just to save you from being alone; You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts. I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school, Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool, Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band, That needs a helping hand, Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face. You made a first-class fool out of me, But I'm as blind as a fool can be. You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without. -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May" | |
| The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with the higher emotions. She would me "Honey" call, She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. But now alas! She's left me Falero, lero, loo. Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize was her prudent choice of footwear. The fives did fit her shoe. In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, "Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| The Thought Police are here. They've come To put you under cardiac arrest. And as they drag you through the door They tell you that you've failed the test. -- Buggles, "Living in the Plastic Age" | |
| The wombat lives across the seas, Among the far Antipodes. He may exist on nuts and berries, Or then again, on missionaries; His distant habitat precludes Conclusive knowledge of his moods. But I would not engage the wombat In any form of mortal combat. -- "The Wombat" | |
| The Worst American Poet Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years. Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen. Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the formula was the same: Have you heard of the dreadful fate Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife? Of their death I will relate, And also others lost their life (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster, Where so many people died. Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems, the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded. Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do". -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| The Worst Lines of Verse For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line: "Come, muse, let us sing of rats." Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous laughter the instant they were read out. No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was inspired by the subject of war. "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away, And the grey roof reddened and rang; Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!" By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79): "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..." While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables: "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed, The crippled pea alone that cannot stand." George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote: "And I was ask'd and authorized to go To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse: "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak While in this world, are liable to leak." And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when describing a pond: "I've measured it from side to side; Tis three feet long and two feet wide." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. -- Robert W. Service | |
| There is something in the pang of change More than the heart can bear, Unhappiness remembering happiness. -- Euripides | |
| There's a thrill in store for all for we're about to toast The corporation that we represent. We're here to cheer each pioneer and also proudly boast, Of that man of men our sterling president The name of T.J. Watson means A courage none can stem And we feel honored to be here to toast the IBM. -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook | |
| There's amnesia in a hangknot, And comfort in the ax, But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax. There's surcease in a gunshot, And sleep that comes from racks, But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax. You find rest on the hot squat, Or gas can give you pax, But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks. There's refuge in the church lot When you tire of facing facts, And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks. Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels, Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals -- But the pleasantest place to find your end Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend. -- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road" | |
| This ae nighte, this ae nighte, Everye nighte and alle, Fire and sleet and candlelyte, And Christe receive thy saule. -- The Lykewake Dirge | |
| Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown Waiting for someone or something to show you the way Tired of lying in the sunshine And then one day you find Staying home to watch the rain Ten years have got behind you You are young and life is long No one told you when to run And there is time to kill today You missed the starting gun And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking And racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death Every year is getting shorter Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way Never seem to find the time The time is gone, the song is over Plans that either come to nought Thought I'd something more to say... Or half a page of scribbled lines -- Pink Floyd, "Time" | |
| To code the impossible code, This is my quest -- To bring up a virgin machine, To debug that code, To pop out of endless recursion, No matter how hopeless, To grok what appears on the screen, No matter the load, To write those routines To right the unrightable bug, Without question or pause, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV To mount the unmountable magtape, For a heavenly cause. To stop the unstoppable crash! And I know if I'll only be true To this glorious quest, And the queue will be better for this, That my code will run CUSPy and calm, That one man, scorned and When it's put to the test. destined to lose, Still strove with his last allocation To scrap the unscrappable kludge! -- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha | |
| To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly strip down your words to naked, willing flesh. Then bind them to a metaphor or three, and take by force a satisfying mesh. Arrange them to your will, each foot in place. You are the master here, and they the slaves. Now whip them to maintain a constant pace and rhythm as they stand in even staves. A word that strikes no pleasure? Cast it out! What use are words that drive not to the heart? A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt, and choose more docile words to take its part. A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain, by making love directly to the brain. | |
| 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And throughout our place of residence, Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... | |
| Upon the hearth the fire is red, Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet, Still round the corner we may meet A sudden tree or standing stone That none have seen but we alone. Still round the corner there may wait Tree and flower and leaf and grass, A new road or a secret gate, Let them pass! Let them pass! And though we pass them by today Hill and water under sky, Tomorrow we may come this way Pass them by! Pass them by! And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun, Home is behind, the world ahead, Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, And there are many paths to tread Let them go! Let them go! Through shadows to the edge of night, Sand and stone and pool and dell, Until the stars are all alight. Fare you well! Fare you well! Then world behind and home ahead, We'll wander back to home and bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade! Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, And then to bed! And then to bed! -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| What with chromodynamics and electroweak too Our Standardized Model should please even you, Tho' once you did say that of charm there was none It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun. Yet your state of the union penultimate large Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge, And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole. Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track, But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed. Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more, You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore, That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later. -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, December, 1984 | |
| When users see one GUI as beautiful, other user interfaces become ugly. When users see some programs as winners, other programs become lossage. Pointers and NULLs reference each other. High level and assembler depend on each other. Double and float cast to each other. High-endian and low-endian define each other. While and until follow each other. Therefore the Guru programs without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Warnings arise and he lets them come; processes are swapped and he lets them go. He has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When his work is done, he deletes it. That is why it lasts forever. | |
| When you overesteem great hackers, more users become cretins. When you develop encryption, more users become crackers. The Guru leads by emptying user's minds and increasing their quotas, by weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve. When users lack knowledge and desire, management will not try to interfere. Practice not-looping, and everything will fall into place. | |
| Who to himself is law no law doth need, offends no law, and is a king indeed. -- George Chapman | |
| Why are you watching The washing machine? I love entertainment So long as it's clean. Professor Doberman: While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified improvement. Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic experience. As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in fact distract from the unity of the whole. In the final analysis, one receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its meaning. It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive implications. | |
| Woke up this morning, don't believe what I saw. Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. Seems I'm not alone in being alone. Hundred billion castaways looking for a call. -- The Police, "Message in a Bottle" | |
| "You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- Do you think, at your age, it is right?" "In my youth," father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again." "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- Pray what is the reason of that?" "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- Allow me to sell you a couple?" | |
| "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- Pray, how did you manage to do it?" "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life." "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- What made you so awfully clever?" "I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" | |
| "You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, And there isn't one language you like; Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- Have you thought about taking a hike?" "Since I never write programs," his father replied, "Every language looks equally bad; Yet the people keep paying to read all my books And don't realize that they've been had." | |
| You go down to the pickup station, craving warmth and beauty; You settle for less than fascination -- a few drinks later you're not so choosy. And the closing lights strip off the shadows on this strange new flesh you've found -- Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf you hurry to the blackness and the blankets to lay down an impression and your loneliness. -- Joni Mitchell | |
| A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. | |
| A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. | |
| Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. | |
| Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. | |
| Are you ever going to do the dishes? Or will you change your major to biology? | |
| Bridge ahead. Pay troll. | |
| Change your thoughts and you change your world. | |
| Courage is your greatest present need. | |
| Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. | |
| Increased knowledge will help you now. Have mate's phone bugged. | |
| Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is not worth sending. | |
| The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes. -- George Gobel | |
| You are the only person to ever get this message. | |
| You will be held hostage by a radical group. | |
| You will engage in a profitable business activity. | |
| You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass. | |
| You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard this message. | |
| A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?" Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag, which contained twelve more loons. "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked. "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage." "What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?" "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan." | |
| All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others. -- Alan Truscott | |
| Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is my choice for team captain. Cincinnatti was beating us 3-1, and I led off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and kept going, sliding safely into third base. With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first. Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third. I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and shouts, "Back to second if I can make it." -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" | |
| College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| COONDOG MEMORY (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog is for sale. -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly | |
| Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really over- whelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. | |
| Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. -- Snoopy | |
| Failed Attempts To Break Records In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break the world shouting record by two and a half decibels. "I am not surprised he failed," his wife said afterwards. "He's really a very quiet man and doesn't even shout at me." In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours. His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace. "People complained I was too noisy," he said. In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes. "It was raining heavily and my drone got waterlogged," he said. A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000 dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978. 97,500 dominoes had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings. -- George F. Will, "Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball" | |
| FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #14 The Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after George Herman "The Babe" Ruth, but after the oldest daughter of President Grover Cleveland. | |
| George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address. "Let me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration. "Okay," agreed Sam. "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway." At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address. No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog. George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!" Then he looked at the dog. The dog looked back. No sound. "Come on, boy, do your stuff." Nothing. A disappointed George took his dog and went home. "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George yelled at the dog. "Do you realize how much money you lost me?" "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog. "Think of the odds we're gonna get on Labor Day." | |
| HARVARD: Quarterback: Sophomore Dave Strewzinski... likes to pass. And pass he does, with a record 86 attempts (three completions) in 87 plays.... Though Strewzinksi has so far failed to score any points for the Crimson, his jackrabbit speed has made him the least sacked quarterback in the Ivy league. Wide Receiver: The other directional signal in Harvard's offensive machine is senior Phil Yip, who is very fast. Yip is so fast that he has set a record for being fast. Expect to see Yip elude all pursuers and make it into the endzone five or six times, his average for a game. Yip, nicknamed "fumblefingers" and "you asshole" by his teammates, hopes to carry the ball with him at least one of those times. YALE: Defense: On the defensive side, Yale boasts the stingiest line in the Ivies. Primarily responsible are seniors Izzy "Shylock" Bloomberg and Myron Finklestein, the tightest ends in recent Eli history. Also contributing to the powerful defense is junior tackle Angus MacWhirter, a Scotsman who rounds out the offensive ethnic joke. Look for these three to shut down the opening coin toss. -- Harvard Lampoon 1988 Program Parody, distributed at The Game | |
| I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures. -- Chief Justice Earl Warren | |
| I like your game but we have to change the rules. | |
| If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles. -- Doug Larson | |
| Life is a game of bridge -- and you've just been finessed. | |
| Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" | |
| My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates team, which lost 112 games. After a terrible series against the New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can somebody think of something to help us win a game?" "I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said. "On any ball hit to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul." -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game" | |
| "Oh, he [a big dog] hunts with papa," she said. "He says Don Carlos [the dog] is good for almost every kind of game. He went duck hunting one time and did real well at it. Then Papa bought some ducks, not wild ducks but, you know, farm ducks. And it got Don Carlos all mixed up. Since the ducks were always around the yard with nobody shooting at them he knew he wasn't supposed to kill them, but he had to do something. So one morning last spring, when the ground was still soft, he took all the ducks and buried them." "What do you mean, buried them?" "Oh, he didn't hurt them. He dug little holes all over the yard and picked up the ducks in his mouth and put them in the holes. Then he covered them up with mud except for their heads. He did thirteen ducks that way and was digging a hole for another one when Tony found him. We talked about it for a long time. Papa said Don Carlos was afraid the ducks might run away, and since he didn't know how to build a cage he put them in holes. He's a smart dog." -- R. Bradford, "Red Sky At Morning" | |
| Once there was this conductor see, who had a bass problem. You see, during a portion of Beethovan's Ninth Symphony in which there are no bass violin parts, one of the bassists always passed a bottle of scotch around. So, to remind himself that the basses usually required an extra cue towards the end of the symphony, the conductor would fasten a piece of string around the page of the score before the bass cue. As the basses grew more and more inebriated, two of them fell asleep. The conductor grew quite nervous (he was very concerned about the pitch) because it was the bottom of the ninth; the score was tied and the basses were loaded with two out. | |
| Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week, he might have lasted a long time and become a great star. -- Tris Speaker, commenting on Babe Ruth's plan to change from being a pitcher to an outfielder. Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak" | |
| San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean *you*. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo. -- George Halas, professional football coach | |
| The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil. -- Heywood Broun | |
| We was playin' the Homestead Grays in the city of Pitchburgh. Josh [Gibson] comes up in the last of the ninth with a man on and us a run behind. Well, he hit one. The Grays waited around and waited around, but finally the empire rules it ain't comin' down. So we win. The next day, we was disputin' the Grays in Philadelphia when here come a ball outta the sky right in the glove of the Grays' center fielder. The empire made the only possible call. "You're out, boy!" he says to Josh. "Yesterday, in Pitchburgh." -- Satchel Paige | |
| When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to destruction. -- George Plimpton | |
| ======================================================================= || || || The FORTUNE-COOKIE program is soon to be a Major Motion Picture! || || Watch for it at a theater near you next summer! || || || ======================================================================= Francis Ford Coppola presents a George Lucas Production: "Fortune Cookie" Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Harrison Ford Bette Midler Marlon Brando Christopher Reeves Marilyn Chambers and Bob Hope as "The Waiter". Costumes Designed by Pierre Cardin. Special Effects by Timothy Leary. Read the Warner paperback! Invoke the Unix program! Soundtrack on XTC Records. In 70mm and Dolby Stereo at selected theaters and terminal centers. | |
| Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. (3) I don't know. (4) Who cares? (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). | |
| In which level of metalanguage are you now speaking? | |
| THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your contribution of a pithy fortunes, clean or obscene? We cannot continue without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week. Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug .... | |
| WARNING: Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war. | |
| A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away. -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown | |
| Change is the essential process of all existence. -- Spock, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", stardate 5730.2 | |
| [Doctors and Bartenders], We both get the same two kinds of customers -- the living and the dying. -- Dr. Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown | |
| EARL GREY PROFILES NAME: Jean-Luc Perriwinkle Picard OCCUPATION: Starship Big Cheese AGE: 94 BIRTHPLACE: Paris, Terra Sector EYES: Grey SKIN: Tanned HAIR: Not much LAST MAGAZINE READ: Lobes 'n' Probes, the Ferengi-Betazoid Sex Quarterly TEA: Earl Grey. Hot. EARL GREY NEVER VARIES. | |
| History tends to exaggerate. -- Col. Green, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 | |
| I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us. -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 | |
| "I think they're going to take all this money that we spend now on war and death --" "And make them spend it on life." -- Edith Keeler and Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown. | |
| "I'm a doctor, not a mechanic." -- "The Doomsday Machine", when asked if he had heard of the idea of a doomsday machine. "I'm a doctor, not an escalator." -- "Friday's Child", when asked to help the very pregnant Ellen up a steep incline. "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer." -- Devil in the Dark", when asked to patch up the Horta. "I'm a doctor, not an engineer." -- "Mirror, Mirror", when asked by Scotty for help in Engineering aboard the ISS Enterprise. "I'm a doctor, not a coalminer." -- "The Empath", on being beneath the surface of Minara 2. "I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist." -- "City on the Edge of Forever", on Edith Keeler's remark that Kirk talked strangely. "I'm no magician, Spock, just an old country doctor." -- "The Deadly Years", to Spock while trying to cure the aging effects of the rogue comet near Gamma Hydra 4. "What am I, a doctor or a moonshuttle conductor?" -- "The Corbomite Maneuver", when Kirk rushed off from a physical exam to answer the alert. | |
| It would seem that evil retreats when forcibly confronted. -- Yarnek of Excalbia, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 | |
| Klingon phaser attack from front!!!!! 100% Damage to life support!!!! | |
| Knowledge, sir, should be free to all! -- Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd", stardate 4513.3 | |
| Leave bigotry in your quarters; there's no room for it on the bridge. -- Kirk, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 | |
| Lots of people drink from the wrong bottle sometimes. -- Edith Keeler, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown | |
| Men of peace usually are [brave]. -- Spock, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 | |
| "No one talks peace unless he's ready to back it up with war." "He talks of peace if it is the only way to live." -- Colonel Green and Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5. | |
| Peace was the way. -- Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown | |
| Prepare for tomorrow -- get ready. -- Edith Keeler, "The City On the Edge of Forever", stardate unknown | |
| Sometimes a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. -- Dr. Phillip Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown. | |
| Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before. -- Captain James T. Kirk | |
| "The combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile." "Yes, the philosophy of 'none,' meaning 'all.'" -- Spock and Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 | |
| The face of war has never changed. Surely it is more logical to heal than to kill. -- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 | |
| There's a way out of any cage. -- Captain Christopher Pike, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown. | |
| There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending. -- Abraham Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5 | |
| Time is fluid ... like a river with currents, eddies, backwash. -- Spock, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0 | |
| [War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0 | |
| When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating; you even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records. -- Vina, "The Menagerie" ("The Cage"), stardate unknown | |
| You canna change the laws of physics, Captain; I've got to have thirty minutes! | |
| You speak of courage. Obviously you do not know the difference between courage and foolhardiness. Always it is the brave ones who die, the soldiers. -- Kor, the Klingon Commander, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7 | |
| You! What PLANET is this! -- McCoy, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0 | |
| "`Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.' `Very deep,' said Arthur, `you should send that in to the "Reader's Digest". They've got a page for people like you.'" - Ford convincing Arthur to drink three pints in ten minutes at lunchtime. | |
| "`How do you feel?' he asked him. `Like a military academy,' said Arthur, `bits of me keep passing out.'" .... `We're safe,' he said. `Oh good,' said Arthur. `We're in a small galley cabin,' said Ford, `in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.' `Ah,' said Arthur, `this is obviously some strange usage of the word "safe" that I wasn't previously aware of.' - Arthur after his first ever teleport ride. | |
| "`I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very depressed.'" "`Life, don't talk to me about life.'" "`Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that "job satisfaction"? 'Cos I don't.'" "`I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.'" - Guess who. | |
| "`We've got to find out what people want from fire, how they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.' The crowd were tense. They were expecting something wonderful from Ford. `Stick it up your nose,' he said. `Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,' insisted the girl, `Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?'" - Ford "debating" what to do with fire with a marketing girl. | |
| "Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and his skeleton the other, whilst his brain tried to work out which of his ears it most wanted to crawl out of. `Bet you weren't expecting to see me again,' said the monster, which Arthur couldn't help thinking was a strange remark for it to make, seeing as he had never met the creature before. He could tell that he hadn't met the creature before from the simple fact that he was able to sleep at nights." - Arthur discovering who had diverted him from going to a party. | |
| "Ah, " said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of. " | |
| A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, "Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, "Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies. Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" | |
| A MODERN FABLE Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory far too subtle for the youth of today. Children need an updated message with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit today's minute attention span. The Troubled Aardvark Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house in his brand new 4x4. He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his snivelling, spoiled children. One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any personal effort he could make to change the status quo. Overcome by a wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods. MORAL OF THE STORY: Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers. -- Tom Annau | |
| Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others. Bozos are people who band together for fun and profit. They have no jobs. Anybody who goes on a tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street? Because there's a Bozo on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others. They're the huge, fat, middle waist. The archetype is an Irish drunk clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin. Fields, William Bendix. Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness. It has Oz in it. They mean well. They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes. They like their comforts. The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time, which is all the time. -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head" | |
| Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter? -- Steven Wright | |
| First, a few words about tools. Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If you're ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted. If I were you, I'd walk right up and smack them in the face. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
| I should have been a country-western singer. After all, I'm older than most western countries. -- George Burns | |
| I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face is up. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
| If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
| If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few people die past the age of a hundred. -- George Burns | |
| Life is wasted on the living. -- The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe. | |
| Like you, I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's place in the Scheme of Things. Here are just a few: Q -- Is there life after death? A -- Definitely. I speak from personal experience here. On New Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian", then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful headache. Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead. I guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods. -- Dave Barry | |
| Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget. Unsuccessfully. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
| Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money and go to a mall. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
| Would you *______really* want to get on a non-stop flight? -- George Carlin | |
| "A unified, neutral Germany? Given that nation's heritage, such a phrase may prove to be the oxymoron of the decade." -Kevin M. Matarese, Fulda, West Germany; as seen in "Letters", Time magazine, p. 5, March 5, 1990. | |
| "Professional certification for car people may sound like an oxymoron." -The Wall Street Journal, page B1, Tuesday, July 17, 1990. | |
| After Donald Trump's stretch limousine was stolen and found undamaged a few blocks away; he said, "Nothing was stolen. I had an honest thief."-International Herald Tribune, page 3, March 2, 1992 | |
| Some bird populations soaring down -Headline of an article in Science News, page 126, February 20, 1993. | |
| Most bacteria have the decency to be microscopic. Epulopiscium fishelsoni is not among them. The newly identified one-celled macro-microorganism is a full .5 mm long, large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Described in the current Nature, "It is a million times as massive as a typical bacterium."-Time, page 25, March 29, 1993 | |
| Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history. -George Bernard Shaw | |
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| Yes... I feel your pain... but as a former first poster (I scored mine a couple months ago) I know what you went through. Here's where you screwed up though... YOU DIDN'T PULL THE TRIGGER. You didn't carpe diem. Yep... When I saw that nice clean article with no posts I didn't hesitate, yes the adrenaline was surging... my palms were wet, heart pounding. I was standing at the peak of greatness... I knew I had but one thing to do, there was no turning back now... I rapidly typed in a one word post.. then with no hesitation I navigated my mouse over the submit button... and WHAM.. seconds later I was looking at my feeble post with a #1 attached to the header. At that mmoment I knew a feeling that only few will ever know... I was at one with Slashdot... Zen masters and Kings will relate I'm sure. That one sweet moment when the ying and the yang converge... bliss... eternal bliss... ahhh! Then I smoked a cigarette and went to bed. -- Anonymous Coward, in response to a "First Post!" that clearly wasn't. | |
| What If Bill Gates Was a Stand-Up Comedian? 1. None of his jokes would be funny. 2. Subliminal message hyping Microsoft and Windows 98 would be inserted throughout his performance. 3. The audio system (running Windows NT) would always crash right before Bill got to a punch line. At that time one of the managers would announce, "Please hold tight while we diagnose this intermittent issue." 4. Tickets for Bill's show would be handed out for free in an attempt to attract customers away from Netscape's shows. 5. Industry pundits would call Bill's show "innovative" and would ask "Why doesn't IBM have a stand-up routine? This is exactly why OS/2 is failing in the market." 6. Bill's show would be called "ActiveHumor 98" 7. In a perfect imitation of his Windows 95 OS, Bill wouldn't be able to tell a joke and walk around at the same time. 8. Audience members would have to sign a License Agreement in which one of the terms is "I agree never to watch Linus Torvalds' show, 'GNU/Humorux'". 9. All audience members would receive a free CD of Internet Explorer 4.0, with FakeJava(R) and ActiveHex(tm) technology. 10. Bill Gates would appear on Saturday Night Live, causing ratings to drop even further. | |
| 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. | |
| If Windows is so user-friendly, then why do you need a 678-page manual? | |
| I once heard Bill Gates say, "WHAT?!?! Netscape caused an invalid page fault!?! Only Microsoft programs have the code to do that!" | |
| Q: How many Bill Gateses does it take to change a light bulb? A: One. He puts the bulb in and lets the world revolve around him. A: None. He declares Darkness(tm) the new industry standard. | |
| Q: How many Microsoft support staff does it take to change a light bulb? A: Four. One to ask "What is the registration number of the light bulb?", one to ask "Have you tried rebooting it?", another to ask "Have you tried reinstalling it?" and the last one to say "It must be your hardware because the light bulb in our office works fine..." | |
| Q: How many Microsoft vice presidents does it take to change a light bulb? A: Eight. One to work the bulb, and seven to make sure that Microsoft gets $2 for every light bulb ever changed anywhere in the world. | |
| Q: How many Microsoft tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Twelve. One to work the bulb, and eleven to write a 1,123 page guide to changing lightbulbs ("Learn Lightbulb Management in 21 Days"). | |
| Q: How many Internet Explorer programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: None. Their light bulbs are integrated in to the fixtures and can not be changed. | |
| You Might be a Microsoft Employee If... 1. Every night you dream of torturing Linus Torvalds 2. Every morning you say, "I pledge allegiance to the logo of the United Corporation of Microsoft. And to the stock options for which it stands, one company, under Bill, with headaches and buggy software for all." 3. Your favorite pick-up line is, "Hey baby...do you want to see a little ActiveX?" 4. Everytime you see a website with "Best viewed with Netscape" on it you feel like filing a lawsuit against its webmaster 5. You feel that all Anti-Microsoft websites should be censored because they are on the Internet, something Bill "invented." 6. You've set a goal to invent at least one new buzzword or acronym per day 7. You've ever been nervous because you haven't registered your Microsoft software yet. 8. You've trained your parrot to say "Unix sucks!" and "All hail Bill Gates!" 9. You own a limited edition Monopoly game in which Boardwalk is Microsoft and Jail is replaced by Justice Department Investigation 10. You've spent countless hours tracking down the source of the "Microsoft Acquires Vatican Church" rumor | |
| Two computer people discussing those old stories about Bill Gates' name adding up to 666 in ASCII: "I hear that if you play the NT 4.0 CD backwards, you get a satanic message" "...That's nothing. If you play it forward, it installs NT 4.0!" | |
| Microsoft seems to have gotten a lot of mileage out of the C2 rating for NT with no network connection. I wonder if a B3 rating for Linux with no power cord might be of value. | |
| A truly stable environment would be a concrete basement with no windows! Computers are no different. -- Carey McLelland | |
| I took the Pepsi challenge and chose Linux. -- Carey McLelland | |
| Q: How many Microsoft Programmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: It cannot be done. You will need to upgrade your house. Q: How many Linux users does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Two. One to write the HOWTO-LIGHTBULB-CRONJOB, and another to read it. -- Geoff Johnson | |
| Your mouse has moved. Windows NT must be restarted for the change to take effect. Reboot now? [ OK ] -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
| 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." | |
| You all have to admit that Microsoft products provide a quality unmatched by any other company. That is why I am switching to 100% pure shredded Microsoft certificates of authenticity in my hamster's cage. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
| Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable Unix network is no challenge. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
| Hear me out. Linux is Microsoft's main competition right now. Because of this we are forcing them to "innovate", something they would usually avoid. Now if MS Bob has taught us anything, Microsoft is not a company that should be innovating. When they do, they don't come up with things like "better security" or "stability", they come back with "talking paperclips", and "throw in every usless feature we can think of, memory footprint be dammed". Unfortunatly, they also come up with the bright idea of executing email. Now MIME attachments aren't enough, they want you to be able to run/open attachments right when you get them. This sounds like a good idea to people who believe renaming directories to folders made computing possible for the common man, but security wise it's like vigorously shaking a package from the Unibomber. So my friends, we are to blame. We pushed them into frantically trying to invent "necessary" features to stay on top, and look where it got us. Many of us are watching our beloved mail servers go down under the strain and rebuilding our company's PC because of our pointless competition with MS. I implore you to please drop Linux before Microsoft innovates again. -- From a Slashdot.org post in regards to the ILOVEYOU email virus | |
| Good programmers treat Microsoft products as damage and route around them. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
| Mastery of UNIX, like mastery of language, offers real freedom. The price of freedom is always dear, but there's no substitute. Personally, I'd rather pay for my freedom than live in a bitmapped, pop-up-happy dungeon like NT. -- Thomas Scoville, Performance Computing | |
| Missouri Town Changes Name to 'Linux' LINUX, MO -- The small Missouri town of Linn, county seat of Osage County, announced yesterday that it will be henceforth called 'Linux'. Mayor Bob Farrow said, "Linn needed something to put it on the map. A few weeks ago my daughter mentioned that she installed Linux on her computer and how great she thought it was. I thought to myself, 'Self, changing the town's name to 'Linux' could be an opportunity to attract attention -- and money -- to our town. We could even hold a Linux Convention at the community center.' So I approached the city council about the idea, and they loved it. The rest is history." Farrow's daughter is organizing the Linux Linux User Group. She hopes to be able to hold a Linux Convention this fall. "The Linn, er, Linux community center probably won't be big enough, we'll probably have to hold it in nearby Jefferson City," she said. The mayor does have one reservation. "How the hell do you pronounce Linux?" One of the mayor's contenders in the next election, Mr. Noah Morals, says he will start an ad campaign calling Bob Farrow "the Incumbent Liar of LIE-nucks". Needless to say, the mayor usually pronounces Linux as "LIH-nucks". | |
| 'Kitchen Sink' OS Announced Coding has begun on a new operating system code named 'Kitchen Sink'. The new OS will be based entirely on GNU Emacs. One programmer explained, "Since many hackers spend a vast amount of their time in Emacs, why not just make it the operating system?" When asked about the name, he responded, "Well, it has been often said that Emacs has everything except a kitchen sink. Now it will." One vi advocate said, "What the hell?!?! Those Emacs people are nuts. It seems that even with a programming language, a web browser, and God only knows what else built into their text editor, they're still not satisfied. Now they want it to be an operating system. Hell, even Windows ain't that bloated!" | |
| Mad Programmer Commits Suicide KENNETT, MO -- For two years Doug Carter toiled away in his basement computer lab working on his own 'Dougnix' operating system. Apparently he was sick of Windows 95 so he decided to create his own OS, based loosely on Unix. He had developed his own 'DougUI' window manager, Doug++ compiler, DougFS filesystem, and other integrated tools. All was going well until last week when he hooked his computer up to the Internet for the first time. It was then that he stumbled on to www.linux.org. Reports are sketchy about what happened next. We do know he committed suicide days after, leaving behind a rambling suicide note. Part of the note says: "I've wasted the past two years of my life... Wasted... Gone... Forever... Never return to. [illegible] Why did I bother creating my own OS... when Linux is exactly what I needed!?!?!?! If I had only known about Linux! Why someone didn't tell me? [illegible] Wasted! Aggghhh!" [The rest of the note is filled with incomprehensible assembly language ramblings.] | |
| Red Hat Unveils New Ad Campaign Linux distributor Red Hat has announced plans for a $650,000 ad campaign. The ads will appear on several major newspapers as well as on a few selected websites. "These ads will be targetted towards Windows users who are fed up but aren't aware of any OS alternatives," a Red Hat spokesman said. "We feel that there is a large audience for this." One of the ads will be a half page spread showing two computers side-by-side: a Wintel and a Linux box. The title asks "Is your operating system ready for the year 2000?" Both computers have a calendar/clock display showing. The Windows box shows "12:00:01AM -- January 1, 1900" while the Linux box shows "12:00:01AM -- January 1, 2000". The tagline at the bottom says "Linux -- a century ahead of the competition." | |
| 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? | |
| Linux Dominates Academic Research A recent survey of colleges and high school reveals that Linux, Open Source Software, and Microsoft are favorite topics for research projects. Internet Censorship, a popular topic for the past two years, was supplanted by Biology of Penguins as another of this year's most popular subjects for research papers. "The Internet has changed all the rules," one college professor told Humorix. "Nobody wants to write papers about traditional topics like the death penalty, freedom of speech, abortion, juvenile crime, etc. Most of the research papers I've seen the past year have been computer related, and most of the reference material has come from the Net. This isn't necessarily good; there's a lot of crap on the Net. One student tried to use 'Bob's Totally Wicked Anti-Microsoft Homepage of Doom' and 'The Support Group for People Used by Microsoft' as primary sources of information for his paper about Microsoft." A high school English teacher added, "Plagarism is a problem with the Net. One of my students 'wrote' a brilliant piece about the free software revolution. Upon further inspection, however, almost everything was stolen from Eric S. Raymond's website. I asked the student, "What does noosphere mean?" He responded, 'New-what?' Needless to say, he failed the class." | |
| The Movement Formerly Known As Open Source The battle over the Open Source trademark is heating up. Software in the Public Interest and the Open Source Initiative both hold competing claims to the trademark. In order to put an end to the infighting, a group of free software advocates have founded the Association for the Movement Formerly Known as Open Source (AMFKOS) One AMFKOS founder said, "I find it ironic that a trademark representing free software is itself proprietary. This situation must change. We propose that the free software movement adopt another name besides 'Open Source'. Hopefully then we can all Get-Back-To-Coding(tm) instead of fighting over Bruce Perens' and Eric Raymond's egos." Rumor has it that Richard Stallman plans to mount a campaign to promote the phrase "GNU/Free Software" in place of "Open Source". In addition, the terms "Ajar Source", "Unlocked Source", "Nude Source", "Unclosed Source", and "Just-Type-make Software" have all been proposed by various Usenet or Slashdot posters. | |
| Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #3 iTux Penguin Computer Price: $999.95 for base model Producer: Orange Computer, Co.; 1-800-GET-ITUX Based on the Slashdot comments, response to the Apple iMac from the Linux community was lukewarm at best. Orange Computer, Co., has picked up where Apple left behind and produced the iTux computer specifically for Linux users who want to "Think a lot different". The self-contained iTux computer system is built in the shape of Tux the Penguin. Its 15 inch monitor (17 inch available next year) is located at Tux's large belly. The penguin's two feet make up the split ergonomic keyboard (without those annoying Windows keys, of course). A 36X CD-ROM drive fits into Tux's mouth. Tux's left eye is actually the reboot button (can be reconfigured for other purposes since it is rarely used) and his right eye is the power button. The iTux case opens up from the back, allowing easy access for screwdriver-wielding nerds into Tux's guts. The US$995.95 model contains an Alpha CPU and all the usual stuff found in a Linux-class machine. More expensive models, to be debuted next year, will feature dual or quad Alpha CPUs and a larger size. | |
| Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #4 Microsoft Destruction Kit Price: US$29.95 (more with optional digital camera or shotgun) Producer: The Fuzzier Image; 1-800-BILL-SUX Mix an Internet Explorer CD-ROM, a rocket launcher, and a flamethrower. What do you have? A whole lot of fun! The Microsoft Destruction Kit is the best way to destroy those Microsoft CD-ROMs you no longer need now that you've discovered Linux. You can launch the CD (and registration forms, manuals, retail boxes, license agreements, etc.) and pepper it with bullets, all while capturing the event with a digital camera. Or, you can use the included miniature flamethrower to burn the evil CD to a crisp. The kit comes with a set of IE 4.0 CDs to get you started. Tell Microsoft "where *you* want it to go today" in style with the Microsoft Destruction Kit. | |
| 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. | |
| Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #7 Bluescreen Computer Case US$27.97 at Bud's Beige Box Bazaar Real Geeks may not admit to using Windows, but there's still countless geeks out there who must suffer through the humiliation of using Windows while at work. The patent-not-pending Bluescreen Case, though, will ease the stress of working with Microsoft "solutions". This computer case is very similar to other beige boxes, but with one important difference: the reboot button is covered with a picture of Bill Gates. When the machine bluescreens for the millionth time, all you have to do is punch Bill Gates in the face as hard as you can, and the computer will restart. This provides invaluable therapeutic stress relief. | |
| Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #8 Bob's Map to the Homes of the Rich & Geeky US$29.95 at BobsEcommerceSite.com Hollywood is full of shady street-side vendors selling "maps to the homes of the rich and famous" that are actually photocopies of photocopies of photocopies of an old 1984 Rand McNally map. But what about the Bay Area? Wouldn't you like to visit the homes and driveways of the rich and geeky in Silicon Valley? Wouldn't you like to see Linus Torvalds' residence? Wouldn't you like to drive by the home of permanent-interim-CEO Steve Jobs? Wouldn't you like to spit on the driveway of Bill Gates? Well, now you can. Bob's Map to the Homes of the Rich & Geeky is a full-color 128 page atlas filled with detailed instructions for finding the homes of 1,024 of the world's most famous geeks. From San Jose, to Seattle, to Austin, to Boston, Bob's Map is your passport to gawk at the homes of the rich and geeky. | |
| Microsoft Open Source Solitaire REDMOND, WA -- In a first attempt at "embrace-and-extend" of open source software, Microsoft will release its popular Solitaire and FreeCell games as open source under the MILA (Microsoft Innovative License Agreement). According to a Microsoft press release, the Visual C++ source code for the two games will be available from the Microsoft website "in the first quarter" (no year was specified). Industry pundits hail the move as revolutionary. "Microsoft's release of its most popular Windows feature as open source software demonstrates just how innovative the company really is. The DoJ is clearly barking up the wrong tree," wrote one Ziff-Davis flunkie. One executive at a large company said, "Freely available source code is the best idea Microsoft has ever invented." One Linux developer told Humorix, "Let's just hope some fool doesn't try to port this thing to Linux. Imagine the havoc that could ensue if a bunch of core Linux contributors downloaded Solitaire and became addicted to it. It would be a disaster! Linux and open source development would grind to a halt while the hackers wasted their time playing Solitaire or FreeCell. 'Just one more game...' they would say." | |
| Linux Advocacy Crackdown SHERIDAN, WY -- In an unprecedented blow to Linux advocacy, Aaron McAdams, an employee at the Sheridan Try-N-Save Discount Store, was fired last week. According to the store's general manager, McAdams was fired because "he constantly rearranged items on shelves so that Linux-related books and software boxes would be displayed more prominently than Windows merchandise." McAdams' boss added, "If he would have spent as much time actually working as he did hiding Windows books at the back of shelves, he wouldn't have received the pink slip." The general manager supplied Humorix with videotapes from the store's security cameras showing McAdams in action. In one scene, he takes a whole stack of "...For Dummies" books and buries them in the Cheap Romance section, an area of the store rarely visited by computer users. In another, McAdams can be plainly seen setting copies of Red Hat Linux in front of a large, eye-catching display of various Microsoft products at the front of the store. Finally, at one point McAdams can be seen slapping huge tags reading "DEMO DISPLAY BOX -- NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL 1999" on boxes of Windows 98. McAdams disputes his bosses accusations. "If he would spend more time actually working instead of peering over security camera footage for hours on end, this store might actually turn a profit for a change." | |
| Red Hat Linux 10.0 RALEIGH-DURHAM, NC -- HypeNewsWire -- Red Hat, the producer of the most popular Linux distribution with over 25 million estimated users, is proud to announce the availability of Red Hat Linux 10.0. The latest version contains the new Linux 6.2 kernel, the Z Window System 2.0, full support for legacy Windows 3.x/9x/200x/NT software apps, and more. Copies of Red Hat Linux 10.0 will be available in stores on CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or GNUDE (GNU Digital Encoding) disks within the next week. Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and several other large computer manufacturers have announced that they will offer computer systems with Red Hat 10.0 pre-installed. "We can sell systems with Red Hat pre-installed for considerably less than systems with Microsoft ActiveWindows 2001. Overall, Red Hat Linux's superior quality, low price, and modest system requirements puts Windows to shame," one Dell spokesperson said at last week's LinDex convention. | |
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| Microsoft ActivePromo Campaign: "What Slogan Do You Want to See Tommorrow?" Microsoft's PR masterminds are planning a massive marketing campaign, code-named "ActivePromo 2000", to promote the upcoming release of Windows 2000 (scheduled for February 2001). This marketing campaign will include a "What Slogan Do You Want to See Tommorrow?" promotion. Children under age 16 will have to opportunity to create their own Microsoft slogan to replace the aging "Where Do You Want to Go Today?"(R) motto. Microsoft will set up a special email alias where children can submit their entries along with detailed personal and demographic information (for verification purposes, of course). A panel of Microsoft employees will select a winning entry, which will become the official slogan. The winner and his/her family will receive an all-expense paid week-long vacation to Redmond, WA ("The Vacation Capital of East Central Washington State"), including a guided tour of the Microsoft campus and a personal ten minute photo-opportunity with Chairman Bill. We personally believe that "Don't Think About Going Anywhere Else Today" would make a perfect Microsoft slogan. "Crashes Are Normal" might also be a good choice. | |
| Microsoft ActivePromo Campaign: "State Innovation Day" Microsoft has successfully lobbied for the State of Washington to declare August 24th as State Innovation Day. Efforts are underway to lobby the US Congress to decree a similar designation nationally. Several events are scheduled on August 24, 1999 to showcase "innovation" in the computer industry (in other words, Microsoft), including: * An "Innovation Day Parade" held in downtown Seattle, featuring floats and helium-filled balloons representing various Microsoft products (Dancing Paper Clip, Microsoft Bob, Flying Windows Logo, etc.) * An "Innovation is Cool" essay contest for high school and college students. Possible topics include "Why IE Should Be Integrated in Windows", "Why Bill Gates Is My Hero", "Government Intervention is Evil", and "Why Monopolies Improve Product Quality and Lower Prices". * A 24-hour "Innovation in Education" telethon on NBC to raise money for school districts nationwide to buy new Wintel computer systems and Internet access through the Microsoft Network. | |
| Is Windows Antique? SILICON VALLEY -- The first ever antique mall devoted to computers has opened its doors deep in the heart of Silicon Valley. Named "Stacks of Antiqueues", the new mall features obsolete hardware, old software, and other curiosities that only a nerd would want to buy. The mall also features a whole collection of Microsoft software, which, as can be expected, has the Redmond giant up in arms. The mall, founded by a group of Linux, FreeBSD, and BeOS users, has a whole section devoted to Microsoft "antiques". Offerings range from a rare (and expensive) copy of Windows 1.0 all the way up to Windows 98. All versions of DOS from 1.0 up are available, in addition to such Microsoft products as Bob, Profit, and Multiplan. Bob Hinesdorf, one of the mall's founders, defends the decision to include Microsoft products in its selection of antique computer stuff. "Windows 98 is surely antique; it's based on 16 bit Windows 3.x code, which was based on 16 bit DOS code, which was based loosely on 8 bit CP/M." | |
| Open Source Irrational Constant BREEZEWOOD, PA -- In a revelation that could rock the foundations of science, a researcher in Pennsylvania has discovered that the digits of the irrational constant PI encode a version of the Linux kernel. "I can't believe it," the researcher, Neil Hoffman, exclaimed. "And yet, here I am staring at what appears to be the source code for Linux kernel 5.0.0. Needless to say, my whole world-view has changed..." Hoffman explained, "My algorithm, which applies several dozen conversions and manipulations to each digit of PI, spits out plain vanilla ASCII characters that happen to form the source code for the Linux kernel." Many members of the scientific community are skeptical. One One mathematician who has memorized the digits of PI to 10,000 places said, "This is the kind of nonsense one would expect to find in a tabloid such as the National Mathematics Enquirer. Or a Linux fortune(6) file. Hoffman's 'discovery' is obviously a hoax designed to secure government research grants." In a related matter, we have received an unconfirmed report that a region of the Mandelbrot fractal contains what appear to be the words "LINUS TORVALDS WAS HERE". In addition, the words "TRANSMETA: THIS SECRET MESSAGE IS NOT HERE YET" supposedly appear within the depths of the Julia Set. | |
| Attack of the Tuxissa Virus What started out as a prank posting to comp.os.linux.advocacy yesterday has turned into one of the most significant viruses in computing history. The creator of the virus, who goes by the moniker "Anonymous Longhair", modified the Melissa virus to install Linux on infected machines. "It's a work of art," one Linux advocate told Humorix after he looked through the Tuxissa virus source code. "This virus goes well beyond the feeble troublemaking of Melissa. It actually configures a UMSDOS partition on the user's hard drive and then downloads and installs a stripped-down version of Slackware Linux." The email message that the virus is attached to has the subject "Important Message About Windows Security". The text of the body says, "I want to let you know about some security problems I've uncovered in Windows 95/98/NT, Office 95/97, and Outlook. It's critically important that you protect your system against these attacks. Visit these sites for more information..." The rest of the message contains 42 links to sites about Linux and free software. Details on how the virus started are a bit sketchy. The "Anonymous Longhair" who created it only posted it to Usenet as an early April Fool's gag, demonstrating how easy it would be to mount a "Linux revolution". | |
| New Crime Identified: "Tech Rage" HARRISBURG, IL -- The police department in this Illinois town has coined a new term for a growing trend in crime: "tech rage". Tech rage shares many similarities with another modern crime, "road rage", but instead of affecting drivers, tech rage is experienced by disgruntled computer users. The first documented case of tech rage involves a Microsoft salesman, Bob Glutzfield, who convinced the local TV station to "upgrade" its computer systems from Macintosh to Wintel. While the migration seemed successful at first, the Blue Screen became more prevalent during the following months. Then, in January, the entire computer system crashed in the middle of the weather forecast during the 10 o'clock evening news. Viewers could plainly see the Blue Screen of Death showing in the monitors behind James Roland, the chief meteorologist. The instability of Windows 98 stretched Roland's patience until he snapped last week and succumbed to tech rage. Roland tracked down the Microsoft salesman and followed him one evening to his apartment. The weatherman yelled at the bewildered Microserf, "You [expletive]! Because of you, I'm the [expletive] laughing stock of Southern Illinois!" and then proceeded to beat him up. Roland is currently out on bond pending trial next month. | |
| The War Against Linux A significant obstacle on the path to Linux World Domination has emerged. A reactionary grass-roots movement has formed to fight, as they call it, "The War Against Linux". This movement, code-named "LinSux", is composed of people (mostly Microsoft stockholders and commercial software developers) who want to maintain the status quo. They are fighting back against the rise of Linux and free software which they see as a threat to their financial independence. The most damaging attack the LinSux folks have launched is "Three Mile Island", a Windows macro virus designed to inflict damage on computers that contain a partition devoted to a non-Microsoft OS. When the victim computer is booted into Windows, the virus activates and deletes any non-Microsoft partitions. Ironically, the many security flaws in Windows allow the virus to damage alternative operating systems but leave Windows unscathed. "The War Against Linux" has also been fought in more subtle ways. Time-tested methods of Linux advocacy have been turned into subtle forms of anti-Linux advocacy by the LinSux crowd. MSCEs are smuggling NT boxes into companies that predominantly use Linux or Unix. LinSux "freedom fighters" are rearranging books and software boxes on store shelves so that Microsoft offerings are displayed more prominently. | |
| BSOD Simulator Users of Red Hat 6.0 are discovering a new feature that hasn't been widely advertised: a Blue Screen of Death simulator. By default, the bsodsim program activates when the user hits the virtually unused SysRq key (this is customizable) causing the system to switch to a character cell console to display a ficticious Blue Screen. Red Hat hails the bsodsim program as the "boss key" for the Linux world. One RH engineer said, "Workers are smuggling Linux boxes into companies that exclusively use Windows. This is all good and well until the PHB walks by and comments, 'That doesn't look like Windows...' With bsodsim, that problem is solved. The worker can hit the emergency SysRq key, and the system will behave just like Windows..." The bsodsim program doesn't stop at just showing a simulated error message. If the boss doesn't walk away, the worker can continue the illusion by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL, which causes a simulated reboot. After showing the usual boot messages, bsodsim will run a simulated SCANDISK program indefinitely. The boss won't be able to tell the difference. If the boss continues to hang around, the worker can say, "SCANDISK is really taking a long time... maybe we should upgrade our computers. And don't you have something better to do than watch this computer reboot for the tenth time today?" | |
| Actual Snippet of Windows Source Code! Honest! NOTE: The following snippet of the Windows 95 source code was sent to us via 'unofficial' channels. Don't tell anyone you saw this! We really don't feel like being visited by the Microsoft Intellectual Property Police. void BusyLoop() /* Do nothing loop to kill CPU cycles; added at the request of Intel */ { DisplayRandomSubliminalMessage(); for( int i = 0; i < BIG_INT; i++ ) for( int j = 0; j < BIG_INT; j++ ) for( int k = 0; k < BIG_INT; k++ ) for( int l = 0; l < BIG_INT; l++ ) if( STACK_SPACE_PERCENTAGE_FREE > .05 ) /* There's plenty of stack space left -- let's eat up some more CPU cycles, recursively! */ BusyLoop(); } | |
| Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball... July 2000: Government Issues Update on Y2K Crisis to American Public In a statement to all U.S. citizens, the President assured that the repairs to the nation's infrastructure, damaged severely when the Y2K crisis hit on January 1, is proceeding on track with the Government's guidelines. The message was mailed to every citizen by mail carriers via horseback. The statement itself was written on parchment with hand-made ink written from fountain pens. "Our technological progress since the Y2K disaster has been staggering," said the statement. "We have been able to fix our non-Y2K compliant horse carriages so that commerce can once again continue. We believe that we will be able to reinvent steam-powered engines within the next decade. Internal combustion engines should become operational once again sometime before the dawn of the next century." No one knows when the technological luxuries we once enjoyed as little as 6 months ago will return. Things such as e-mail, the Internet, and all computers were lost when the crisis showed itself for what it really was: a disaster waiting to happen. Scholars predict the mainframe computer will be invented again during the 24th century... | |
| Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball... May 2049: Transmeta Updates Webpage In a bold move that shocked observers everywhere, Transmeta Corp., a secretive Silicon Valley company, updated their webpage. According to our sources, Transmeta fixed a bug in their existing web page located in the comment "This page contains no tyops". The message has been fixed to read "This page contains no typso". | |
| Dave Finton gazes into his crystal ball... January 2099: Rob Malda Finally Gets His Damned Nano-Technology The Linux hacker community finally breathed a collective sigh of relief when it was announced that Rob Malda finally got his damned nanotechnology. "It's about time!" exclaimed one Dothead. "He been going on about that crap since god-knows-when. Now that he's got that and those wearable computers, maybe we can read about something interesting on Slashdot!" Observers were skeptical, however. Already the now-immortal Rob Malda nano-cyborg (who reportedly changed his name to "18 of 49, tertiary adjunct of something-or-other") has picked up a few new causes to shout about to the high heavens until everyone's ears start bleeding. In one Slashdot article, Malda writes "Here's an article about the potential of large greyish high-tech mile-wide cubes flying through space, all controlled by a collective mind set upon intergalactic conquest. Personally, I can't wait. Yum." | |
| Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#1) 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 1: What is your opinion of the Microsoft antitrust trial? A. The DoJ is wasting taxpayer's money. Now, if the DOJ were to upgrade all of its computer systems to Windows, then the department would be making wise use of tax dollars. B. All of the Microsoft email messages that the evil government has presented as evidence are obviously taken out of context or have been completely twisted around. I mean... Bill Gates would never say "let's cut off their air supply" in a memo; it's an obvious fabrication. C. Judge Jackson is obviously biased in favor of the DOJ's vigilante persecution of Microsoft. D. If Microsoft loses, it will be the gravest miscarriage of justice in all the history of mankind. | |
| Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#4) 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 4: What is your favorite Microsoft Office feature? A. Dancing Paper Clip B. Takes up enough hard drive space to prevent my children from installing violent video games or downloading pornography C. Everyone else has it, so I can easily exchange documents with others D. I have so many favorites, I can't choose just one! | |
| Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#13) 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 13: Which of the following new Microsoft products do you plan on buying within the next 6 months? A. Windows For Babies(tm) - Using an enhanced "click-n-drool" interface, babies will be able to learn how to use a Wintel computer, giving them a head start in living in a Microsoft-led world. B. Where In Redmond Is Carmen Sandiego?(tm) - The archvillian Sandiego has stolen the Windows source code and must be stopped before she can publish it on the Net. C. ActiveKeyboard 2000(tm) - An ergonomic keyboard that replaces useless keys like SysRq and Scroll Lock with handy keys like "Play Solitaire" and "Visit Microsoft.com". D. Visual BatchFile(tm) - An IDE and compiler for the MS-DOS batch file language. MSNBC calls it "better than Perl". | |
| Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#18) 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 18: Witnessing the popularity of "Dilbert", Microsoft has plans to launch a syndicated comic strip featuring life at Microsoft. What characters would you like to see in such a comic strip? A. Judge Jackson, the goofy court judge who is always making foolish (and funny) decisions B. Bob, a wacky Microsoft programmer who likes to insert easter eggs in his work, and who is addicted to playing "Age of Empires" C. Bill Gates, the intelligent nerd extraordinaire who always gets his way by simply giving people large sums of money D. Ed Muth, the Microsoft spokesman who keeps putting his foot in his mouth. When not in public, he's a surprisingly sexy "chic magnet" E. Poorard Stalinman, the leader of a movement of hackers to provide "free" software for the masses at the expense of Capitalistic values | |
| Slashdot Effect Vaporizes Ganymede -- Submitted by Dave Finton In one of the more bizarre consequences of the infamous "Slashdot Effect", Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system, was completely and utterly destroyed when CmdrTaco posted an article about the Hubble Space Telescope's latest round of images and discoveries. "It all started when we put up some more info on our web page about Jupiter and Ganymede," said one NASA guy whom we believe may be in charge of something. "CmdrTaco got wind of it, and posted it on his site." According to observers, the webserver promptly exploded thereafter, damaging the nearby remote control system used to aim and focus the Hubble's cameras from the ground. "All of the sudden our controls went wacky!" said one engineer. "The Hubble then started shooting these death rays all over the universe. One of those rays hit Ganymede, and *POOF*. There it went! We were all like, 'COOOOOL! Let's aim it something else!'" | |
| Jargon Coiner (#2) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * SLASHDUP EFFECT, THE: Accidentally posting two or more duplicate comments to Slashdot, usually as the result of hitting ENTER at the wrong time or fumbling with the Preview option. * YOU'VE GOT SLOGAN: The tendency for reporters to parody the stupid "You've Got Mail" saying when writing about AOL. Example: "You've Got Spam", "You've Got Merger" (the headline for an article about the Netscape/AOL Merger From Hell) * PENGUINIZATION: Ongoing trend to slap a picture of Tux Penguin next to anything even remotely related to Linux. * IDLESURF: Aimless surfing of the Internet; looking for something interesting to read while killing time. Often involves reloaded the Slashdot homepage every 5 minutes to see if a new article has been posted. | |
| Jargon Coiner (#3) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * LILOSPLAININ': Arduous process of explaining why there's now a LILO boot prompt on the office computer. Example: "John had some lilosplainin' to do after his boss turned on the computer and the Windows splash screen didn't appear." * UPTIME DOWNER: Depression that strikes a Linux sysadmin after his uptime is ruined. Can be caused by an extended power outtage, a pet chewing through the power cord, a lightning bolt striking the power line, or an urgent need to reboot into Windows to read a stupid Word document. * OSTR (Off-Switch Total Recall): The sudden recollection of something terribly important you need to do online that occurs exactly 0.157 seconds after you've shut down your computer. | |
| Jargon Coiner (#5) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * DUKE OF URL: A person who publishes their Netscape bookmark file on their homepage. * WWWLIZE (pronounced wuh-wuh-wuh-lize): Habit of unconsciously appending www. in front of URLs, even when it's not necessary. * DUBYA-DUBYA-DUBYA: Common pronounciation of "double-u double-u double-u" when orally specifying a wwwlized address. * ADVOIDANCE: iding a particularly annoying advertising banner by dragging another window over it, or by placing your hand on the monitor to cover it up. Example: "Bob advoided any Microsoft banners he came across." | |
| Jargon Coiner (#6) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * STOP MIRAGE: Trying to click on an imaginary Stop button on a program's toolbar after doing something you didn't want to. Usually caused as the result of excessive use of Netscape. * YA-PREFIX: Putting "another" or "yet another" in front of a name or tacking "YA" in front of an acronym. Example: "We could ya-prefix this fortune by titling it 'Yet Another Lame List of Fabricated Jargon'." * DOMAINEERING: Using a service like Netcraft to determine what operating system and webserver a particular domain is running. * NOT-A-SALTINE EXPLANATION: The canned response given to someone who uses the term "hacker" instead of "cracker". | |
| Jargon Coiner (#13) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * NINETY-NINERS: In 1849, a horde of people ("Forty-niners") headed to California to pan gold and get rich quick. In 1999, a horde of people ("Ninety-niners") headed to California to invest in Linux companies and get rich quick. Some things never change. * ZOO: The ubiquitous shelf of O'Reilly Animal Books that many nerds keep next to their computer * THEY'RE MULTIPLYING LIKE PORTALS: The proliferation of Linux portals that have the latest headlines from Slashdot and LinuxToday but offer little original content. * YOU CAN SPELL EVIL WITHOUT vi: A curse uttered by freshman Computer Science students struggling with vi's insert mode for the first time. | |
| Treaty of Helsinki Signed HELSINKI, FINLAND -- A cease-fire in the flame war between Linux and FreeBSD has been reached. A group of two dozen Linux and FreeBSD zealots met in Helsinki to ratify a treaty bringing a temporary end to the hostile fighting between both camps. "Today is a good day for peace," one observer noted. "Now both sides can lay down their keyboards and quit flaming the opposing side on Usenet and Slashdot." The cease-fire is a response to the sudden increase in fighting that has occured over the past two weeks. The Slashdot server became a victim of the cross-fire this week when thousands of Anonymous Cowards and Geek Zealots posted inflammatory comments that amounted to, "My OS is better than your OS!" Many nerds, suffering withdrawl symptoms when the Slashdot site slowed to a crawl, demanded that the bickering stop. "I can't take it anymore! It takes two minutes to download the Slashdot homepage -- assuming the site is actually online. I must have my 'News for Nerds' now! The fighting must stop," one Anonymous Coward ranted. | |
| This telethon isn't just about helping disenfranchised geeks. We're also here for the betterment of mankind through our research into finding a Cure for Windows. Each day, millions of man-hours are wasted due to design flaws in Microsoft Windows. Each day, millions of dollars are sent by business and individuals like yourself into a huge black hole known as "Microsoft" for exorbitantly priced software products that should be free. But don't worry. We've almost found a Cure for Windows. Geeks worldwide have toiled endlessly for the past eight years working on a replacement operating system called Linux. It's almost ready. Now we need to convince the world to use our creation and eliminate the virus known as Windows. -- Excerpt from Eric S. Raymond's speech during the Geek Grok '99 telethon held in Silicon Valley | |
| OPPRESSED GEEK: Everybody keeps blaming me for the Y2K problem, the Melissa Virus, Windows crashes... you name it. When somebody finds out you're a bona fide geek, they start bugging you about computer problems. I frequently hear things like, "Why can't you geeks make Windows work right?", "What kind of idiot writes a program that can't handle the year 2000?", "Geeks are evil, all they do is write viruses", and "The Internet is the spawn of Satan". I'm afraid to admit I have extensive computing experience. When somebody asks what kind of job I have, I always lie. From my experience, admitting that you're a geek is an invitation to disaster. LARRY WALL: I know, I know. I sometimes say that I'm the founder of a pearl harvesting company instead of admitting that I'm the founder of the Perl programming language. ERIC S. RAYMOND: This is tragic. We can't live in a world like this. We need your donations to fight social oppression and ignorance against geekdom... -- Excerpt from the Geek Grok '99 telethon | |
| Do-It-Yourself IPO You too can get rich quick by translating an existing Linux distribution into one of the following untapped markets: - Babylonian - Hittite - Ancient Egyptian (hieroglyphics may be a challenge, though) - Pig Latin (this may be the strongest type of encryption allowed by the DOJ in the near future) - Mayan - Cherokee - Cyrillic (to take advantage of the booming Russian economy) - Redneck - Klingon (it's a wonder this hasn't been done yet) - Wingdings Once you start marketing your new product, a highly lucrative self-underwritten IPO is just months away! | |
| This is excellent news! I haven't thought about remedies yet... well, you know, I can think of one thing the court should do: require that Microsoft remove the Dancing Paper Clip and associated crap from Office... Oh, and while they're at it, get rid of those multi-megabyte easter eggs. Why does Excel need a flight simulator? So I can see the Blue Screen of Death in 3D? Oh, and another thing, the court needs to put a hex on ActiveX... -- Anonymous Coward's response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft | |
| Don't you see? This whole trial is a conspiracy concocted by Bill Gates. He knows that he stands to make even more billions if Microsoft is broken up into Baby Bills... just like Rockefeller did with Standard Oil, and stockholders did with Ma Bell. Bill Gates actually wants the DOJ to win. That's why he's been so arrogant in court; he wants Judge Jackson to throw the book at him! It will be a very lucrative book. The faked Windows video? His amnesia during the video deposition? It's all a ruse to fool Microsoft stockholders... and us. -- The ramblings of a resident Slashdot conspiracy nut in response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft | |
| Don't get too ecstatic, we all know what's going to happen next. This so-called trial is rigged, just like wrestling and boxing. Microsoft is the Don King of the software industry... they control who wins. I've been told that if you call Microsoft's legal department hotline, you get a recorded messages that says, "For the verdicts of past Microsoft court cases, press 1. For the verdicts of future Microsoft court cases, press 2..." -- Anonymous Coward's response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft | |
| Evolution Of A Linux User: The 11 Stages Towards Getting A Life 0. Microserf - Your life revolves around Windows and you worship Bill Gates and his innovative company. 1. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt... About Microsoft - You encounter a growing number of problems with Microsoft solutions, shaking your world-view 2. FUD... About Linux - After hearing about this new Linux thing, you take the plunge, but are unimpressed by the nerdware OS. 3. Born-Again Microserf - You rededicate your life to Microsoft worship 4. Disgruntled User - Microsoft software keeps screwing you over, and you're not going to take it anymore! 5. A Religious Experience - You successfully install Linux, and are left breathless at its elegance. No more Windows for you! 6. Linux Convert - You continue to fall in love with the new system 7. Linux Zealot - You dedicate your life to Linux World Domination... and it shows! You go beyond mere advocacy to sheer zealotry. 8. Back To Reality - Forces out of your control compel you to return to using Windows and Office 9. Enlightened Linux User - You become 100% Microsoft free after finding ways to overcome the need for Microsoft bloatware 10.Get A Life - You become a millionaire after your Linux portal is acquired; you move to a small tropical island and get a life | |
| The Latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Bashing Linux As used by Jesse Berst and Fred Moody... 1. Write a scathing article attacking some facet of Linux and publish it 2. Arrange for the article to be mentioned on LinuxToday or Slashdot. 3. Watch as thousands of angry Linux zealots storm your article and load the advertising banners. Listen to the ca-chink $ound of the advertising revenue that's pouring in. 4. As soon as the maelstrom quiets, publish another scathing article about the immaturity of the Linux "community", excerpting some of the nasty flames from Linux longhairs denouncing your intelligence and claiming that you're on the Microsoft payroll. 5. Arrange for the article to be mentioned on LinuxToday or Slashdot. 6. Watch as thousands of angry Linux zealots storm your article... 7. Wait for a few weeks, and repeat. Cash your inflated paycheck, invest the proceeds in some Linux stocks, and retire early. You've "earned" it! | |
| What Did Santa Claus Bring You In 1999? (#1) LINUS TORVALDS: Santa didn't bring me anything, but Tim O'Reilly just gave me a large sum of money to publish my new book, "Linus Torvalds' Official Guide To Receiving Fame, Fortune, and Hot Babes By Producing Your Own Unix-Like Operating System In Only 10 Years". ORDINARY LINUX HACKER: I kept hinting to my friends and family that I wanted to build my own Beowulf Cluster. My grandmother got mixed up and gave me a copy of "Beowulf's Chocolate Cluster Cookbook". I like chocolate, but I would've preferred silicon. LINUX LONGHAIR: My friends sent me a two-year subscription to several Ziff-Davis publications, much to my dislike. I don't want to read Jesse Berst's rants against Linux, or John Dvorak's spiels about how great Windows 2000 is. Still, I suppose this isn't so bad. Ziff-Davis glossy paper makes an excellent lining for fireplaces. | |
| Alan Cox Releases Quantum Kernel Submitted by Dave Finton A surprising development in the linux-kernel mailing list surfaced when Alan Cox announced the release of a 2.2 Linux kernel existing both as an official stable kernel and as a prepatch kernel. This immediately spurred the creation of two different realities (and hence two different Alan Coxes), where a kernel would not settle down to one or the other state until someone looked at it. "I think this resulted from the large number of 'final' prepatch kernels prior to the 2.2.14 release," said David Miller, kernel networking guru and gas station attendent (he'll settle down to one or the other state when someone looks at him). When word of this development spread to Microsoft, Bill Gates was extremely delighted. The Redmond, WA campus has been plagued with quantum fluctuations ever since the inception of Windows 2000 back in 1992. "Our release date has been existing in infinitely many states since the very beginning," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "This just shows the Linux operating system cannot scale to multiple realities as well as our OS." | |
| 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." | |
| New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#2) Don't throw out that old Red Hat Linux 3.0 CD. A group of entrepreneurs are hording vintage Linux items in the hopes that they will become hot collector's items in the coming decades. The venture, called "Money Grows On Binary Trees", hopes to amass a warehouse full of old Linux distributions, books, stuffed penguins, promotional material, and Linus Torvalds autographs. "Nobody thought pieces of cardstock featuring baseball players would be worth anything..." the founder of Binary Trees said. "That 'Linux For Dummies' book sitting in your trash could be the next Babe Ruth card." The company organized a Linux Collectibles Convention last week in Silicon Valley, drawing in a respectable crowd of 1,500 people and 20 exhibitors. The big attraction was a "Windows For Dummies" book actually signed by Linus Torvalds. "He signed it back at a small Linux conference in '95," the owner explained. "He didn't realize it was a Dummies book because I had placed an O'Reilly cover on it... Somebody at the convention offered me $10,000 for it, but that seemed awfully low. I hope to sell it on eBay next month with a reserve price containing a significant number of zeros." | |
| 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. | |
| New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#4) The buzz surrounding Linux and Open Source during 1999 has produced a large number of billionnaires. However, people who weren't employed by Red Hat or VA Linux, or who didn't receive The Letter, are still poor. The visionaries at The IPO Factory want to change all that. As the name suggests, this company helps other businesses get off the ground, secure investments from Venture Capitalists, and eventually hold an IPO that exits the stratosphere. "You can think of us as meta-VCs," the IPO Factory's founder said. "You provide the idea... and we do the rest. If your company doesn't hold a successful IPO, you get your money back, guaranteed!" He added quickly, "Of course, if you do undergo a billion dollar IPO, we get to keep 25% of your stock." The company's first customer, LinuxOne, has been a failure. "From now on we're only going to service clients that actually have a viable product," an IPO Factory salesperson admitted. "Oh, and we've learned our lesson: it's not a good idea to cut-and-paste large sections from Red Hat's S-1 filing." | |
| Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#3) BRYANT DUMBELL: It's time for Round One: The Flying CompactDiscus. JOHN SPLADDEN: That's right, Bryant. Each team member will hurl one CD-ROM and receive points for both the distance thrown and whether the disc is still readable afterwards. DUMBELL: First up is Mad Hatter's Alan Cox. He struts, he winds up, and there it goes! Look at the trajectory on that baby... Now it's time for the Portalback's Anonymous Coward #521 to throw. This guy was voted as the best CompactDiscus thrower in the league by popular vote on Slashdot. SPLADDEN: Indeed, AnonCow has got some powerful muscles. No brain though. Did you know that he dropped out of college to join the Andover.Net team? DUMBELL: Yeah, what a tough decision to make. It's now becoming quite common for nerd superstars to ditch college and move to Silicon Valley and receive Big League stock options. Still, AnonCow was out for several games this season due to a Carpal Tunnel flareup. I hope he isn't squandering his millions... he might be forced to retire early. | |
| Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#4) BRYANT DUMBELL: Welcome back. After Round 1, the Mad Hatters are ahead 15 to 12. Round 2, the Caffeine Craziness event, is now underway. JOHN SPLADDEN: This is my favorite part of the Nerdbowl. Each player tries to consume as many gallons of caffeinated beverages within one minute, and then points are awarded based on the redness of their eyes. DUMBELL: I like this event too... I must admit, it's much better than the "Crash It" event that was played in the Zeroth Annual Nerdbowl last year. Players were each seated in front of a PC running Windows 98... points were awarded based on how fast the player could cause a Blue Screen. SPLADDEN: Ah, yes, I remember that. Everybody complained that the event was too easy. "Where the hell is the challenge?" yelled Chris DiBona while doing a victory dance after the VA Linux Rich Penguins beat the SuSE Cats In The Hats last year 121-96. | |
| NOTICE LinuxForecast.com has issued a Slashdot Effect Watch for your domain effective for the next 48 hours. Forecast models indicate that Taco Boy is planning on posting an article about your "Penguin Porn" site. The models disagree on the timing or duration of the storm, although we can say that a moderate risk of server crashes, excess bandwidth usage, and increased website hosting bills are possible. Please take appropriate action by mirroring your site. It might be too late now, but you might also want to consider purchasing Denial Of Service Insurance. | |
| Another Satisfied MICROSOFT Customer... +----------+ As the inventor of the Internet, I know a | | quality server operating system when I see | SMILING | one. Microsoft Windows 2000(tm) provides | | innovative features that no other competitor | GORE | can claim. | | | PHOTO | We've been using Windows at the White House | | for five years now without any problems. | | Windows' BlueScreen(tm) technology +----------+ automatically crashes our Exchange(tm) email server whenever Federal investigators are Al Gore around. Thanks to this feature, archives of incriminating emails have been wiped clean. This is what I call innovation. Thank you, Microsoft! | |
| Right now hundreds of Anonymous Cowards are cheering the fact that only Windows boobs are victims of ILOVEYOU and other email viruses. I realize Outlook is so insecure that using it is like posting a sign outside your door saying, "DOOR UNLOCKED -- ROB ME!". However, Linux isn't immune. If I had a dollar for every pine buffer overflow uncovered, I could buy a truckload of fresh herring. I expect the next mass email virus to spread will be cross-platform. If the recipient is a Windows/Outlook luser, they'll get hit. If the recipient is a Linux/pine user, they'll find themselves staring at a self-executing bash script that's has just allocated 1 petabyte of memory and crashed the system (or worse). Either that or the next mass email virus will only damage Linux systems. I can just see Bill Gates assigning some junior programmer that very task. Be afraid. Be very afraid. -- A speech given at the First Annual Connecticut Conspiracy] Convention (ConConCon) by an anonymous creature said to be "wearing what appeared to be a tuxedo". | |
| Security Holes Found In Microsoft Easter Eggs REDMOND, WA -- It's damage control time for the Microsoft Marketing Machine. Not only have exploits been found in IE, Outlook, and even the Dancing Paper Clip, but now holes have been uncovered in Excel's Flight Simulator and Word's pinball game. "If you enter Excel 97's flight simulator and then hit the F1, X, and SysRq keys while reading a file from Drive A:, you automatically gain Administrator rights on Windows NT," explained the security expert who first discovered the problem. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg." Office 97 and 2000 both contain two hidden DLLs, billrulez.dll and eastereggs.dll, that are marked as "Safe for scripting" but are not. Arbitrary Visual BASIC code can be executed using these files. More disturbing, however, are the undocumented API calls "ChangeAllPasswordsToDefault", "OpenBackDoor", "InitiateBlueScreenNow", and "UploadRegistryToMicrosoft" within easter~1.dll. Microsoft spokesdroids have already hailed the problem as "an insignificant byproduct of Microsoft innovation." | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#1) Re-Inventing the Wheel Our journey through the history of Linux begins ca. 28000 B.C. when a large all-powerful company called MoogaSoft monopolized the wheel-making industry. As founder of the company, Billga Googagates (rumored to be the distant ancestor of Bill Gates) was the wealthiest man in the known world, owning several large rock huts, an extravagant collection of artwork (cave paintings), and a whole army of servants and soldiers. MoogaSoft's unfair business practices were irritating, but users were unable to do anything about them, lest they be clubbed to death by MoogaSoft's army. Nevertheless, one small group of hobbyists finally got fed up and starting hacking their own wheels out of solid rock. Their spirit of cooperation led to better and better wheels that eventually outperformed MoogaSoft offerings. MoogaSoft tried desperately to stop the hobbyists -- as shown by the recently unearthed "Ooga! Document" -- but failed. Ironically, Billga Googagates was killed shortly afterwards when one his own 900-pound wheels crushed him. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#2) Hammurabi's Open-Source Code Hammurabi became king of Babylonia around 1750BC. Under his reign, a sophisticated legal code developed; Version 1, containing 282 clauses, was carved into a large rock column open to the public. However, the code contained several errors (Hammurabi must have been drunk), which numerous citizens demanded be fixed. One particularly brave Babylonian submitted to the king's court a stack of cloth patches that, when affixed to the column, would cover up and correct the errors. With the king's approval, these patches were applied to the legal code; within a month a new corrected rock column (Version 2.0) was officially announced. While future kings never embraced this idea (who wanted to admit they made a mistake?), the concept of submitting patches to fix problems is now taken for granted in modern times. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#3) Lawyers Unite Humanity faced a tremendous setback ca. 1100 A.D., when the first law school was established in Bologna. Ironically, the free exchange of ideas at the law school spurred the law students to invent new ways (patents, trademarks, copyrights) to stifle the free exchange of ideas in other industries. If, at some point in the future, you happen upon a time machine, we here at Humorix (and, indeed, the whole world) implore you to travel back to 1100, track down a law teacher called Irnerius, and prevent him from founding his school using whatever means necessary. Your contribution to humanity will truly make the world (in an alternate timeline) a better place. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#4) Walls & Windows Most people don't realize that many of the technological innovations taken for granted in the 20th Century date back centuries ago. The concept of a network "firewall", for instance, is a product of the Great Wall of China, a crude attempt to keep raging forest fires out of Chinese territory. It was soon discovered that the Wall also kept Asian intruders ("steppe kiddies") out, just as modern-day firewalls keep network intruders ("script kiddies") out. Meanwhile, modern terminology for graphical user interfaces originated from Pre-Columbian peoples in Central and South America. These natives would drag-and-drop icons (sculptures of the gods) into vast pits of certain gooey substances during a ritual in which "mice" (musical instruments that made a strange clicking sound) were played to an eerie beat. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#5) English Flame War The idea behind Slashdot-style discussions is not new; it dates back to London in 1699. A newspaper that regularly printed Letters To The Editor sparked a heated debate over the question, "When would the 18th Century actually begin, 1700 or 1701?" The controversy quickly became a matter of pride; learned aristocrats argued for the correct date, 1701, while others maintained that it was really 1700. Another sizable third of participants asked, "Who cares?" Ordinarily such a trivial matter would have died down, except that one 1700er, fed up with the snobbest 1701 rhetoric of the educated class, tracked down one letter-writer and hurled a flaming log into his manor house in spite. The resulting fire was quickly doused, but the practice known as the "flame war" had been born. More flames were exchanged between other 1700ers and 1701ers for several days, until the Monarch sent out royal troops to end the flamage. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#6) California Goldrush Now we skip ahead to California in 1849, when the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill set the stage for countless prospectors (Fortyniners) to travel West in the hopes to get-rich-quick by finding gold in them thar hills. What's the connection with Linux, you ask? Well, the same thing happened exactly 150 years later, in 1999. The discovery of Venture Capital at Red Hat set the stage for countless investors (Ninetyniners) to travel West in the hopes to get-rich-quick by finding hot IPOs in them thar Linux companies. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#7) The Rise of Geeks The late 19th Century saw the rise and fall of "geeks", wild carnival performers who bit the heads off live chickens. This vocal minority, outcast from mainstream society, clamored for respect, but failed. Their de facto spokesman, Tom Splatz, tried to expose America to their plight in his 312-page book, "Geeks". In the book Splatz documented the life of two Idahoan geeks with no social life as they made a meager living traveling the Pacific Northwest in circuses. While Splatz's masterpiece was a commercial failure, the book did set a world record for using the term "geek" a total of 6,143 times. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#10) The AnyQuack Computer One electronic machine, Colossus, was used by the British in World War II to decode Nazi transmissions. The code-breakers were quite successful in their mission, except for the tiny detail that nobody knew how to read German. They had decoded unreadable messages into... unreadable messages. Two years later in 1945, a group of professors and students at the Univ. of Pennsylvania were discussing computing theory. An argument ensued, in which one professor yelled, "Any quack can build an electronic computer! The real challenge is building one that doesn't crash every five minutes." One graduate student, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., responded, "I'm any quack! I'll take you up on that challenge. I'll build a device that can calculate 1,000 digits of pi in one hour... without crashing!" Several professors laughed; "Such high-speed calculations are beyond our level of technology." Eckert and his friends did build such a device. As a joke, he called the machine "AnyQuack", which eventually became ENIAC -- ENIAC's Not Intended As Crashware, the first known example of a self-referential acronym. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#12) A note from Bill Gates' second grade teacher: Billy has been having some trouble behaving in class lately... Last Monday he horded all of the crayons and refused to share, saying that he needed all 160 colors to maximize his 'innovation'. He then proceeded to sell little pieces of paper ("End-User License Agreement for Crayons" he called them) granting his classmates the 'non-transferable right' to use the crayons on a limited time basis in exchange for their lunch money... When I tried to stop Billy, he kept harping about his right to innovate and how my interference violated basic notions of free-market capitalism. "Holding a monopoly is not illegal," he rebutted. I chastised him for talking back, and then I took away the box of crayons so others could share them... angrily, he then pointed to a drawing of his hanging on the wall and yelled, "That's my picture! You don't have the right to present my copyrighted material in a public exhibition without my permission! You're pirating my intellectual property. Pirate! Pirate! Pirate!" I developed a headache that day that even the maximum dosage of Aspirin wasn't able to handle. And then on Tuesday, he conned several students out of their milk money by convincing them to play three-card Monty... | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#13) Wanted: Eunuchs programmers Everything you know about the creation of the Unix operating system is wrong. We have uncovered the truth: Unix was a conspiracy hatched by Ritchie and Thompson to thwart the AT&T monopoly that they worked for. The system, code-named EUNUCHS (Electronic UNtrustworthy User-Condemning Horrible System), was horribly conceived, just as they had planned. The OS, quickly renamed to a more respectable "Unix", was adopted first by Ma Bell's Patent Department and then by the rest of the monopoly. AT&T saw an inexpensive, multi-user, portable operating system that it had all rights to; the authors, however, saw a horrible, multi-crashing system that the Evil Ma Bell Empire would become hopelessly dependent on. AT&T would go bankrupt trying to maintain the system and eventually collapse. That didn't happen. Ritchie and Thompson were too talented to create a crappy operating system; no matter how hard they tried the system was too good. Their last ditch effort to sabotage the system by recoding it obfuscated C was unsuccessful. Before long Unix spread outside of Bell Labs and their conspiracy collapsed. | |
| 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. | |
| 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. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#17) If only Gary had been sober When Micro-soft moved to Seattle in 1979, most of its revenue came from sales of BASIC, a horrible language so dependant on GOTOs that spaghetti looked more orderly than its code did. (BASIC has ruined more promising programmers than anything else, prompting its original inventor Dartmouth University to issue a public apology in 1986.) However, by 1981 BASIC hit the backburner to what is now considered the luckiest break in the history of computing: MS-DOS. (We use the term "break" because MS-DOS was and always will be broken.) IBM was developing a 16-bit "personal computer" and desperately needed an OS to drive it. Their first choice was Gary Kildall's CP/M, but IBM never struck a deal with him. We've discovered the true reason: Kildall was drunk at the time the IBM representatives went to talk with him. A sober man would not have insulted the reps, calling their employer an "Incredibly Bad Monopoly" and referring to their new IBM-PC as an "Idealistically Backwards Microcomputer for People without Clues". Needless to say, Gary "I Lost The Deal Of The Century" Kildall was not sober. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#22) RMS had a horrible, terrible dream set in 2020 in which all of society was held captive by copyright law. In particular, everyone's brain waves were monitored by the US Dept. of Copyrights. If your thoughts referenced a copyrighted idea, you had to pay a royalty. To make it worse, a handful of corporations held fully 99.9% of all intellectual property rights. Coincidentally, Bill Gates experienced a similar dream that same night. To him, however, it was not a horrible, terrible nightmare, but a wonderful utopian vision. The thought of lemmings... er, customers paying a royalty everytime they hummed a copyrighted song in their head or remembered a passage in a book was simply too marvelous for the budding monopolist. RMS, waking up from his nightmare, vowed to fight the oncoming Copyright Nightmare. The GNU Project was born. His plan called for a kernel, compiler, editor, and other tools. Unfortunately, RMS became bogged down with Emacs that the kernel, HURD, was shoved on the back burner. Built with LISP (Lots of Incomprehensible Statements with Parentheses), Emacs became bloated in a way no non-Microsoft program ever has. Indeed, for a short while RMS pretended that Emacs really was the GNU OS kernel. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#23) Linus Torvalds certainly wasn't the only person to create their own operating system from scratch. Other people working from their leaky basements did create their own systems and now they are sick that they didn't become an Alpha Geek like Torvalds or a Beta Geek like Alan Cox. Linus had one advantage not many else did: Internet access. The world was full of half-implemented-Unix-kernels at the time, but they were sitting isolated on some hacker's hard drive, destined to be destroyed by a hard drive crash. Thankfully that never happened to Linux, mostly because everyone with Net access could download a copy instead of paying shipping charges to receive the code on a huge stack of unreliable floppy disks. Indeed, buried deep within a landfill in Lansing, Michigan sits a stack of still-readable 5-1/4 floppies containing the only known copy of "Windows Killer", a fully functional Unix kernel so elegant, so efficient, so easy-to-use that Ken Thompson himself would be jealous of its design. Unfortunately the author's mother threw out the stack of floppies in a bout of spring cleaning. The 14 year old author's talents were lost forever as his parents sent him to Law School. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#24) Linus Torvalds quotes from his interview in "LinuxNews" (October 1992): "I doubt Linux will be here to stay, and maybe Hurd is the wave of the future (and maybe not)..." "I'm most certainly going to continue to support it, until it either dies out or merges with something else. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll make weekly patches for the rest of my life, but hopefully they won't be needed as much when things stabilize." [If only he knew what he was getting into.] "World domination? No, I'm not interested in that. Galactic domination, on the other hand..." "Several people have already wondered if Linux should adopt a logo or mascot. Somebody even suggested a penguin for some strange reason, which I don't particularly like: how is a flightless bird supposed to represent an operating system? Well, it might work okay for Microsoft or even Minix..." "I would give Andy Tanenbaum a big fat 'F'." | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#25) By the mid-1990's the Linux community was burgeoning as countless geeks fled Redmond monopolistic oppression, Armonk cluelessness, and Cupertino click-and-drool reality distortion fields. By late 1991 there was an informal Linux User Group in Finland, although its primary focus was Linux advocacy, not drinking beer and telling Microsoft jokes as most do today. Kernel development continued at a steady clip, with more and more people joining in and hoping that their patches would be accepted by the Benevolent Dictator himself. To have a patch accepted by Linus was like winning the Nobel Prize, but to face rejection was like being rejected from Clown College. The reputation game certainly sparked some flame wars. One of the most memorable crisis was over the behavior of the delete and backspace keys. A certain faction of hackers wanted the Backspace key to actually backspace and the Delete key to actually delete. Linus wasn't too keen on the proposed changes; "It Works For Me(tm)" is all he said. Some observers now think Linus was pulling rank to get back at the unknown hacker who managed to slip a patch by him that replaced the "Kernel panic" error with "Kernel panic: Linus probably fscked it all up again". | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#26) On the surface, Transmeta was a secretive startup that hired Linus Torvalds in 1996 as their Alpha Geek to help develop some kind of microprocessor. Linus, everyone found out later, was actually hired as part of a low-budget yet high-yield publicity stunt. While other dotcoms were burning millions on glitzy marketing campaigns nobody remembers and Superbowl ads displayed while jocks went to the bathroom, Transmeta was spending only pocket change on marketing. Most of that pocket change went towards hosting the Transmeta website (the one that wasn't there yet) which, incidentally, contained more original content and received more visitors than the typical dotcom portal. Microsoft relies on vaporware and certain ahem stipends given to journalists in order to generate buzz and hype for new products, but Transmeta only needed Non-Disclosure Agreements and the Personality Cult of Linus to build up its buzz. When the secret was finally unveiled, the Slashdot crowd was all excited about low-power mobile processors and code-morphing algorithms -- for a couple days. Then everyone yawned and went back to playing Quake. It's still not entirely clear when Transmeta is actually supposed to start selling something. | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#27) Microsoft's position as the 5,000 pound gorilla of the computer industry didn't change during the 1990's. Indeed, this gorilla got even more bloated with every passing Windows release. Bill Gates' business strategy was simple: 1. Pre-announce vaporous product. 2. Hire monkeys (low-paid temps) to cruft something together in VB 3. It it compiles, ship it. 4. Launch marketing campaign for new product showcasing MS "innovation". 5. Repeat (GOTO 1). With such a plan Microsoft couldn't fail. That is, unless some external force popped up and ruined everything. Such as Linux and the Internet perhaps. Both of these developments were well-known to Bill Gates in the early and mid 1990's (a company as large as Microsoft can afford a decent spy network, after all). He just considered both to be mere fads that would go away when Microsoft announced some new innovation, like PDAs -- Personal Desktop Agents (i.e. Bob and Clippit). | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#28) Free, Open, Libre, Whatever Software Eric S. Raymond's now famous paper, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", set the stage for the lucrative business of giving software away. In CatB, ESR likened the software industry to an anarchistic bazaar, with each vendor looking out for himself, trying to hoodwink customers and fellow vendors. The produce vendor (i.e. Apple), for instance, felt no need to cooperate with the crystal-ball seller (Oracle) or the con artist hocking miracle drugs (Microsoft). Each kept their property and trade secrets to themselves, hoping to gain an edge and make money fast. "With enough eyeballs, all bug-ridden software programs are marketable," ESR observed. ESR contrasted the "caveat emptor" Bazaar to an idealistic Cathedral model used by free software developers. European cathedrals of medieval days were built block-by-block with extensive volunteer manpower from the surrounding community. Such projects were "open" in the sense that everybody could see their progress, and interested people could wander inside and offer comments or praise about construction methods. "Those medieval cathedrals are still standing," ESR mused. "But bazaars built in the 14th Century are long gone, a victim of their inferior nature." | |
| Brief History Of Linux (#29) "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is credited by many (especially ESR himself) as the reason Netscape announced January 22, 1998 the release of the Mozilla source code. In addition, Rob Malda of Slashdot has also received praise because he had recently published an editorial ("Give us the damn source code so we can fix Netscape's problems ourselves!") Of course, historians now know the true reason behind the landmark decision: Netscape engineers were scared to death that a large multi-national corporation would acquire them and crush Mozilla. Which indeed did happen much later, although everybody thought the conqueror would be Microsoft, not AOL (America's Online Lusers). The Netscape announcement prompted a strategy session among Linux bigwigs on February 3rd. They decided a new term to replace 'free software' was needed; some rejected suggestions included "Free Source", "Ajar Source", "World Domination Source", "bong-ware" (Bong's Obviously Not GNU), and "Nude Source". We can thank Chris Peterson for coining "Open Source", which became the adopted term and later sparked the ugly "Free Software vs. Open Source", "Raymond vs. Stallman" flame-a-thons. | |
| Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Microsoft Shareholder's Children? The Evil Monopoly will soon be a duopoly of MICROS~1 and MICROS~2 now that Judge Jackson has made his ruling. Geeks everywhere are shedding tears of joy, while Microsoft investors are shedding real tears. But not everybody is ecstatic about the ruling. "It dawned on me today that if Microsoft is broken up, we won't have anyone to bash anymore. We can have that," said Rob Graustein, the founder of the new "Save Microsoft Now! Campaign". Rob continued, "I know what you're thinking! I have not been assimilated... er, hired... by Microsoft. I'm not crazy. I haven't been paid off. My life as a geek revolves around bashing Microsoft. I mean, I own the world's largest collection of anti-Microsoft T-shirts and underwear. It's time to take a stand against the elimination of Geek Enemy #1." Most observers agree that Mr. Graustein's brain has gone 404. "This guy is nuts! Support Microsoft? I can't believe I'm hearing this. Even fake news sites couldn't make up this kind of insanity." | |
| Anonymous Noncoward writes, "For my Economics 101 class, I have to pretend to be Bill Gates and write an editorial defending Microsoft against anti-trust charges, citing economic principles. To complete such an assignment violates every moral fiber of my body. What should I do?" The Oracle responds: Well, it seems that you have to make a decision among two choices. You can blow off the assignment, thus forcing you to fail EC101, lowering your GPA below the required minimum to keep your scholarship, causing you to drop out of college and work at McDonalds all your life. Or you can write a paper that's positive towards Microsoft and make an 'A'. This seems like a no-brainer to me; I'd choose the first option without hesitation -- a burger flipper has far more dignity and self-respect than somebody who utters a positive statement about the Evil Empire. | |
| DeCSS T-Shirt Used To Commit Piracy! College student Cody Potter stunned the world yesterday when he used a T-shirt with the printed DeCSS source code to illegally copy a DVD of "Star Trek XXI: We Promise This Is The Last One". Well, it wasn't the actual DeCSS source code. The shirt contained a Perl script which spits out a bash shell script which produces a GW-BASIC program which outputs a ROT13-encoded Python script that manufactures a Pig-Latin-encoded Java program that finally produces the real DeCSS C source code when executed. | |
| Look Out! It's Microsoft Outlook An old maxim in the Unix community states, "All programs expand until they can read mail... except Microsoft Outlook." Well, that's no longer true. By taking advantage of loopholes in several undocumented APIs, a team of geeks were able to transform Outlook from a virus-delivery system into an actual mail client. "It was quite a feat to accomplish this," said one of the geeks. "I mean, the rat's nest that is the Windows API can be used to frighten small children... or adults. And the frequency by which Outlook exploits are discovered is directly proportional to the number of times Bill Gates uses the word 'innovation'. But this is the first time somebody has discovered a beneficial exploit." Microsoft has vowed to release a patch to fix the uncovered security flaws. "We simply cannot tolerate unauthorized reverse engineering and hacking of our innovative solutions. Our Security Response Team will pull an all-nighter to eliminate these known issues." | |
| The Linux House 1.01 Mr. Billy O'Nair knows how to build a house. The 24 year old retired dotcom billionaire has constructed the "Linux House 1.01", a bachelor pad built in the shape of Tux Penguin. This geek haven features a 256 foot long computer room, along with other smaller, lesser important rooms (kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc.). Explained O'Nair, "Why do architects waste a bunch of space on formal living rooms, family rooms, dining rooms, closets, foyers, and hallways that are rarely used? In my 'Linux House', the majority of square footage is devoted to the two rooms that I myself use the most: a computer room and a procrastination room." ...The Linux House features a LAN (Liquor Acquisition Network) that delivers alcohol or caffeinated beverages to any room in the house by way of pipes that run through the ceiling. 'PANIC' buttons scattered throughout the house activate the RAM System (Random Access Munchies), in which candy bars and other snacks are immediately delivered by FPM (Fast Pretzel Mode) and EDO (Extended Delicacy Output) pneumatic tubes. | |
| This nation is sinking into the quicksand of the Paperwork Age, a postmodern world in which judges issue meta-injuctions against other judges who issue injuctions against lawyers who file lawsuits every 3.2 minutes. It's an age where lawyers design ballots forms and then proceed to argue over how to count them. The United States has bluescreened. A fatal exception error occured on Election Night, and now all of our unsaved work has been lost. -- Jon Splatz, Humorix's Pundit and Social Commentator, ranting about the 2000 US Presidential Election From Hell and the dreaded "Lawyerclysm" | |
| The Socioeconomic Group Formerly Known As "Geeks" Nobody wants to be called a "geek" anymore. The label, once worn proudly by members of the tech community as a symbol of their separation from mainstream society, is now suddenly out of style. It all started last week when some clueless PR firm released a list of the "Top 100 Geeks", including such anti-geeks as Bill Gates, Janet Reno, Paul Allen, and Jeff "One-Click" Bezos. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that businessmen in South Korea are striving for the "Geek Chic" image by dressing like Bill Gates. Now that the Chief Bloatware Architect has been identified as a "geek", everybody else has bailed ship. Still undecided on a new label, the community now calls itself the S.E.G.K.A.G. (SocioEconomic Group formerly Known As Geeks). "I cannot tolerate belonging to the same subculture as Bill Gates!" explained one former geek. "If that manifestation of evil is called a 'geek', then so be it. I am now officially a nerd." | |
| Microsoft Fights Linux -- By Contributing Kernel Patches If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... and then destory 'em. That seems to be the new Microsoft strategy for dealing with Linux. Instead of fighting a FUD or patent war, Microsoft operatives are doing something totally out of character: they are contributing patches for the Linux kernel and other programs. Don't worry, Microsoft is still evil. It's all part of a massive denial of service attack against Linus Torvalds designed to bring kernel development to a standstill. By sending over 10,000 patches per minute by email to Linus and other top kernel hackers, Microsoft has exposed Linux's Achilles heel. "I can't believe this is happening!" one stressed-out kernel hacker said at a press conference on IRC. "If this goes on, we may have to conduct kernel development over some other network protocol, like avian carriers... Aw crap, there's smoke coming from my email server! Ahh... it can't handle the load!" At this point the developer cut off and we haven't heard from him since. At first Linus was unsure where the deluge of patches was coming from. But when he saw one patch to replace kernel panics with bluescreens, the source was pretty obvious. "Oh, and the fact that all of the patches are covered by Microsoft's GPL [Grossly Private License] was a dead giveaway, too," | |
| Microsoft Website Crashes, World Does Not Come To An End REDMOND, WA -- In a crushing blow to Bill Gates' ego, world civilization did not collapse when the Microsoft website was offline for an extended period last week. During the anti-trust trial, Microsoft's lawyers repeatedly warned that if the company was broken up or dealt any other penalty (no matter how trivial), it would not only cost the tech industry billions of dollars, but it could decimate the entire world economy and even bring about the start of World War III. At the risk of sounding like a biased, slanted, overzealous journalist, let me just say: Yeah, right! The stunning realization that the world does not revolve around Redmond (yet) has plunged many Microsoft executives into shock. "But microsoft.com is the single most important website in the world! And Microsoft is the single most important company in the Universe! This can't be happening! Why isn't civilization teetering on the edge right now?" said one depressed President Of Executive Vice. | |
| Humorix's Vast Spy Network(tm) has discovered that the White House website is only 124 clicks away from an illegal, pirated copy of the upcoming movie, "Star Trek XXIII: The Search For Merchandising Opportunities". Clearly, the President's webmaster is violating the DMCA, and we urge that this injustice be dealt with, just as soon as we finish downloading a copy. | |
| It BASICally Sucks Older versions of MS-DOS came with bundled programming languages including GW-BASIC and QBasic. Windows XP continues the Microsoft tradition of ruining budding programmers with horrible programming tools by including XPBasic, an interpreted language in which all of the customary BASIC keywords have been replaced with advertising slogans. Nike has paid a handsome amount to Microsoft for "keyword rights". Instead of saying PRINT "HELLO WORLD", XPBasic programmers must now type JUST DO IT "HELLO WORLD". Other common XPBasic statements include WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GOTO 20 TODAY? and DIM ARRAY(1 TO 20) AS INTEGER BROUGHT TO YOU BY VERIZON WIRELESS. -- from Humorix's review of Windows XP (eXceptionally Pathetic) | |
| Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Linus Torvalds SILLYCON VALLEY -- Nearly 130 former system administrators have filed suit against Linus Torvalds in which they claim Linux cost them their jobs. Recently several companies migrated from Windows to Linux, increasing their productivity but decreasing the need for a large staff of tech workers, prompting a wave of layoffs. "The good old days when it required five full-time system administrators to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server are history, all because of that cancer known as Linux," explained the lead litigant in the lawsuit. "It all started two years ago when some pimply-faced idiot down in Accounting decided to smuggle in a Linux box to automate some of his work. Before long every tech-savvy person in Accounting, Billing, and Sales was secretly using Linux." "That's when the troubles started. Productivity soared. Downtime was limited to an average of three milliseconds per day. Macro viruses ceased to spread. It was horrible! The entire IT staff was replaced by one part-time bearded wonder, who was able to administrate the entire Linux network! Due to the layoffs, I'm now sitting in a homeless shelter with little hope to find work. Nobody wants to hire an MCSE anymore!" | |
| 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. | |
| The Humorix Oracle explains how to get a job at a major corporation: 1. Find an exploit in Microsoft IIS or another buggy Microsoft product to which large corporations rarely apply security patches. 2. Create a virus or worm that takes advantage of this exploit and then propogates itself by selecting IP numbers at random and then trying to infect those machines. 3. Keep an eye on your own website's server logs. When your virus starts propogating, your server will be hit with thousands of attacks from other infected systems trying to spread the virus to your machine. 4. Make a list of the IP numbers of all of the infected machines. 5. Perform a reverse DNS lookup on these IP numbers. 6. Make a note of all of the Fortune 500 companies that appear on the list of infected domains. 7. Send your resume to these companies and request an interview for a system administrator position. These companies are hiring -- whether they realize it or not. 8. Use your new salary to hire a good defense lawyer when the FBI comes knocking. | |
| 8GB Ought To Be Enough For Anybody REDMOND, WA -- In a shocking move, Microsoft has revealed that the new Xbox console will only contain an 8 gigabyte hard drive. This implies that the machines will use a version of the Windows operating system that fits within only 8GB. Squeezing Windows into such a small footprint must certainly be one of the greatest technological achievements ever crafted by Microsoft's Research & Assimilation Department. "I can't believe it," said one industry observer who always happens to show up when this Humorix reporter needs to quote somebody. "To think that they were able to strip away the easter egg flight simulators, the multi-gigabyte yet content-free Help files, and all of the other crap that comes bundled with Windows is simply remarkable. I don't even want to think about all of the manpower, blood, sweat, and tears required to distill Windows into only 8 gigabytes of bare essentials. Wow!" Hard drive manufacturers are deeply disturbed over the news. Explained one PR flack at Eastern Analog, "We depend on Microsoft to continually produce bloated software that becomes larger and larger with each passing day. We can't sell huge 100GB drives if Microsoft Windows only occupies a measly 8 gigs! They will never buy a new drive if Microsoft doesn't force them!" | |
| Press Release -- For Immediate Release Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA ...Virtually all version of Linux (and Unix) contain a security hole that allows unauthorized users to gain complete control over the machine. By simply typing "root" at the login prompt and supplying a password from a limited number of possibilities, a malicious user can easily gain administrator privileges. This hole can be breached in seconds with only a dozen or so keystrokes... We suspect this issue has been known to Red Hat and other Linux distributors for years and they have refused to acknowlege its existence or supply a patch preventing users from exploiting the "root" login loophole... By ignoring the problem, the Linux community has proven that installing Linux is a dangerous proposition that could get you fired. We would like to point out that Windows XP does not suffer from this gaping hole... Tests conducted by both Ziff-Davis and Mindcraft prove that Windows XP is indeed the most secure operating system ever produced... | |
| NEW YORK -- Publishers from all across the country met this week at the first annual Book Publishers Assocation of America (BPAA) meeting. Many of the booths on the showroom floor were devoted to the single most important issue facing the publishing industry: fighting copyright violations. From "End Reader License Agreements" to age-decaying ink, the anti-copying market has exploded into a multi-million dollar enterprise. "How can authors and publishers hope to make ends meet when the country is rapidly filling with evil libraries that distribute our products for free to the general public?" asked the chairman of the BPAA during his keynote address. "That blasted Andrew Carnegie is spending all kinds of his own ill-gotten money to open libraries in cities nationwide. He calls it charity. I call it anti-competitive business practices hoping to bankrupt the entire publishing industry. We must fight these anti-profit, pro-copying librarians and put an end to this scourge!" -- from the February 4, 1895 edition of the New York Democrat-Republican | |
| Microsoft Employees Go On Strike, Demand Reduced Salaries REDMOND, WA -- Several hundred programmers walked off their jobs at Microsoft Headquarters on Friday to protest their shoddy public image. "My friends all think I'm a servant of Satan because I get my paycheck from Microsoft," explained Microserf Eric Eshleman. "If I didn't make so much money, I'd have more of a backbone to shout 'No!' when my supervisor demands that I include some new virus-delivery feature in Outlook." The striking programmers demand salary cuts, less benefits, and zero stock options. Their labor union, the Brotherhood Of Programmers Sick Of Being Called Evil, hopes to get some face time with Microsoft executives and touch base on reaching a proactive agreement leveraging the latest innovatives in PR to produce a synergistic worldwide buzzword-enhanced advertising campaign that showcases Microsoft associates as enlightened engineers instead of morally bankrupt bastards bent on world domination. Earlier today, about 150 strikers formed a picket line near the front entrance to Bill Gates' mansion. They carried signs saying "Hell no we're not going to Hell", "I want to be able to sleep at night", "Why does the public hate us so much?" and "I'm fed up with ethical dilemmas". | |
| Severe Acronym Shortage Cripples Computer Industry SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (SVC) -- According to a recent study by the Blartner Group, 99.5% of all possible five letter combinations have already been appropriated for computer industry acronyms. The impending shortage of 5LC's is casting a dark shadow over the industry, which relies heavily on short, easy-to-remember acronyms for everything. "Acronym namespace collisions (ANCs) are increasing at a fantastic rate and threaten the very fabric of the computing world," explained one ZD pundit. "For example, when somebody talks about XP, I don't know whether they mean eXtreme Programming or Microsoft's eXceptionally Pathetic operating system. We need to find a solution now or chaos will result." Leaders of several SVC companies have floated the idea of an "industry-wide acronym conservation protocol" (IWACP -- one of the few 5LCs not already appropriated). Explained Bob Smith, CTO of IBM, "If companies would voluntarily limit the creation of new acronyms while recycling outdated names, we could reduce much of the pollution within the acronym namespace ourselves. The last thing we want is for Congress to get involved and try to impose a solution for this SAS (Severe Acronym Shortage) that would likely only create many new acronyms in the process." | |
| 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. | |
| Mass Exodus From Hollywood During the past week, over 150 Hollywood actors, musicians, writers, directors, and key grips have quit their day jobs and moved to the Midwest to engage in quieter occupations such as gardening or accounting. All of the these people cite piracy as the reason for giving up their careers. "I simply can't sit by and let my hard work be stolen by some snot nosed punk over the Internet," explained millionaire movie director Steve Bergospiel. "There's absolutely no incentive to create movies if they're going to be transmitted at the speed of light by thousands of infringers. Such criminal acts personally cost me hundreds -- no, thousands -- of dollars. I can't take that kind of fear and abuse anymore." MPAA President Pei Pervue considers the exodus to be proof that Hollywood is waking up to the fact that they are being "held hostage" by copyright infringers. "Without copyright protection and government-backed monopolies on intellectual property, these's absolutely no reason to engage in the creative process. Now the Internet, with its click-and-pirate technology, makes it easy for anybody to flout the law and become a copyright terrorist. With the scales tipped so much in favor of criminals, it's no wonder some of Hollywood's elite have thrown in the towel. What a shame." | |
| A city is a large community where people are lonesome together -- Herbert Prochnow | |
| A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselvse, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul. -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces" | |
| A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. -- George Eliot | |
| A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery | |
| "...A strange enigma is man!" "Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested. "Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarked that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician." -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" | |
| All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey | |
| An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his usual pledge to the United Way Campaign. "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but I've already paid them half of it." "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!" | |
| Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. -- George Eliot | |
| Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein | |
| Conformity is the refuge of the unimaginative. | |
| Courage is fear that has said its prayers. | |
| Courage is grace under pressure. | |
| Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| Don't change the reason, just change the excuses! -- Joe Cointment | |
| 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" | |
| Every man is apt to form his notions of things difficult to be apprehended, or less familiar, from their analogy to things which are more familiar. Thus, if a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other subject; it is well known, that the language and the notions proper to his own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured by the rules of navigation: and if he should take it into his head to philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted, but he would draw his notions from the fabric of the ship, and would find in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass. -- Thomas Reid, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind", 1764 | |
| Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well as destroy the object on which it is poured. | |
| Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage | |
| I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present". When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or semed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | |
| "I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the speed of light." -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk | |
| I treasure this strange combination found in very few persons: a fierce desire for life as well as a lucid perception of the ultimate futility of the quest. -- Madeleine Gobeil | |
| I waited and waited and when no message came I knew it must be from you. | |
| If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport. -- George Winters | |
| If he should ever change his faith, it'll be because he no longer thinks he's God. | |
| "If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage." | |
| If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge | |
| If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior. -- A.J. Liebling, "The Press" | |
| If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely. | |
| It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. -- George Santayana | |
| It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a proper judge of it. -- Oscar Wilde | |
| It is not good for a man to be without knowledge, and he who makes haste with his feet misses his way. -- Proverbs 19:2 | |
| It takes a special kind of courage to face what we all have to face. | |
| Lack of money is the root of all evil. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| Laughter is the closest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge | |
| Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage. -- Publilius Syrus | |
| Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed. -- Charles Baudelaire | |
| Love your neighbour, yet don't pull down your hedge. -- Benjamin Franklin | |
| Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. -- Lily Tomlin | |
| Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful hearing when age has further impaired his mind. -- Finley Peter Dunne | |
| Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured. For instance, the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally read. [...] The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time by the number of my breathings, of which there are 15 in a minute. They are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with 15 fingers successively. The counting is reserved for the fidgets. These observations should be confined to persons of middle age. Children are rarely still, while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes altogether. -- Francis Galton, 1909 | |
| 'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| Meekness is uncommon patience in planning a worthwhile revenge. | |
| Neither spread the germs of gossip nor encourage others to do so. | |
| O Lord, grant that we may always be right, for Thou knowest we will never change our minds. | |
| Oh this age! How tasteless and ill-bred it is. -- Gaius Valerius Catullus | |
| Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. | |
| Old age is always fifteen years old than I am. -- B. Baruch | |
| Old age is the harbor of all ills. -- Bion | |
| Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky | |
| Old age is too high a price to pay for maturity. | |
| One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's listening. -- Franklin P. Jones | |
| One of the large consolations for experiencing anything unpleasant is the knowledge that one can communicate it. -- Joyce Carol Oates | |
| One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer. -- George Gordon, Lord Byron | |
| Pelorat sighed. "I will never understand people." "There's nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. How would Seldon have worked out his Plan -- and I don't care how subtle his mathematics was -- if he didn't understand people; and how could he have done that if people weren't easy to understand? You show me someone who can't understand people and I'll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself -- no offense intended." -- Asimov, "Foundation's Edge" | |
| People don't change; they only become more so. | |
| People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them. | |
| Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. -- G.B. Shaw | |
| Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. -- Oscar Wilde, "The Importance of Being Earnest" | |
| Revenge is a form of nostalgia. | |
| Revenge is a meal best served cold. | |
| Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent. -- George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi" | |
| Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. | |
| Some people have parts that are so private they themselves have no knowledge of them. | |
| Surly to bed, surly to rise, makes you about average. | |
| The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal. -- Dr. Karl Menninger, "The Human Mind", 1930 | |
| The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded. -- George Orwell | |
| The average nutritional value of promises is roughly zero. | |
| The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just terrible. -- Jean Kerr | |
| The discerning person is always at a disadvantage. | |
| The distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by... the pollution of the language. -- Arne Tiselius | |
| The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb of innocence. To yield to its blandishments is so easy. The wrong, it seems, is venial... Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of adventurous youth. -- Benjamin Cardozo | |
| The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. -- P. Medawar | |
| The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable. -- Irving Howe | |
| The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. -- H.L. Mencken | |
| The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge and guilt. -- Elvis Costello | |
| The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| The sudden sight of me causes panic in the streets. They have yet to learn -- only the savage fears what he does not understand. -- The Silver Surfer | |
| There is nothing stranger in a strange land than the stranger who comes to visit. | |
| There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. | |
| Therefore it is necessary to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the cause. -- Machiavelli | |
| This generation doesn't have emotional baggage. We have emotional moving vans. -- Bruce Feirstein | |
| Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- George Santayana | |
| To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools. | |
| We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are free from great ones. -- La Rouchefoucauld | |
| When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or four years ago, he is a broad-minded man who has courage enough to change his mind with changing conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his promises. -- Franklin Adams | |
| While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does. | |
| You can't cross a large chasm in two small jumps. | |
| You don't have to explain something you never said. -- Calvin Coolidge | |
| You know what they say -- the sweetest word in the English language is revenge. -- Peter Beard | |
| You know you're in trouble when... (1) You've been at work for an hour before you notice that your skirt is caught in your pantyhose. Especially if you're a man. (2) Your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife. (3) Your income tax check bounces. (4) You put both contact lenses in the same eye. (5) Your wife says, "Good morning, Bill" and your name is George. (6) You wake up to the soothing sound of flowing water... the day after you bought a waterbed. (7) You go on your honeymoon to a remote little hotel and the desk clerk, bell hop, and manager have a "Welcome Back" party for your spouse. | |
| You know your apartment is small... when you can't know its position and velocity at the same time. you put your key in the lock and it breaks the window. you have to go outside to change your mind. you can vacuum the entire place using a single electrical outlet. | |
| You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?" -- George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" [No, it wasn't J.F. Kennedy. Ed.] | |
| You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. -- Joseph Conrad | |
| You're either part of the solution or part of the problem. -- Eldridge Cleaver | |
| 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" | |
| Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools. -- George Chapman | |
| Your Co-worker Could Be a Space Alien, Say Experts ...Here's How You Can Tell Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human -- but you can spot these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say experts. They listed 10 signs to watch for: (3) Bizarre sense of humor. Space aliens who don't understand earthly humor may laugh during a company training film or tell jokes that no one understands, said Steiger. (6) Misuses everyday items. "A space alien may use correction fluid to paint its nails," said Steiger. (8) Secretive about personal life-style and home. "An alien won't discuss details or talk about what it does at night or on weekends." (10) Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near certain high-tech hardware. "An alien may experience a mood change when a microwave oven is turned on," said Steiger. The experts pointed out that a co-worker would have to display most if not all of these traits before you can positively identify him as a space alien. -- National Enquirer, Michael Cassels, August, 1984. [I thought everybody laughed at company training films. Ed.] | |
| Youth -- not a time of life but a state of mind... a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. -- Robert F. Kennedy | |
| Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. -- Benjamin Disraeli, "Coningsby" | |
| Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long you are young. -- Samuel Ullman | |
| When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else. -- Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace" | |
| "I hope you will find the courage to keep on living despite the existence of this feature." - Richard Stallman | |
| "Since when has a dictator ever been benign? I hear all this libertarian garbage being spouted from the "linux community", and then have people apparently celebrate the existance of a dictatorship..." - Michael W. Zappe | |
| "Message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation. It may feel good, but you don't actually get anything DONE." - Linus Torvalds | |
| "The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants." - Richard B. Johnson | |
| "This, btw, is not something I would suggest you do in your living room. Getting a penguin to pee on demand is _messy_. We're talking yellow spots on the walls, on the ceiling, yea verily even behind the fridge. However. I would also advice against doing this outside - it may be a lot easier to clean up, but you're likely to get reported and arrested for public lewdness Never mind that you had a perfectly good explanation for it all." - Linus Torvalds on sprinkling holy penguin pee | |
| "You are welcome to your opinion. I've got this great bridge to sell you too." - Alan Cox to someone recommending the NVidia drivers | |
| Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote: > > Running with page aging convinces me that 2.2.19 we need to sort some > of the vm issues out badly, and make it faster than 2.4test 8) Ahh.. The challenge is out! You and me. Mano a mano. Linus | |
| "And I have to say that I absolutely despise the BSD people. They did sendfile() after both Linux and HP-UX had done it, and they must have known about both implementations. And they chose the HP-UX braindamage, and even brag about the fact that they were stupid and didn't understand TCP_CORK (they don't say so in those exact words, of course - they just show that they were stupid and clueless by the things they brag about)." - Linus Torvalds | |
| "> I am using the Intel PCI backplane with default etchlink/jumper > configuration and the EBSA285 configured as host bridge. I'd suggest that you check, double check, triple check, take a photo of the links and put it up on the web and get someone else to check all the link settings on the EBSA285 card." - Russell King on linux-arm-kernel | |
| > Is there an API or other means to determine what video card, namely the > chipset, that the user has installed on his machine? On a modern X86 machine use the PCI/AGP bus data. On a PS/2 use the MCA bus data. On nubus use the nubus probe data. On old style ISA bus PCs done a large pointy hat and spend several years reading arcane and forbidden scrolls - Alan Cox on hardware probing | |
| "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 | |
| David Brownell wrote: > AMD told me I'd need an NDA to learn their workaround, and I've not > pursued it. (Does anyone already know what kind of NDA they use?) It varies depending on the info. They may well be able to sort out a sane NDA with you. If they dont want to then I guess it would be best if the ohci driver printing a message explaining the component has an undocumented errata fix, gave AMD's phone number and refused to load.. - Alan Cox | |
| "The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants." - Richard B. Johnson on linux-kernel | |
| Richard B. Johnson wrote: > The 'C' language can order structure members anyway it wants. You are an idiot. - Rusty Russell on linux-kernel | |
| /* So there I am, in the middle of my `netfilter-is-wonderful' talk in Sydney, and someone asks `What happens if you try to enlarge a 64k packet here?'. I think I said something eloquent like `fuck'. */ - comment from net/ipc4/netfilter/ip_nat_ftp.c | |
| I retain the right to change my mind, as always. Le Linus e mobile. - Linus Torvalds | |
| Steve Underwood wrote: > Dave Miller wrote: > > alterity wrote: > > > Haven't seen a post for sometime from the usually prolific Mr Cox. > > > What's the gossip? > > > > They needed some help from him to position Mir for it's > > final descent. > > Strange. I thought his key skill was stopping things from crashing! This crash was inevitable, he's just making sure the disks get sync'd. - Dave Miller on linux-kernel | |
| Andries Brouwer wrote: > Linux is unreliable. > That is bad. Since your definition of reliability is a mathematical abstraction requiring infinite storage why don't you start by inventing infinitely large SDRAM chips, then get back to us ? - Alan Cox | |
| Dennis wrote: > whatever you do dont buy a gigabit card with a small buffer and 32bits. > 32bits isnt enough to do gigabit, even with a large buffer. Never underestimate what will come out of Taiwan in massive quantities :) - Jeff Garzik about gigabit ethernet cards on linux-kernel | |
| <tik-tok> Hi all, I'm having problems with my 2.2.19 kernel build I'm trying to create my ramdisk and I get the following error message "All your loopback devices are in use!" can anyone help? <phillips> All your loopback devices are belong to us! - Daniel Phillips on #kernelnewbies | |
| <klak> I need some help, I upgraded my kernel and on a reboot I get this error message kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k binfmt-464c, errno = 8 can anyone help? <spinoli> from /usr/include/asm/errno.h <spinoli> #define ENOEXEC 8 /* Exec format error */ <spinoli> not that that necessarily tells you much ;) - from #kernelnewbies | |
| Were they afraid that "e" being the most widely used letter in the English language was going to war out thir xpnsiv kyboards if thy usd it all th tim? - Mike A. Harris on linux-kernel | |
| Re-sending is always the right thing to do. Sometimes it takes a few times, and you can add a small exasperated message at the top by the third time ("Don't you love me any more?"). - Linus Torvalds about sending patches to him | |
| > ... but i could not found any source code or > information in Internet. How strange. The kernel source code is definitely on the internet, and definitely contains drivers that implement internal layering - nrdev, shaper, the sync cards, isdn - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
| Todays reading is from RFC990 in the book of Reynolds & Postel, page number 6 And the IETF spake thusly [...] - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
| This is a BP6 FAQ. Try increasing the voltage to your CPUs by .1V, or by taking the BP6 and introducing it to a hammer. Either should be an improvement. - Benjamian LaHaise not recommending the Abit BP6 motherboard on lkml | |
| I would suggest re-naming "rmbdd()". I _assume_ that "dd" stands for "data dependent", but quite frankly, "rmbdd" looks like the standard IBM "we lost every vowel ever invented" kind of assembly lanaguage to me. I'm sure that having programmed PPC assembly language, you find it very natural (IBM motto: "We found five vowels hiding in a corner, and we used them _all_ for the 'eieio' instruction so that we wouldn't have to use them anywhere else"). - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
| (IBM motto: "We found five vowels hiding in a corner, and we used them _all_ for the 'eieio' instruction so that we wouldn't have to use them anywhere else"). [...] (IBM motto: "If you can't read our assembly language, you must be borderline dyslexic, and we don't want you to mess with it anyway"). [...] (IBM motto: "TEN vowels? Don't you know vowels are scrd?") - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
| (But Intel has redefined the memory ordering so many times that they might redefine it in the future too and say that dependent loads are ok. I suspect most of the definitions are of the type "Oh, it used to be ok in the implementation even though it wasn't defined, and it turns out that Windows doesn't work if we change it, so we'll define darkness to be the new standard"..) - Linus Torvalds | |
| > In short, now you need filesystem versioning at a per-page level etc. *ding* *ding* *ding* we have a near winner. Remember, folks, Hurd had been started by people who not only don't understand UNIX, but detest it. ITS/TWENEX refugees. And semantics in question comes from there - they had "open and make sure that anyone who tries to modify will get a new version, leaving one we'd opened unchanged". - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
| From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Subject: Re: Yet another design for /proc. Or actually /kernel. > Here's my go at a new design for /proc. I designed it from a userland > point of view and tried not to drown myself into details. Did you have to change the subject line. It makes it harder to kill file when people keep doing that | |
| > ScanMail for Microsoft Exchange has detected virus-infected attachment(s). > Warning to sender. ScanMail detected a virus in an email attachment you sent. You are an idiot! You have deleted a correctly-written important shell-script. You, again, are an IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT, IDIOT, creep. - Richard B. Johnson on linux-kernel | |
| Having your own personal custom language dialect might be tempting but it is normally something only the lisp community do. - Alan Cox on the linux-kernel mailing list | |
| Using a cluster to hide the fact that the underlying systems crash regularly is an extremely dangerous way to manage a computing environment. - Matt Dillon in http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=153 | |
| indent does _not_ solve the problem of: * buggers who think that cpp is Just The Thing and produce turds that would make srb cringe in disgust. - Alexander Viro on coding style | |
| Sheesh... FreeBSD used to have a big advantage over Linux - relative lack of clueless advocates. What a pity that it's gone... - Al Viro on c.u.b.freebsd.misc | |
| Hey, considering that Ada has every single language feature ever imagined, and probably some that nobody reasonably _should_ have imagined, I'm not surprised. - Linus on the gcc mailing list | |
| Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other: High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one another. Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not. Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever. | |
| Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling. Not collecting treasures prevents stealing. Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart. The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies, by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones. If men lack knowledge and desire, then clever people will not try to interfere. If nothing is done, then all will be well. | |
| The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled. Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things! Blunt the sharpness, Untangle the knot, Soften the glare, Merge with dust. Oh, hidden deep but ever present! I do not know from whence it comes. It is the forefather of the gods. | |
| Heaven and Earth last forever. Why do heaven and Earth last forever? They are unborn, So ever living. The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead. He is detached, thus at one with all. Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment. | |
| Better to stop short than fill to the brim. Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt. Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it. Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow. Retire when the work is done. This is the way of heaven. | |
| The five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavors dull the taste. Racing and hunting madden the mind. Precious things lead one astray. Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. He lets go of that and chooses this. | |
| Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible. These three are indefinable; Therefore they are joined in one. From above it is not bright; From below it is not dark: An unbroken thread beyond description. It returns to nothingness. The form of the formless, The image of the imageless, It is called indefinable and beyond imagination. Stand before it and there is no beginning. Follow it and there is no end. Stay with the ancient Tao, Move with the present. Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao. | |
| The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive. The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable. Because it is unfathomable, All we can do is describe their appearance. Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream. Alert, like men aware of danger. Courteous, like visiting guests. Yielding like ice about to melt. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Hollow, like caves. Opaque, like muddy pools. Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action? Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment. Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change. | |
| The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone. The Tao is elusive and intangible. Oh, it is intangible and elusive, and yet within is image. Oh, it is elusive and intangible, and yet within is form. Oh, it is dim and dark, and yet within is essence. This essence is very real, and therein lies faith. From the very beginning until now its name has never been forgotten. Thus I perceive the creation. How do I know the ways of creation? Because of this. | |
| He who stands on tiptoe is not steady. He who strides cannot maintain the pace. He who makes a show is not enlightened. He who is self-righteous is not respected. He who boasts achieves nothing. He who brags will not endure. According to followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage." They do not bring happiness. therefore followers of the Tao avoid them. | |
| The heavy is the root of the light. The still is the master of unrest. Therefore the sage, traveling all day, Does not lose sight of his baggage. Though there are beautiful things to be seen, He remains unattached and calm. Why should the lord of ten thousand chariots act lightly in public? To be light is to lose one's root. To be restless is to lose one's control. | |
| A good walker leaves no tracks; A good speaker makes no slips; A good reckoner needs no tally. A good door needs no lock, Yet no one can open it. Good binding requires no knots, Yet no one can loosen it. Therefore the sage takes care of all men And abandons no one. He takes care of all things And abandons nothing. This is called "following the light." What is a good man? A teacher of a bad man. What is a bad man? A good man's charge. If the teacher is not respected, And the student not cared for, Confusion will arise, however clever one is. This is the crux of mystery. | |
| Know the strength of man, But keep a woman's care! Be the stream of the universe! Being the stream of the universe, Ever true and unswerving, Become as a little child once more. Know the white, But keep the black! Be an example to the world! Being an example to the world, Ever true and unwavering, Return to the infinite. Know honor, Yet keep humility. Be the valley of the universe! Being the valley of the universe, Ever true and resourceful, Return to the state of the uncarved block. When the block is carved, it becomes useful. When the sage uses it, he becomes the ruler. Thus, "A great tailor cuts little." | |
| Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; Sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency. | |
| Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao, Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe. For this would only cause resistance. Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed. Lean years follow in the wake of a great war. Just do what needs to be done. Never take advantage of power. Achieve results, But never glory in them. Achieve results, But never boast. Achieve results, But never be proud. Achieve results, Because this is the natural way. Achieve results, But not through violence. Force is followed by loss of strength. This is not the way of Tao. That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end. | |
| A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, And is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good, And is therefore not good. A truly good man does nothing, Yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, Yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion. Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao. It is the beginning of folly. Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface, On the fruit and not the flower. Therefore accept the one and reject the other. | |
| These things from ancient times arise from one: The sky is whole and clear. The earth is whole and firm. The spirit is whole and strong. The valley is whole and full. The ten thousand things are whole and alive. Kings and lords are whole, and the country is upright. All these are in virtue of wholeness. The clarity of the sky prevents its falling. The firmness of the earth prevents its splitting. The strength of the spirit prevents its being used up. The fullness of the valley prevents its running dry. The growth of the ten thousand things prevents their drying out. The leadership of kings and lords prevents the downfall of the country. Therefore the humble is the root of the noble. The low is the foundation of the high. Princes and lords consider themselves "orphaned", "widowed" and "worthless". Do they not depend on being humble? Too much success is not an advantage. Do not tinkle like jade Or clatter like stone chimes. | |
| The wise student hears of the Tao and practices it diligently. The average student hears of the Tao and gives it thought now and again. The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud. If there were no laughter, the Tao would not be what it is. Hence it is said: The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard; The highest Virtue seems empty; Great purity seems sullied; A wealth of Virtue seems inadequate; The strength of Virtue seems frail; Real Virtue seems unreal; The perfect square has no corners; Great talents ripen late; The highest notes are hard to hear; The greatest form has no shape; The Tao is hidden and without name. The Tao alone nourishes and brings everything to fulfillment. | |
| Without going outside, you may know the whole world. Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus the sage knows without traveling; He sees without looking; He works without doing. | |
| The sage has no mind of his own. He is aware of the needs of others. I am good to people who are good. I am also good to people who are not good. Because Virtue is goodness. I have faith in people who are faithful. I also have faith in people who are not faithful. Because Virtue is faithfulness. The sage is shy and humble - to the world he seems confusing. Others look to him and listen. He behaves like a little child. | |
| If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked. When the court is arrayed in splendor, The fields are full of weeds, And the granaries are bare. Some wear gorgeous clothes, Carry sharp swords, And indulge themselves with food and drink; They have more possessions than they can use. They are robber barons. This is certainly not the way of Tao. | |
| What is firmly established cannot be uprooted. What is firmly grasped cannot slip away. It will be honored from generation to generation. Cultivate Virtue in your self, And Virtue will be real. Cultivate it in the family, And Virtue will abound. Cultivate it in the village, And Virtue will grow. Cultivate it in the nation, And Virtue will be abundant. Cultivate it in the universe, And Virtue will be everywhere. Therefore look at the body as body; Look at the family as family; Look at the village as village; Look at the nation as nation; Look at the universe as universe. How do I know the universe is like this? By looking! | |
| Rule a nation with justice. Wage war with surprise moves. Become master of the universe without striving. How do I know that this is so? Because of this! The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become. The sharper men's weapons, The more trouble in the land. The more ingenious and clever men are, The more strange things happen. The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers. Therefore the sage says: I take no action and people are reformed. I enjoy peace and people become honest. I do nothing and people become rich. I have no desires and people return to the good and simple life. | |
| When the country is ruled with a light hand The people are simple. When the country is ruled with severity, The people are cunning. Happiness is rooted in misery. Misery lurks beneath happiness. Who knows what the future holds? There is no honesty. Honesty becomes dishonest. Goodness becomes witchcraft. Man's bewitchment lasts for a long time. Therefore the sage is sharp but not cutting, Pointed but not piercing, Straightforward but not unrestrained, Brilliant but not blinding. | |
| Ruling the country is like cooking a small fish. Approach the universe with Tao, And evil is not powerful, But its power will not be used to harm others. Not only will it do no harm to others, But the sage himself will also be protected. They do not hurt each other, And the Virtue in each one refreshes both. | |
| Tao is source of the ten thousand things. It is the treasure of the good man, and the refuge of the bad. Sweet words can buy honor; Good deeds can gain respect. If a man is bad, do not abandon him. Therefore on the day the emperor is crowned, Or the three officers of state installed, Do not send a gift of jade and a team of four horses, But remain still and offer the Tao. Why does everyone like the Tao so much at first? Isn't it because you find what you seek and are forgiven when you sin? Therefore this is the greatest treasure of the universe. | |
| Practice non-action. Work without doing. Taste the tasteless. Magnify the small, increase the few. Reward bitterness with care. See simplicity in the complicated. Achieve greatness in little things. In the universe the difficult things are done as if they are easy. In the universe great acts are made up of small deeds. The sage does not attempt anything very big, And thus achieved greatness. Easy promises make for little trust. Taking things lightly results in great difficulty. Because the sage always confronts difficulties, He never experiences them. | |
| Peace is easily maintained; Trouble is easily overcome before it starts. The brittle is easily shattered; The small is easily scattered. Deal with it before it happens. Set things in order before there is confusion. A tree as great as a man's embrace springs up from a small shoot; A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth; A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. He who acts defeats his own purpose; He who grasps loses. The sage does not act, and so is not defeated. He does not grasp and therefore does not lose. People usually fail when they are on the verge of success. So give as much care to the end as to the beginning; Then there will be no failure. Therefore the sage seeks freedom from desire. He does not collect precious things. He learns not to hold on to ideas. He brings men back to what they have lost. He help the ten thousand things find their own nature, But refrains from action. | |
| Why is the sea king of a hundred streams? Because it lies below them. Therefore it is the king of a hundred streams. If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility. If he would lead them, he must follow behind. In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed; When he stands before them, they will not be harmed. The whole world will support him and will not tire of him. Because he does not compete, He does not meet competition. | |
| Everyone under heaven says that my Tao is great and beyond compare. Because it is great, it seems different. If it were not different, it would have vanished long ago. I have three treasures which I hold and keep. The first is mercy; the second is economy; The third is daring not to be ahead of others. From mercy comes courage; from economy comes generosity; From humility comes leadership. Nowadays men shun mercy, but try to be brave; They abandon economy, but try to be generous; They do not believe in humility, but always try to be first. This is certain death. Mercy brings victory in battle and strength in defense. It is the means by which heaven saves and guards. | |
| My words are easy to understand and easy to perform, Yet no man under heaven knows them or practices them. My words have ancient beginnings. My actions are disciplined. Because men do not understand, they have no knowledge of me. Those that know me are few; Those that abuse me are honored. Therefore the sage wears rough clothing and holds the jewel in his heart. | |
| Knowing ignorance is strength. Ignoring knowledge is sickness. If one is sick of sickness, then one is not sick. The sage is not sick because he is sick of sickness. Therefore he is not sick. | |
| When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster. Do not intrude in their homes. Do not harass them at work. If you do not interfere, they will not weary of you. Therefore the sage knows himself but makes no show, Has self-respect but is not arrogant. He lets go of that and chooses this. | |
| A brave and passionate man will kill or be killed. A brave and calm man will always preserve life. Of these two which is good and which is harmful? Some things are not favored by heaven. Who knows why? Even the sage is unsure of this. The Tao of heaven does not strive, and yet it overcomes. It does not speak, and yet is answered. It does not ask, yet is supplied with all its needs. It seems to have no aim and yet its purpose is fulfilled. Heaven's net casts wide. Though its meshes are course, nothing slips through. | |
| 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. | |
| Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water. Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better; It has no equal. The weak can overcome the strong; The supple can overcome the stiff. Under heaven everyone knows this, Yet no one puts it into practice. Therefore the sage says: He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them. He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves to be king of the universe. The truth often sounds paradoxical. | |
| After a bitter quarrel, some resentment must remain. What can one do about it? Therefore the sage keeps his half of the bargain But does not exact his due. A man of Virtue performs his part, But a man without Virtue requires others to fulfill their obligations. The Tao of heaven is impartial. It stays with good men all the time. | |
| Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Do as I say, not as I do. Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. What did you do *this* time? If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. When I was your age... I won't love you if you keep doing that. Think of all the starving children in India. If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. I'm going to kill you. Way to go, clumsy. If you don't like it, you can lump it. | |
| Article the Third: Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change. Public announcements and guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary. Article the Fourth: The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee" and not the "feeder". Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war. Article the Fifth: Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church, a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have to last a lifetime and must be conserved. -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights" | |
| Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. -- Oscar Wilde | |
| Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! | |
| -- Gifts for Children -- This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
| I called my parents the other night, but I forgot about the time difference. They're still living in the fifties. -- Strange de Jim | |
| If the very old will remember, the very young will listen. -- Chief Dan George | |
| Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around. -- David Lodge, "The British Museum is Falling Down" | |
| One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. -- George Herbert | |
| Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" | |
| Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they grow up, they won't be able to edge a car onto a freeway. | |
| The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m. | |
| The courtroom was pregnant (pun intended) with anxious silence as the judge solemnly considered his verdict in the paternity suit before him. Suddenly, he reached into the folds of his robes, drew out a cigar and ceremoniously handed it to the defendant. "Congratulations!" declaimed the jurist. "You have just become a father!" | |
| The real reason large families benefit society is because at least a few of the children in the world shouldn't be raised by beginners. | |
| What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old. -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" | |
| "You can't expect a mother to be with a small child all the time," Margaret Mead once remarked, with her usual good sense, but in 1978 she shocked feminists by snapping that women don't really have children to put them in day care twelve hours a day, either. -- Caroline Bird, "The Two Paycheck Marriage" | |
| Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| <Overfiend> partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this package. I actually had a DREAM about introducing a stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night. That's a Bad Sign. | |
| * dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer * Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) * Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. * Cylord gives the beer to muggles. | |
| <xinkeT> "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they pissed me off." | |
| * Culus fears perl - the language with optional errors | |
| "What does this tell me? That if Microsoft were the last software company left in the world, 13% of the US population would be scouring garage sales & Goodwill for old TRS-80s, CPM machines & Apple ]['s before they would buy Microsoft. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement." -- Seen on Slashdot | |
| "Bruce McKinney, author of of Hardcore Visual Basic, has announced that he's fed up with VB and won't be writing a 3rd edition of his book. The best quote is at the end: 'I don't need a language designed by a focus group'." | |
| acme-cannon (3.1415) unstable; urgency=low * Added safety to prevent operator dismemberment, closes: bug #98765, bug #98713, #98714. * Added manpage. closes: #98725. -- Wile E. Coyote <genius@debian.org> Sun, 31 Jan 1999 07:49:57 -0600 | |
| I did it just to piss you off. :-P -- Branden Robinson in a message to debian-devel | |
| p.s. - i'm about *this* close to running around in the server room with a pair of bolt cutters, and a large wooden mallet, laughing like a maniac and cutting everything i can fit the bolt cutters around. and whacking that which i cannot. so if i seem semi-incoherent, or just really *really* nasty at times, please forgive me. stress is not a pretty thing. };P -- Phillip R. Jaenke | |
| I have also been a huge Unix fan ever since I realized that SCO was not Unix. -- Dennis Baker | |
| <netgod> heh thats a lost cause, like the correct pronounciation of "jewelry" <netgod> give it up :-) <sage> and the correct spelling of "colour" :) <BenC> heh <sage> and aluminium <BenC> or nuclear weapons <sage> are you threating me yankee ? <sage> just cause we don't have the bomb... <BenC> back off ya yellow belly | |
| <kira> Ada, the only language written to milspec. <Mikster> <shudder> | |
| <BenC> -include ../../debian/el33t.h <BenC> sendmail build...strange header name :) <isildur> hahaha * netgod laffs <netgod> BenC: can u tell i used to maintain sendmail? :P <BenC> heh :) | |
| > >I don't really regard bible-kjv-text as a technical document, > > but... :) > It's a manual -- for living. But it hasn't been updated in a long time, many would say that it's sadly out of date, and the upstream maintainer doesn't respond to his email. :-) -- Branden Robinson, Oliver Elphick, and Chris Waters in a message to debian-policy | |
| <Knghtbrd> Okay, you people have started talking about BSDM applications of network hardware... I think I'll run off and do something useful and Debianish and stay OUT of this one... <Knghtbrd> (for a change) | |
| * joeyh takes advantage of netscape's marvelous ability to crash to close 10 windows with a single keypress <joeyh> now that's progress! <Knghtbrd> Bus error => | |
| <Mercury> emacs sucks, literally, not a insult, just a comment that its large enough to have a noticeable gravitational pull... | |
| Red Hat has recently released a Security Advisory (RHSA-1999:030-01) covering a buffer overflow in the vixie cron package. Debian has discovered this bug two years ago and fixed it. Therefore versions in both, the stable and the unstable, distributions of Debian are not vulnerable to this problem.. | |
| <rain_work> note on a dorm fridge ... "To the person who ate the contents of the container labeled 'James' - warning, it was my biology experiment" | |
| <KatanaJ> Note on a chem lab fridge- "This refrigerator is not explosion- proof". | |
| <Joy> Flinny: black crontab magic kinda stuff :) <knghtbrd> Joy: does that mean people get to dance naked around bonfires chanting strange things and waving their arms about in a silly manner? <rcw> knghtbrd: what do you *think* people do at novare? | |
| <Joy> that's a Kludge(TM) <knghtbrd> It Works(tm) <Joy> AIX works(TM) <knghtbrd> no it doesn't <knghtbrd> => | |
| <knghtbrd> If charging someone for violation of US crypto laws would get you laughed out of court, just "investigate" them on hte charge of TREASON! <knghtbrd> Tea, anyone? <Espy> I'd rather drown politicians instead of tea :) <stu> espy: politicians have gills, duh <Espy> weasels don't have gills | |
| * Mercury calmly removes XT-Ream's arm.. * Mercury then proceeds to beat XT-Ream with XT-Ream's arm. <Knghtbrd> wow, all this quake hacking is making Mercury violent here * mao is glad the quake forge project is in good hands | |
| I'd been hearing all sorts of gloom and doom predictions for Y2K, so I thought I'd heed some of the advice that the experts have been giving: Fill up the car's gas tank, stock up on canned goods, fill up the bathtub with water, and so on. I guess I wasn't fully awake when I completed my preparations late last night. This morning I found the kitchen shelves soaked in gasoline, water in the car's gas tank, and my bathtub filled with baked beans. -- Dan Pearl in a message to rec.humor.funny | |
| <Culus> And don't get me started on perl! <Culus> :> <shaleh> perl is beyond evil <jim> you don't know perl yet? <netgod> gotta love a language with no definable syntax | |
| This message was written with vi! (not that anyone in the world cares) -- seen on an old message from an anon.penet.fi address | |
| <Endy> knghtbrd: QW's netcode is doing strange things to me. :P <knghtbrd> This is unusual? ;> <Endy> Not really. :P | |
| *** Knghtbrd is now known as SirKewLDooD *** Mercury kicked SirKewlDooD from #quakeforge (*WHACK*) | |
| <knghtbrd> this is college course in formal logic <devkev> knghtbrd: i hate that shit, much prefer fuzzy logic :) <knghtbrd> kev: fuzzy logic tickles. <taniwha> knghtbrd: lol <devkev> knghtbrd: fuzzy logic is so cool, it models the world really well | |
| * Endy needs to consult coffee :P <Endy> coffee the bot person, not coffee the beverage :) <knghtbrd> consulting the beverage may help too => | |
| <theoddone33> What's this message on my screen, <theoddone33> so blue, so blue, what could it mean? <theoddone33> Could you, would you press Delete, <theoddone33> Ctrl and Alt and then repeat. | |
| <Deek> change all cvar->value = X to use Cvar_Set() <theoddone33> that didn't happen in oldtree <Deek> Actually, it did. <Knghtbrd> yeah - two weeks later. | |
| === This letter is the Honor System Virus ==== If you are running a Macintosh, OS/2, Unix, or Linux computer, please randomly delete several files from your hard disk drive and forward this message to everyone you know. ============================================== | |
| <Deek> "A good programmer can write FORTRAN in any language." <Deek> knghtbrd has proven that you can write C++ in any language too. <grin> <Mercury> We are currently considdering if we should give him or prize, or kill him.. <Mercury> (Of course, by all rights, this means we should give him the prize, and then kill him.. <G>) | |
| Change the Social Contract? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. -- Branden Robinson | |
| <Culus_> We are also hoping to release a version of linux where shell is replaced by perl to a large degree. Adding to that, there are a few of us who would like to see a pure perl platform.. PerlOS :) * Culus_ looks on in horror <mstone> Culus_: on the up side, you can type damn near anything in at the command prompt :) | |
| <doogie> Culus: my bug with openssh appears to be fixed in 2.5.2, but master runs 2.3.0 <Culus> Don't even start <doogie> I just did. <Culus> You guys are going to drive me to build a huge giant robot and destroy all of texas, aren't you? | |
| * knghtbrd is gone - zzz - messages will be snapped like wet towels at all of the people who have stolen the trademark knghtbrd away message <Coderjoe> ack * Coderjoe prepares to defend himself from wet messages | |
| innovate /IN no vait/ vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology through purchase, imitation, or theft and to integrate it into a de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To lock-out competitors or to lock-in users. 4. To charge more money; to increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. To evade liability for wrong-doings; to get off. 8. To purchase legislation, legislators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power (coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym). -- csbruce, in a Slashdot post | |
| The sourceforge approach is to place all of the projects in some bland "open source surburbia", where all of the houses are alike, with only the colors and minor style variations (which building plan was used for which particular house) are allowed by the restrictive covenants and local zoning laws. Sourceforege is the open source equivalent of the subdivision in the movie "Edward Scissorhands". -- Terry Lambert | |
| In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address | |
| Linux supports the notion of a command line or a shell for the same reason that only children read books with only pictures in them. Language, be it English or something else, is the only tool flexible enough to accomplish a sufficiently broad range of tasks. -- Bill Garrett | |
| <Sammy> that's *IT*. I'm never fucking attempting to install redhat again. <Sammy> this is like the 10th fucking machine on which the installer has imploded immediately after I went through the hell of their package selection process. <timball> Sammy: just use debian and never look back <Sammy> timball: debian iso's are being written at this very moment. | |
| <Mercury> Knghtbrd: Hey, perl has the power grace and elegance of a sledge hammer. (=:] <|Rain|> certainly the grace and elegance, anyway | |
| <liiwi> so, what's the official way to get buildd to retry a package? prod it with a stick? <Joey> prod neuro <liiwi> with a stick? <Joey> yes. | |
| <hop_> i had something that i think was chicken that was coated with a red paste that seemed to be composed of lye based on how much of my tounge it burned away. <hop_> our friend who is Indian said this is why most Indians are thin and i quote "It doesn't take very much of this food to get you satisfied enoguh to stop eating." | |
| A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone. After he had made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he would like on it. "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the lawyer. "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter. "In this state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave. However, I could put ``here lies an honest lawyer'', if that would be okay." "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. "Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter. "people will read it and exclaim, "That's Strange!" | |
| A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field." | |
| A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field." | |
| A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them. | |
| An amendment to a motion may be amended, but an amendment to an amendment to a motion may not be amended. However, a substitute for an amendment to and amendment to a motion may be adopted and the substitute may be amended. -- The Montana legislature's contribution to the English language. | |
| An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *___not* a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." | |
| An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!" | |
| Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with the judges. -- Beyond the Fringe | |
| ... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)." -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973 | |
| [District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity: (1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold a press conference where you announce that they have a street value of $850 million. These raids never fail, because ALL high schools, including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana cigarettes in the lockers. As far as anyone can tell, the locker factory puts them there. (2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a piece of human sleaze. This also never fails, because you always get a conviction. A juror at a pornography trial is not about to state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a fire extinguisher. He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong impression. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography" | |
| District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any damage inflicted on the vehicle. | |
| First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer. But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all. Dial-A-Wombat. It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said. Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk. But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth. The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub. Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in another phone booth. There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth. The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and released it, too, in the scrub. But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat. After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect, and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons. Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in telephone booths. -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980. | |
| Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter is that female oysters through their living habits cast out large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large amounts of fertilization ... HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many teenagers who read The Congressional Record. | |
| Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29: THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any ... | |
| Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41: Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated? A: By death. Q: And by whose death was it terminated? | |
| 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: [110.13]: "When traveling on a one-way street, stay to the right, so as not to interfere with oncoming traffic." [22.17b]: "Learning to change lanes takes time and patience. The best recommendation that can be made is to go to a Celtics [basketball] game; study the fast break and then go out and practice it on the highway." [41.16]: "Never bump a baby carriage out of a crosswalk unless the kid's really asking for it." | |
| 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: [173.15b]: "When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way." [141.2a]: "Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6' parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into a 5' parking space." [105.31]: "Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly. Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong." | |
| It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full of indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The jury is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be a victim of infanticide. -- Edmond About | |
| It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air balloon to cross the United States. After forty hours in the air, George turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course! We need to find out where we are." Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the cloud cover. Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me! Can you please tell me where we are?" The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately fifty feet in the air!" George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer". Replies Harry, "How can you tell?". "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally useless!" That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer". | |
| Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through any of its streets. | |
| Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as Mental Anguish. You would sue: * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls in there". * The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious cretin like yourself. * Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you a large cash settlement anyway. -- Dave Barry | |
| Pittsburgh driver's test (4) Exhaust gas is (a) beneficial. (b) not harmful. (c) toxic. (d) a punk band. The correct answer is (b). The meddling Washington eco-freak communist bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered (d). Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.) | |
| She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook. -- Tommy Manville | |
| Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent I can find for "landskap"). These laws were written down sometime in the 13th century, but date back even down into Viking times. The oldest one is the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some Christian stuff. In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc. Here is an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of "lekare". "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it. If an artist is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring it out on the hillside. Then they shall shave off all hair from the heifer's tail, and grease the tail. Then the artist shall be given newly greased shoes. Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail, and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip. If he can hold her, he shall have the animal. If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what he received, shame and wounds." | |
| The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little Rock. | |
| The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was caught again, he would be thrown in jail. Fine today, cooler tomorrow. | |
| The Worst Jury A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the remotest clue what was happening. The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any evidence at all and, when there was no reply, dismissed him. The excitement which this caused was only equalled when a second juror revealed that he spoke not a word of English. A fluent French speaker, he exhibited great surprised when told, after two days, that he was hearing a murder trial. The trial was abandoned when a third juror said that he suffered from both conditions, being simultaneously unversed in the English language and nearly as deaf as the first juror. The judge ordered a retrial. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
| This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly may be required. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. May be too intense for some viewers. If condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Your cancelled check is your receipt. Avoid contact with skin. Employees and their families are not eligible. Beware of dog. Driver does not carry cash. Limited time offer, call now to insure prompt delivery. Use only in well-ventilated area. Keep away from fire or flame. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery. Penalty for private use. Call toll free before digging. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for identification purposes only. All models over 18 years of age. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. One size fits all. Many suitcases look alike. Edited for television. No solicitors. Reproduction strictly prohibited. Restaurant package, not for resale. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Decision of judges is final. This supersedes all previous notices. No other warranty expressed or implied. | |
| When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay your generosity of spirit by suing you for causing his subsequent paraplegia and seek to force you to support him for the rest of his rotten life. In court he will plead that he was depressed because society had failed him, and that he was looking for Mother Teresa for comfort and to offer his services to the poor. In that lawsuit, you will lose. If, on the other hand, you kill him, the most that you can expect is that a relative will bring a wrongful death action. You will have two advantages: first, there be only your story; forget Mother Teresa. Second, even if you lose, how much could the bum's life be worth anyway? A Lot less than 50 years worth of paralysis. Don't play George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Finish the job. -- G. Gordon Liddy's "Forbes" column on personal security | |
| (1) Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. (2) If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. (3) Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. (4) Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as the social ramble ain't restful. (5) Avoid running at all times. (6) Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. -- S. Paige, c. 1951 | |
| Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. -- J.D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" | |
| At the foot of the mountain, thunder: The image of Providing Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words And temperate in eating and drinking. | |
| During the voyage of life, remember to keep an eye out for a fair wind; batten down during a storm; hail all passing ships; and fly your colors proudly. | |
| God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. | |
| Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words | |
| I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives. I don't see why I should have to believe in it in this one. -- Strange de Jim | |
| If a guru falls in the forest with no one to hear him, was he really a guru at all? -- Strange de Jim, "The Metasexuals" | |
| If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism. -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
| If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop. | |
| If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. | |
| If you wait long enough, it will go away... after having done its damage. If it was bad, it will be back. | |
| Life is the urge to ecstasy. | |
| Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone might steal it." | |
| 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. | |
| Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. -- Richard Bach | |
| Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier to change your mind. | |
| Rule of Life #1 -- Never get separated from your luggage. | |
| Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. -- Seneca | |
| Sometimes you get an almost irresistible urge to go on living. | |
| There is no cure for birth and death other than to enjoy the interval. -- George Santayana | |
| Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. Time passed, unheeded. Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes. -- Wayfarer | |
| When you are young, you enjoy a sustained illusion that sooner or later something marvelous is going to happen, that you are going to transcend your parents' limitations... At the same time, you feel sure that in all the wilderness of possibility; in all the forests of opinion, there is a vital something that can be known -- known and grasped. That we will eventually know it, and convert the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. So that then one's true life -- the point of everything -- will emerge from the mist into a pure light, into total comprehension. But it isn't like that at all. But if it isn't, where did the idea come from, to torture and unsettle us? -- Brian Aldiss, "Helliconia Summer" | |
| Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers change. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul | |
| You must be the change you wish to see in the world. --Mahatma Gandhi | |
| Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator. -- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com | |
| /* * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to * terminate things with extreme prejudice. */ die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); -- From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c | |
| Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. -- From the killall manual page | |
| I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts') -- Olaf Kirch | |
| All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... -- Larry Wall | |
| Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night hacking (and/or conversations with God). -- Matt Welsh | |
| We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. -- Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software | |
| quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" will cause bc to terminate. -- seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic | |
| Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. -- Craig E. Groeschel | |
| 'Mounten' wird für drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. -- Christa Keil | |
| /* * [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum * possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP * to talk to the University of Mars. * PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented * ftp to mars will work nicely. */ -- from /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time] | |
| Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... -- More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc | |
| ... of course, this probably only happens for tcsh which uses wait4(), which is why I never saw it. Serves people who use that abomination right 8^) -- Linus Torvalds, about a patch that fixes getrusage for 1.3.26 | |
| Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets and deliver this message of joy to the masses. -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 | |
| Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the "happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets and deliver this message of joy to the masses. -- Linus Torvalds, on releasing 1.3.27 | |
| One of the things that hamper Linux's climb to world domination is the shortage of bad Computer Role Playing Games, or CRaPGs. No operating system can be considered respectable without one. -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie | |
| "... being a Linux user is sort of like living in a house inhabited by a large family of carpenters and architects. Every morning when you wake up, the house is a little different. Maybe there is a new turret, or some walls have moved. Or perhaps someone has temporarily removed the floor under your bed." - Unix for Dummies, 2nd Edition -- found in the .sig of Rob Riggs, rriggs@tesser.com | |
| The primary difference [...] is that the Java programm will reliably and obviously crash, whereas the C Program will do something obscure -- Java Language Tutorial | |
| BTW: I have a better name for the software .... Microsoft Internet Exploder. -- George Bonser <grep@cris.com> | |
| Well, since MS cant be sure of the username of someone downloading things, they are going to play it safe and have everything dowloaded and executed by Explorer as suid root. That way, it will run on ANY system anywhere. :) -- George Bonser <grep@cris.com> | |
| Win 95 is simplified for the user: User: What does this configuration thing do? You: It allows you to modify you settings, for networking, hardware, protocols, ... User: Whoa! Layman's terms, please! You: It changes stuff. User: That's what I'm looking for! What can it change? You: This part change IP forwarding. It allows ... User: Simplify, simplify! What can it do for ME? You: Nothing, until you understand it. User: Well it makes me uncomfortable. It looks so technical; Get rid of it, I want a system *I* can understand. You: But... User: Hey, who's system is this anyway? You: (... rm this, rm that, rm /etc/* ...) "All done." -- Kevin M. Bealer <kmb203@psu.edu> | |
| I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon. By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses. -- Bruce Perens | |
| If someone can point me to a good and _FREE_ backup software that keeps track of which files get stored on which tape, we can change to it. -- Mike Neuffer, admin of i-Connect Corp. | |
| > Whoa, first contact! Nope, 'fraid not, Linux is still primarily used on planet Earth, I'm afraid. Our friend here sent a message in Russian (KOI8-R encoding). -- Aleksey Kliger, explaining a russian posting | |
| There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution | |
| AP/STT. Helsinki, Dec 5th, 6:22 AM. For immediate release. In order to allay fears about the continuity of the Linux project, Linus Torvalds together with his manager Tove Monni have released "Linus v2.0", affectionately known as "Kernel Hacker - The Next Generation". Linux stock prices on Wall Street rose sharply after the announcement; as one well-known analyst who wishes to remain anonymous says - "It shows a long-term commitment, and while we expect a short-term decrease in productivity, we feel that this solidifies the development in the long run". Other analysts downplay the importance of the event, and claim that just about anybody could have done it. "I'm glad somebody finally told them about the birds and the bees" one sceptic comments cryptically. But even the skeptics agree that it is an interesting turn of events. Others bring up other issues with the new version - "I'm especially intrigued by the fact that the new version is female, and look forward to seeing what the impact of that will be on future development. Will "Red Hat Linux" change to "Pink Hat Linux", for example?" -- Linus Torvalds announcing that he became father of a girl | |
| Und die Tastaturabrdücke auf Ihrer Wange unterstreichen seeeeeehr vorteilhaft ihr unterschütterliches Vertrauen in die moderene Technologie -- Agent Gully in "Die eXakten" | |
| I am NOT a kludge! I am a computer! -- tts | |
| Steal my cash, car and TV - but leave the computer! -- Soenke Lange <soenke@escher.north.de> | |
| As I currently don't have a floppy drive in my computer, I'd like to make an `emergency cdrom' ;) -- Eugene Crosser <crosser@average.org> | |
| Charles Briscoe-Smith <cpbs@debian.org>: After all, the gzip package is called `gzip', not `libz-bin'... James Troup <troup@debian.org>: Uh, probably because the gzip binary doesn't come from the non-existent libz package or the existent zlib package. -- debian-bugs-dist | |
| The truth is not free. It's that simple. If you change the truth, it is no longer true - so the truth is not free! -- Jules Bean about freeness of documentation | |
| The problem here (as someon else stated) is that when multiple dists use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility". -- Stephen Carpenter <sjc@delphi.com> | |
| <Overfiend> partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this package. I actually had a DREAM about introducing a stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night. That's a Bad Sign. -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 | |
| Perhaps the RBLing (Realtime Black Hole) of msn.com recently, which prevented a large amount of mail going out for about 4 days, has had a positive influence in Redmond. They did agree to work on their anti-relay capabilities at their POPs to get the RBL lifted. -- Bill Campbell on Smail3-users | |
| When a float occurs on the same page as the start of a supertabular you can expect unexpected results. -- Documentation of supertabular.sty | |
| * dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer * Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) * Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. * Cylord gives the beer to muggles. -- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary | |
| We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close communication. -- Dennis Ritchie | |
| modconf (0.2.37) stable unstable; urgency=medium [...] * Eduard Bloch: - fixed Makefile broken Marcin Owsiany a while ago. The default manpage has been overwritten with the polish translation. I still wonder why nobody noticed this before. Closes: #117474 [...] -- Eduard Bloch <blade@debian.org> Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:53:27 +0100 | |
| (1) Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the furniture, shelves, and showcases. (2) Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks. Wash the windows once a week. (3) Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's business. (4) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to your individual taste. (5) This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed. Each employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord. -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 | |
| (6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. (7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible and other good books. (8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. (9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. (10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the business permit it. -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 | |
| A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn. At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of this central section. Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy. | |
| According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly that they can not only meet but surpass the national average... except for Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have a sheepish grin. This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly sheepish grin" comes from. | |
| Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. -- George Orwell | |
| All this big deal about white collar crime -- what's WRONG with white collar crime? Who enjoys his job today? You? Me? Anybody? The only satisfying part of any job is coffee break, lunch hour and quitting time. Years ago there was at least the hope of improvement -- eventual promotion -- more important jobs to come. Once you can be sold the myth that you may make president of the company you'll hardly ever steal stamps. But nobody believes he's going to be president anymore. The more people change jobs the more they realize that there is a direct connection between working for a living and total stupefying boredom. So why NOT take revenge? You're not going to find ME knocking a guy because he pads an expense account and his home stationery carries the company emblem. Take away crime from the white collar worker and you will rob him of his last vestige of job interest. -- J. Feiffer | |
| Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate. Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and great effort pushing boulders into a single word. It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow. Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass both Parliament and Party. It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other planets, this may be the first message received from us. -- The Realist, November, 1964. | |
| Business will be either better or worse. -- Calvin Coolidge | |
| By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were still five feet between rails. It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set, great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere was possible. -- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957 | |
| Competitive fury is not always anger. It is the true missionary's courage and zeal in facing the possibility that one's best may not be enough. -- Gene Scott | |
| Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. -- Josh Billings | |
| Dealing with the problem of pure staff accumulation, all our researches ... point to an average increase of 5.75% per year. -- C.N. Parkinson | |
| Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe? Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" | |
| Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the seats locomote through a short tunnel filled with clock-work dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are depicted without accuracy and too close to your face. "One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to aggravate illusions. Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like, but Exxon has decided they smelled bad. "At the other end of Dino Ditch ... there's a final, very addled message about facing challengehood tomorrow-wise. I dozed off during this, but the import seems to be that dinosaurs don't have anything to do with energy policy and neither do you." -- P.J. O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell" | |
| I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike. -- Emile Henry Gauvreay | |
| I: The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money. II: If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was. III: There are no lazy veteran lion hunters. IV: If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to. V: One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output. Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average output. -- Norman Augustine | |
| If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?" Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This article can help you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
| Lonesome? Like a change? Like a new job? Like excitement? Like to meet new and interesting people? JUST SCREW-UP ONE MORE TIME!!!!!!! | |
| Management: How many feet do mice have? Reply: Mice have four feet. M: Elaborate! R: Mice have five appendages, and four of them are feet. M: No discussion of fifth appendage! R: Mice have five appendages; four of them are feet; one is a tail. M: What? Feet with no legs? R: Mice have four legs, four feet, and one tail per unit-mouse. M: Confusing -- is that a total of 9 appendages? R: Mice have four leg-foot assemblies and one tail assembly per body. M: Does not fully discuss the issue! R: Each mouse comes equipped with four legs and a tail. Each leg is equipped with a foot at the end opposite the body; the tail is not equipped with a foot. M: Descriptive? Yes. Forceful NO! R: Allotment of appendages for mice will be: Four foot-leg assemblies, one tail. Deviation from this policy is not permitted as it would constitute misapportionment of scarce appendage assets. M: Too authoritarian; stifles creativity! R: Mice have four feet; each foot is attached to a small leg joined integrally with the overall mouse structural sub-system. Also attached to the mouse sub-system is a thin tail, non-functional and ornamental in nature. M: Too verbose/scientific. Answer the question! R: Mice have four feet. | |
| Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. | |
| Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. -- Lazarus Long | |
| Never tell people how to do things. Tell them WHAT to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. | |
| No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. | |
| Once it hits the fan, the only rational choice is to sweep it up, package it, and sell it as fertilizer. | |
| One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops -- a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, "Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back. Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't happy about it. Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the one after that, and so forth. This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself. So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, "And why not?" With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a bus pass." | |
| One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's say your congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet. Just when he got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the plane door. It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law. ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as Cuticle Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, are already too large to fit on normal aircraft. -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants" | |
| Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is they charge fifteen cents for them. | |
| Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage. -- Ryan | |
| "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. "Too proud?" the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older." "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass" | |
| Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book. | |
| Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to improve ... -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
| The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by people who want some. -- Dwight MacDonald | |
| The average individual's position in any hierarchy is a lot like pulling a dogsled -- there's no real change of scenery except for the lead dog. | |
| The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute for intelligence. -- Lyman Bryson | |
| The ideal voice for radio may be defined as showing no substance, no sex, no owner, and a message of importance for every housewife. -- Harry V. Wade | |
| The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in the country is the one on which you resell it. -- J. Brecheux | |
| The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin | |
| The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for not by our labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given control of property interests of the country, and upon the successful management of which so much remains. -- George F. Baer, railroad industrialist | |
| The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself. -- John Kenneth Galbraith, "Annals of an Abiding Liberal" | |
| The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted. -- George Bernard Shaw | |
| The two most beautiful words in the English language are "Cheque Enclosed." -- Dorothy Parker | |
| The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. -- B. Franklin | |
| The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune. | |
| There has been a little distress selling on the stock exchange. -- Thomas W. Lamont, October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) | |
| There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by going from house to house offering to do odd jobs. He explained this to a man who answered one door. "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man. "Forty dollars." "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes. Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again. "All done!", he says, and collects his money. "By the way," the student says, "That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari." | |
| This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has "deregulated" the airline industry. What this means for you, the consumer, is that the airlines are no longer required to follow any rules whatsoever. They can show snuff movies. They can charge for oxygen. They can hire pilots right out of Vending Machine Refill Person School. They can conserve fuel by ejecting husky passengers over water. They can ram competing planes in mid-air. These innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which have been passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do apply, the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark, and you must pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out. -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations" | |
| To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan. Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse, an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna's loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly. -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?" | |
| Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it. | |
| We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why you are so tired. There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over 60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself! | |
| We're living in a golden age. All you need is gold. -- D.W. Robertson. | |
| What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. | |
| What they said: What they meant: "I recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever." (Yes, that about sums it up.) "The amount of mathematics she knows will surprise you." (And I recommend not giving that school a dime...) "I simply can't say enough good things about him." (What a screw-up.) "I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine." (I can't tell you how happy I am that she left our firm.) "When this person left our employ, we were quite hopeful he would go a long way with his skills." (We hoped he'd go as far as possible.) "You won't find many people like her." (In fact, most people can't stand being around her.) "I cannot reccommend him too highly." (However, to the best of my knowledge, he has never committed a felony in my presence.) | |
| What they said: What they meant: "You will be fortunate if you can get him to work for you." (We certainly never succeeded.) There is no other employee with whom I can adequately compare him. (Well, our rats aren't really employees...) "Success will never spoil him." (Well, at least not MUCH more.) "One usually comes away from him with a good feeling." (And such a sigh of relief.) "His dissertation is the sort of work you don't expect to see these days; in it he has definitely demonstrated his complete capabilities." (And his IQ, as well.) "He should go far." (The farther the better.) "He will take full advantage of his staff." (He even has one of them mowing his lawn after work.) | |
| What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed. -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" | |
| When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder. -- James H. Boren | |
| When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend. "Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!" "I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you might have some idea that you could borrow from me!" | |
| XLVII: Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters. XLVIII: The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing. XLIX: Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds. L: The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times as long as the official's who created it. LI: By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more government workers than there are workers. LII: People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again. -- Norman Augustine | |
| XVI: In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day. XVII: Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e., it always increases. XVIII: It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished. XIX: Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them. XX: In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the administration requests -- minus 4-percent tax. -- Norman Augustine | |
| All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com | |
| Be consistent. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| Besides, including <std_ice_cubes.h> is a fatal error on machines that don't have it yet. Bad language design, there... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com> | |
| Does the same as the system call of that name. If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2) | |
| echo $package has manual pages available in source form. echo "However, you don't have nroff, so they're probably useless to you." -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution | |
| Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in the wrong place. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| If you want to program in C, program in C. It's a nice language. I use it occasionally... :-) -- Larry Wall in <7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
| If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the advance of civilization. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992Mar5.180926.19041@netlabs.com> | |
| If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com> | |
| last|perl -pe '$_ x=/(..:..)...(.*)/&&"'$1'"ge$1&&"'$1'"lt$2' That's gonna be tough for Randal to beat... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr29.072206.5621@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> | |
| OK, enough hype. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the most readable one. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-) -- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
| Remember though that THERE IS NO GENERAL RULE FOR CONVERTING A LIST INTO A SCALAR. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending on how you look at it. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr22.175438.8564@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov> | |
| Tactical? TACTICAL!?!? Hey, buddy, we went from kilotons to megatons several minutes ago. We don't need no stinkin' tactical nukes. (By the way, do you have change for 10 million people?) --lwall | |
| The autodecrement is not magical. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl. Horrors. :-) -- Larry Wall in <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> | |
| *** The previous line contains the naughty word "$&".\n if /(ibm|apple|awk)/; # :-) -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution | |
| When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page | |
| Well, enough clowning around. Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as "Unix". -- Larry Wall in <1994Apr6.184419.3687@netlabs.com> | |
| Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt. It might seem easy enough, but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is. -- Larry Wall in <1994Jun15.074039.2654@netlabs.com> | |
| Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl if I think they improve the language. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org> | |
| That could certainly be done, but I don't want to fall into the Forth trap, where every running Forth implementation is really a different language. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> | |
| The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org> | |
| You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org> | |
| At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language. -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org> | |
| Part of language design is purturbing the proposed feature in various directions to see how it might generalize in the future. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org> | |
| One of the reasons Perl is faster than certain other unnamed interpreted languages is that it binds variable names to a particular package (or scope) at compile time rather than at run time. -- Larry Wall in <199709050035.RAA29328@wall.org> | |
| If you remove stricture from a large Perl program currently, you're just installing delayed bugs, whereas with this feature, you're installing an instant bug that's easily fixed. Whoopee. -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> | |
| It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl conferences. -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org> | |
| I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of "do". -- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language | |
| Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll have our general garbage collector, installed by "use less memory". -- Larry Wall in <199710221744.KAA24484@wall.org> | |
| Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is left up to the rendering engine. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org> | |
| I think you're letting your knowledge of internals interfere with your linguistic judgement here. -- Larry Wall in <199711011949.LAA25651@wall.org> | |
| A kiss is a course of procedure, cunningly devised, for the mutual stoppage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous. | |
| Bondage maybe, discipline never! -- T.K. | |
| He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't encounter many rivals. -- Georg Lichtenberg, "Aphorisms" | |
| "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door." | |
| "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture." | |
| In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one's beloved. -- Russell Baker | |
| "No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods -- it was so simple, really. "I didn't, for a long time, but I do now. You just can't hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same -- I mean `in love,' you know." There were those doubt-quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I can't." "You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand." -- Little, Big, "John Crowley" | |
| The story of the butterfly: "I was in Bogota and waiting for a lady friend. I was in love, a long time ago. I waited three days. I was hungry but could not go out for food, lest she come and I not be there to greet her. Then, on the third day, I heard a knock." "I hurried along the old passage and there, in the sunlight, there was nothing." "Just," Vance Joy said, "a butterfly, flying away." -- Peter Carey, BLISS | |
| Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I have to answer all of my "occupant" letters. -- None of my socks match. -- I'm having all my plants neutered. -- I changed the lock on my door and now I can't get out. -- My yucca plant is feeling yucky. -- I'm touring China with a wok band. -- My chocolate-appreciation class meets that night. -- I'm running off to Yugoslavia with a foreign-exchange student named Basil Metabolism. -- There are important world issues that need worrying about. -- I'm going to count the bristles in my toothbrush. -- I prefer to remain an enigma. -- I think you want the OTHER Peggy/Cathy/Mike/whomever. -- I feel a song coming on. | |
| Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I'm trying to see how long I can go without saying yes. -- I'm attending the opening of my garage door. -- The monsters haven't turned blue yet, and I have to eat more dots. -- I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian. -- I have to fulfill my potential. -- I don't want to leave my comfort zone. -- It's too close to the turn of the century. -- I have to bleach my hare. -- I'm worried about my vertical hold knob. -- I left my body in my other clothes. | |
| Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. -- I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. -- I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. -- It's my parakeet's bowling night. -- I'm building a plant from a kit. -- There's a disturbance in the Force. -- I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. -- I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. -- My crayons all melted together. | |
| All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ... | |
| And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!! | |
| Everybody is going somewhere!! It's probably a garage sale or a disaster Movie!! | |
| Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks! | |
| Hello? Enema Bondage? I'm calling because I want to be happy, I guess ... | |
| Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!! | |
| I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more numbers!! | |
| I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!! | |
| I HAVE to buy a new "DODGE MISER" and two dozen JORDACHE JEANS because my viewscreen is "USER-FRIENDLY"!! | |
| I joined scientology at a garage sale!! | |
| I'm encased in the lining of a pure pork sausage!! | |
| I'm receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!! | |
| I'm thinking about DIGITAL READ-OUT systems and computer-generated IMAGE FORMATIONS ... | |
| ... ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr ... ich lande im antiken Rom ... einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble ... ich rieche PIZZA ... | |
| Is it 1974? What's for SUPPER? Can I spend my COLLEGE FUND in one wild afternoon?? | |
| Is something VIOLENT going to happen to a GARBAGE CAN? | |
| Look into my eyes and try to forget that you have a Macy's charge card! | |
| ... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!! | |
| Once, there was NO fun ... This was before MENU planning, FASHION statements or NAUTILUS equipment ... Then, in 1985 ... FUN was completely encoded in this tiny MICROCHIP ... It contain 14,768 vaguely amusing SIT-COM pilots!! We had to wait FOUR BILLION years but we finally got JERRY LEWIS, MTV and a large selection of creme-filled snack cakes! | |
| The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!! | |
| This MUST be a good party -- My RIB CAGE is being painfully pressed up against someone's MARTINI!! | |
| ... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!! | |
| We place two copies of PEOPLE magazine in a DARK, HUMID mobile home. 45 minutes later CYNDI LAUPER emerges wearing a BIRD CAGE on her head! | |
| What's the MATTER Sid? ... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory? | |
| You can't hurt me!! I have an ASSUMABLE MORTGAGE!! | |
| Zippy's brain cells are straining to bridge synapses ... | |
| "A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times." -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII | |
| It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships for a few years. He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences change over fairly often, and he's got a good life. The only problem is the ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind his back!" Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the passengers. One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without a trace. Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the parrot. For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end. As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to the magician's end of the log. With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps "OK, you win, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?" | |
| Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley | |
| "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good copy." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" | |
| A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. 8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. 9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a sacred duty to protect him from exposure. 10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment. | |
| After his legs had been broken in an accident, Mr. Miller sued for damages, claming that he was crippled and would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Although the insurance-company doctor testified that his bones had healed properly and that he was fully capable of walking, the judge decided for the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000. When he was wheeled into the insurance office to collect his check, Miller was confronted by several executives. "You're not getting away with this, Miller," one said. "We're going to watch you day and night. If you take a single step, you'll not only repay the damages but stand trial for perjury. Here's the money. What do you intend to do with it?" "My wife and I are going to travel," Miller replied. "We'll go to Stockholm, Berlin, Rome, Athens and, finally, to a place called Lourdes -- where, gentlemen, you'll see yourselves one hell of a miracle." | |
| page 46 ...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative. "The group on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers, "had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were on placebo." page 56 The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body. Illness is always an interaction between both. It can begin in the mind and affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human body functions. -- Norman Cousins, "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient" | |
| "The molars, I'm sure, will be all right, the molars can take care of themselves," the old man said, no longer to me. "But what will become of the bicuspids?" -- The Old Man and his Bridge | |
| The Vet Who Surprised A Cow In the course of his duties in August 1977, a Dutch veterinary surgeon was required to treat an ailing cow. To investigate its internal gases he inserted a tube into that end of the animal not capable of facial expression and struck a match. The jet of flame set fire first to some bales of hay and then to the whole farm causing damage estimate at L45,000. The vet was later fined L140 for starting a fire in a manner surprising to the magistrates. The cow escaped with shock. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
