Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
MVS Air Lines: The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. | |
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. | |
Economies of scale: The notion that bigger is better. In particular, that if you want a certain amount of computer power, it is much better to buy one biggie than a bunch of smallies. Accepted as an article of faith by people who love big machines and all that complexity. Rejected as an article of faith by those who love small machines and all those limitations. | |
Fortune's Rules for Memo Wars: #2 Given the incredible advances in sociocybernetics and telepsychology over the last few years, we are now able to completely understand everything that the author of an memo is trying to say. Thanks to modern developments in electrocommunications like notes, vnews, and electricity, we have an incredible level of interunderstanding the likes of which civilization has never known. Thus, the possibility of your misinterpreting someone else's memo is practically nil. Knowing this, anyone who accuses you of having done so is a liar, and should be treated accordingly. If you *do* understand the memo in question, but have absolutely nothing of substance to say, then you have an excellent opportunity for a vicious ad hominem attack. In fact, the only *inappropriate* times for an ad hominem attack are as follows: 1: When you agree completely with the author of an memo. 2: When the author of the original memo is much bigger than you are. 3: When replying to one of your own memos. | |
Kliban's First Law of Dining: Never eat anything bigger than your head. | |
Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. -- N.R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960 Corollaries: (1) The bigger the theory, the better. (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory. | |
Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. | |
But like the Good Book says... There's BIGGER DEALS to come! | |
Force it!!! If it breaks, well, it wasn't working anyway... No, don't force it, get a bigger hammer. | |
The bigger the theory the better. | |
Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky | |
Never eat anything bigger than your head. | |
Ever Onward! Ever Onward! That's the sprit that has brought us fame. We're big but bigger we will be, We can't fail for all can see, that to serve humanity Has been our aim. Our products now are known in every zone. Our reputation sparkles like a gem. We've fought our way thru And new fields we're sure to conquer, too For the Ever Onward IBM! -- Ever Onward, from the 1940 IBM Songbook | |
If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands. | |
Never trust anybody whose arm is bigger than your leg. | |
The bigger they are, the harder they hit. | |
"I want you guys to look at your computer screen, imagining the worst monster you can (the cacodeamon from Quake will do, just make him hairier and bigger and more MEAN), and think of me. Think of me like I am when I see a patch which isn't a pure bug-fix. If you're whimpering just _thinking_ about sending me a new feature, you're in the right mindframe. Keep that mindframe." - Linus Torvalds | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Good children always obey. Quit acting so childish. Boys don't cry. If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. Why do you have to know so much? This hurts me more than it hurts you. Why? Because I'm bigger than you. Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? Oh, grow up. I'm only doing this because I love you. | |
MEMORIES OF MY FAMILY MEETINGS still are a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all get into the car -- I forget what kind it was -- and drive and drive. I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some bees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy whom we called "Dad." We'd eat some stuff or not and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave you. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988. | |
Technology is a constand battle between manufacturers producing bigger and more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots. -- Slashdot signature | |
In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value to product." According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has 10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have been an efficiency expert? -- Motor Trend, May 1983 | |
... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't force you down on the asking price. -- Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt" | |
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" |