Dictionary De - En
De - Es
De - Pt| Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
| Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of filename completion. (Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands: file completion vs. the Mac Finder.) | |
| A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! Fantastic! We'll be famous!" The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" | |
| A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie | |
| Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.' -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style" | |
| Computers don't actually think. You just think they think. (We think.) | |
| 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 | |
| Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates. | |
| 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.] | |
| 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 | |
| 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 write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC after reaching puberty. | |
| Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all the odd integers are prime." The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, "Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it does seem right." Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says "Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." | |
| They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to learn this particular lesson. -- Richard Stallman | |
| Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (10) Sorry, but that's too useful. (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent! (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell #pragma is for. (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too hard to write. (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar. (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here? (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!" (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this sucker. (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth. (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'. | |
| Unix Express: All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. All passengers believe they got there. | |
| Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. - D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949 | |
| David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" * Hourly motel rates * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies * Our well-behaved golf professionals * Fabulous babes coast to coast | |
| Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything. -- Karl Lehenbauer | |
| 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 | |
| "My father? My father left when I was quite young. Well actually, he was asked to leave. He had trouble metabolizing alcohol." -- George Carlin | |
| "Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US | |
| "Yes, I am a real piece of work. One thing we learn at Ulowell is how to flame useless hacking non-EE's like you. I am superior to you in every way by training and expertise in the technical field. Anyone can learn how to hack, but Engineering doesn't come nearly as easily. Actually, I'm not trying to offend all you CS majors out there, but I think EE is one of the hardest majors/grad majors to pass. Fortunately, I am making it." -- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM) "Being both an EE and an asshole at the same time must be a terrible burden for you. This isn't really a flame, just a casual observation. Makes me glad I was a CS major, life is really pleasant for me. Have fun with your chosen mode of existence!" -- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu) | |
| One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand hat was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ | |
| A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. -- Caskie Stinnett, "Out of the Red" | |
| All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken | |
| It is not the critic who counts, or how the strong man stumbled, or whether the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and who spends himself in a worthy cause, and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who never know either victory or defeat. -- Teddy Roosevelt | |
| 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. | |
| Deja vu: French., already seen; unoriginal; trite. Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time. Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time. | |
| Fuch's Warning: If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well enough to travel. | |
| Hippogriff, n.: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
| work, n.: The blessed respite from screaming kids and soap operas for which you actually get paid. | |
| Legislated Nostalgia: To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?" -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| Caf'e Minimalism: To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting into practice any of its tenets. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
| [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. | |
| This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. -- Douglas Hofstadter | |
| In 1967, the Soviet Government minted a beautiful silver ruble with Lenin in a very familiar pose -- arms raised above him, leading the country to revolution. But, it was clear to everybody, that if you looked at it from behind, it was clear that Lenin was pointing to 11:00, when the Vodka shops opened, and was actually saying, "Comrades, forward to the Vodka shops. It became fashionable, when one wanted to have a drink, to take out the ruble and say, "Oh my goodness, Comrades, Lenin tells me we should go. | |
| Q: How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the experience. (Actually, Californians don't screw in light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.) Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. | |
| Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe? A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe! Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they are removable! Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God? A: Yes, up to isomorphism! Q: What is a compact city? A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted policemen! -- Peter Lax | |
| 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 | |
| David Letterman's "Things we can be proud of as Americans": * Greatest number of citizens who have actually boarded a UFO * Many newspapers feature "JUMBLE" * Hourly motel rates * Vast majority of Elvis movies made here * Didn't just give up right away during World War II like some countries we could mention * Goatees & Van Dykes thought to be worn only by weenies * Our well-behaved golf professionals * Fabulous babes coast to coast | |
| Actually, the probability is 100% that the elevator will be going in the right direction. Proof by induction: N=1. Trivially true, since both you and the elevator only have one floor to go to. Assume true for N, prove for N+1: If you are on any of the first N floors, then it is true by the induction hypothesis. If you are on the N+1st floor, then both you and the elevator have only one choice, namely down. Therefore, it is true for all N+1 floors. QED. | |
| Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows why it would want to. The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
| 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 | |
| Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only. ... It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. -- D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory", 1949 | |
| One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life." The mathematician thinks this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself. A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes, actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but there a number of details to be figured out. After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house, looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right track." At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by pounding on his door at three in the morning. He has dark circles under his eyes. His hair hasn't been combed for many days. He appears to be wearing the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. "WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!! And it's so EASY! First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple harmonic motion..." | |
| You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
| Actually, my goal is to have a sandwich named after me. | |
| 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. | |
| You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name, another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money. If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit. In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his hemorrhoids. -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette" | |
| You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. | |
| By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. -- R. Emerson -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?" Ed.] | |
| "`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.' `But the plans were on display...' `On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.' `That's the display department.' `With a torch.' `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' `So had the stairs.' `But look you found the notice didn't you?' `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'" - Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning department. | |
| ARTHUR What is an Algolian Zylatburger anyway? FORD They're a kind of meatburger made from the most unpleasant parts of a creature well known for its total lack of any pleasant parts. ARTHUR So you mean that the Universe does actually end not with a bang but with a Wimpy? - Cut dialogue from Fit the Fifth. | |
| "The funny thing is if you actually read those papers, you find that, while the researchers were applying thier optomizational tricks on a microkernel, in fact those same tricks could be applied to traditional kernels to accelerate thier execution." -- Linus Torvalds on Microkernels (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates) | |
| Windows 95 is not a virus. Viruses actually do something. | |
| Microsoft should switch to the vacuum cleaner business where people actually want products that suck. -- Bruno Bratti | |
| Wow, the great ZDNET actually corrected a mistake! Of course, if they did that to all of Jesse Berst's columns, they'd lose 2/3 of their content... -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
| Myth: Linux has a lower TCO Fact: If you consider that buying NT licenses for business use is tax-deductible, as are all those tech support calls, NT actually has a lower TCO than Linux! How are you going to expense software that doesn't cost anything? Eh?!? -- From a LinuxToday post | |
| Tux Penguin Boxing Match LAS VEGAS, NV -- The unofficial Linux mascot Tux the Penguin will face his arch rival the BSD Daemon in a boxing match this Saturday night. The match is part of the International Computer Mascot Boxing Federation's First Annual World Championship Series. The winner will advance to face one of the Intel "Bunny People". Boxing pundits favor Tux as the winner. Last week Tux won his first match in the Championship Series against Wilbur the Gimp. "The Gimp didn't have a chance," one spectator said. "With Tux's ability to run at top speeds of over 100mph, I don't see how he could possibly lose." The BSD Daemon, however, is certainly a formidible opponent. While boxing rules prohibit the Daemon from using his patented pitchfork, his pointy horns are permitted in the ring. Some observers think the whole Computer Mascot Boxing Federation is a fake. "WWF is all scripted," one sports writer pointed out. "And so is this. You actually think that a penguin is capable of boxing? The idea of a penguin fighting a demon is patently absurd. This whole Championship Series has no doubt been scripted. It's probably nothing more than two little kids in penguin and demon suits duking it out in a boxing ring. What a waste of time." | |
| 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 #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 #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. | |
| 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." | |
| 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". | |
| 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. | |
| Bill Gates Passes Turing Test LONDON, ENGLAND -- Microsoft proclaimed that they have passed the Turing Test by creating a Bill Gates multimedia simulacrum that crack BBC interviewer Jeremy Paxman couldn't distinguish from the real thing. "I never would have expected this," Paxman said about the Gates AI program. "After all, this Microsoft program actually worked for an extended period of time, something you don't see very often." Microsoft has plans to mass-produce the Bill Gates holographic simulation by 2010 or so. "The hardware just isn't there yet for home use," a Microserf explained. "By then, though, Intel's Itanium 6 Super Pro Plus III CPU running at 600 Ghz or whatever should be sufficient." Windows 2010 is expected to include the Bill Gates simulation, making the World's Richest Man(tm) accessible to the entire world. A newly printed brochure for the faux-Gates advertises, "Need help running Windows 2010? Bill Gates will sit beside you and guide you through the system. Have a question for the world's sexiest and smartest nerd? He'll answer it. Wondering if free and open source software is a plot by Communists freaks to overthrow the free market system? He'll be there to explain. Want to ask for a personal loan? Sorry, won't happen." | |
| 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 | |
| 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 (#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." | |
| What I'd like to see is a prohibition on Microsoft incorporating multi-megabyte Easter Eggs and other stupid bloatware into Windows and Office. A typical computer with pre-installed Microsoft shoveware probably only has about 3 megabytes of hard drive space free because of flight simulators, pinball games, and multimedia credits Easter Eggs that nobody wants. I predict that if Microsoft is ever forced to remove these things, the typical user will actually be able to purchase competing software now that they have some free space to put it on. Of course, stock in hard drive companies might plummet... -- Anonymous Coward, when asked by Humorix for his reaction to the proposed Microsoft two-way split | |
| The new "I Love You" virus is not the work of some snot-nosed acne-laced teenager working from a basement in the Phillipines. It's actually part of a conspiracy concocted by the unholy alliance of Microsoft and several well-known and well-despised spammers. You'll notice that the ILOVEYOU, Melissa, and Tuxissa strains all extract email addresses from the victim's system. This is a gold mine for spammers, who are able to use these viruses to harvest active email addresses for them. Everytime ILOVEYOU, for instance, propogates, it keeps track of all the email addresses it has been sent to, so that when it finally boomerangs back to a spammer, they have a nice convenient list of addresses to send "laser printer toner" and "get rich quick!" advertisements to. -- Bob Smith (not his real code-name), in a speech given at the First Annual Connecticut Conspiracy Convention (ConConCon), "the largest ever gathering of conspiracy theorists east of the Mississippi." | |
| Elite Nerds Create Linux Distro From Hell HELL, MICHIGAN -- A group of long-time Linux zealots and newbie haters have thrown together a new Linux distro called Hellix that is so user-hostile, so anti-newbie, so cryptic, and so old-fashioned that it actually makes MS-DOS look like a real operating system. Said the founder of the project, "I'm sick and tired of the Windowsification of the Linux desktop in a fruitless attempt to make the system more appealing to newbies, PHBs, and MCSEs. Linux has always been for nerds only, and we want to make sure it stays that way!" One of the other Bastard Distributors From Hell explained, "In the last five years think of all the hacking effort spent on Linux... and for what? We have nothing to show for it but half-finished Windows-like desktops, vi dancing paperclips, and graphical front-ends to configuration files. Real nerds use text files for configuration, darnit, and they like it! It's time to take a stand against the hordes of newbies that are polluting our exclusive operating system." One Anonymous Coward said, "This is so cool... It's just like Unix back in the good old days of the 70's when men were men and the only intuitive interface was still the nipple." | |
| 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 (#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. | |
| "Brown Orifice" Is Only The Beginning Last week security holes were found in Netscape's Java implementation that allowed it to act as a web server. Earlier today, a hacker announced that he had found vulnerabilities in Mozilla M17 that allow it to operate as a web browser. And that's just the beginning. Said "3l337h4x0r", the discoverer of the M17 exploit, "This is quite a hack! By manipulating some internal functions, I was able to use M17 to actually surf the web. Slashdot and Humorix rendered beautifully." Mozilla engineers were stunned. "This shouldn't be possible. M17 contains a newsreader, a mail client, an instant messenger client, and a whole bunch of XUL acronymn-enriched stuff, but it shouldn't be able to handle HTTP or HTML. We haven't been planning on adding web-surfing functionality to Mozilla until M30... maybe M25 at the earliest. I suspect this whole thing is a hoax." | |
| Unobfuscated Perl (#2) A rogue group of Perl hackers has presented a plan to add a "use really_goddamn_strict" pragma that would enforce readability and UNobfuscation. With this pragma in force, the Perl compiler might say: * Warning: Write-only code detected between lines 612 and 734. While this code is perfectly legal, you won't have any clue what it does in two weeks. I recommend you start over. * Warning: Code at line 1,024 is indistinguishable from line noise or the output of /dev/random * Warning: Have you ever properly indented a piece of code in your entire life? Evidently not. * Warning: I think you can come up with a more descriptive variable name than "foo" at line 1,523. * Warning: Programmer attempting to re-invent the wheel at line 2,231. There's a function that does the exact same thing on CPAN -- and it actually works. | |
| "... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which actually made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..." -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning Points in l'Amour" | |
| "Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US | |
| One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was reknowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
| "Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well." - Linus Torvalds | |
| "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 | |
| "Call me stupid [ Chorus: "You're stupid, Linus" ], but I actually compiled and booted this remotely." - Linus | |
| "Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, THEN, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver." - Linus Torvalds | |
| Actually you would still need the other fixes otherwise you might as well put the root password in /etc/motd - Alan Cox pointing out some security holes in binfmt_misc | |
| As you point out below, contract law is also involved. Add the DMCA, UCITA, and Bush 2.0 to the mix, and any lawyer who says he actually knows what's legal is lying. - Ian Pilcher on Microsoft "shared source" licensing | |
| Linus Torvalds wrote: > How the h*ll did you happen to actually notice this? Some combination of blind luck, curiosity, pride, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder... - John Byrne on linux-kernel | |
| I actually use the trees I release and I want to keep my machines working - Alan Cox recommending his -ac trees 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 | |
| > ... What will be next, maybe you disable to run non GPL > executables under linux ? Actually no. We are researching how to stop trolls posting to the kernel list as our main AI project. - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
| About the only thing we have left that actually discriminates in favor of the plain people is the stork. | |
| <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. | |
| "Actually, the only distribution of Linux I've ever used that passed the rootshell test out of the box (hit rootshell at the time the dist is released and see if you can break the OS with scripts from there) is Debian." -- seen on the Linux security-audit mailing list | |
| "and i actually like debian 2.0 that much i completely revamped the default config of the linux systems our company sells and reinstalled any of the linux systems in the office and here at home.." | |
| <xtifr> direct brain implants :) <knghtbrd> xtifr - yah, then using computers would actually require some of these idiots to think! <knghtbrd> ;> | |
| <jgoerzen> stu: ahh that machine. Don't you think that something named stallman deserves to be an Alpha? :-) <stu> jgoerzen: no, actually, I'd prolly be more inclined to name a 386 with 4 megs of ram and a 40 meg hard drive stallman. <stu> with a big fat case that makes tons of noise and rattles the floor * Knghtbrd falls to the floor holding his sides laughing <stu> and.. <stu> double-height hard drive | |
| * bma_home gropes you <bma_home> "oups, wrong channel" <bma_home> </acf> <cerb> quit groping me <doogie> you know you like it. <bma_home> actually, it was "grope me baby" <gecko-> touch my son and you die, bma ;) <doogie> gecko-: but your wife is ok? | |
| <Endy> Actually, I think I'll wait for potato to be finalised before installing debian. <Endy> That should be soon, I'm hoping. :) <knghtbrd> Endy: You obviously know very little about Debian. | |
| <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. | |
| <Knghtbrd> Even with overbrights, Quake's color palette is full of dull, flat colors <LordHavoc> knghtbrd: quake's palette is very vibrant unless you use gamma correction <LordHavoc> well actually I agree, it's nowhere near as vibrant as Unreal <Deek> Q3 on the other hand...NEON. <LordHavoc> Q3 is just ridiculous <Deek> Q3 takes the medieval church-dungeon and puts it in Vegas. | |
| 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 | |
| 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. | |
| Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of filename completion. -- Discussion on file completion vs. the Mac Finder | |
| Besides, its really not worthwhile to use more than two times your physical ram in swap (except in a select few situations). The performance of the system becomes so abysmal you'd rather heat pins under your toenails while reciting Windows95 source code and staring at porn flicks of Bob Dole than actually try to type something. -- seen on c.o.l.development.system, about the size of the swap space | |
| <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 | |
| Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ... [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.] ... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even more interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a fact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first, without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from below. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" | |
| Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question. Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct sunlight. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
| Retirement means that when someone says "Have a nice day", you actually have a shot at it. | |
| 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! | |
| 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, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!" | |
| But then it's a bit odd to think that declaring something int could actually slow down the program, if it ended up forcing more conversions back to string. -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org> | |
| I'm not sure whether that's actually useful... -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org> | |
| Actually, it also looks like we should optimize (13,2,42,8,'hike') into a pp_padav copy as well. -- Larry Wall in <199711081945.LAA06315@wall.org> | |
| Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!! | |
| The default Magic Word, "Abracadabra", actually is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase "ha-Bracha dab'ra" which means "pronounce the blessing". | |
