Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
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". | |
Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. -- Casablanca | |
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 | |
We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you. -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984 | |
"...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved linux kernel version." (By Linus Torvalds) | |
Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain | |
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 live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. -- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House" | |
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know. -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. | |
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 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?] | |
=== 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. | |
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 Emily: I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? -- A Concerned Citizen Dear Concerned: Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net society. Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- they are always interested in good stories. | |
Dear Emily: I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted to. How about an example? -- Still Confused Dear Still: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. -- 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 | |
Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of the world. Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would return them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, might be a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley. Sniffing the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little suspected that they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked physicist crazed over roulette. -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie" | |
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" | |
Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet. | |
"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone with it." -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 | |
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 misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive power. -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" | |
The party adjourned to a hot tub, yes. Fully clothed, I might add. -- IBM employee, testifying in California State Supreme Court | |
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" | |
When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences: It weighs less than 8 pounds.* And costs less than $1,300.** In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you might not be able to figure this out for yourself. ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if you really want to. Or less. -- Forbes | |
You might have mail. | |
I doubt, therefore I might be. | |
Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy. -- Publilius Syrus | |
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 | |
...Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. - Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46 | |
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. - from John F. Kennedy's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association September 12, 1960. | |
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 | |
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 | |
"We can't schedule an orgy, it might be construed as fighting" --Stanley Sutton | |
As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making it round this time. - Mike Dennison | |
...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 | |
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects, both. I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me. - Abraham Lincoln | |
"Would I turn on the gas if my pal Mugsy were in there?" "You might, rabbit, you might!" -- Looney Tunes, Bugs and Thugs (1954, Friz Freleng) | |
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?" "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." -- Ambrose Bierce | |
"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 | |
"It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington." -- Admiral Grace Hopper | |
"All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in. I'm glad they are a snowman with protective rubber skin" -- They Might Be Giants | |
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 | |
"Were there no women, men might live like gods." -- Thomas Dekker | |
Q: How can I choose what groups to post in? ... Q: How about an example? A: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ | |
Heisenberg might have been here. | |
THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other reader. Fun With Usenet postings are no exception. Since there are some who might question the rationale of some of the excerpts included therein, I have written up a list of guidelines that sum up the philosophy behind these postings. One. I never cut out words in the middle of a quote without a VERY good reason, and I never cut them out without including ellipses. For instance, "I am not a goob" might become "I am ... a goob", but that's too mundane to bother with. "I'm flame proof" might (and has) become "I'm ...a... p...oof" but that's REALLY stretching it. Two. If I cut words off the beginning or end of a quote, I don't put ellipses, but neither do I capitalize something that wasn't capitalized before the cut. "I don't think that the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place" would turn into "the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place". Imagine the posting as a tape-recording of the poster's thoughts. If I can set up the quote via fast-forwarding and stopping the tape, and without splicing, I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you don't think it's wonderful. ... -- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP) | |
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_ | |
"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that >from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time." -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren | |
Ever wonder if taxation without representation might have been cheaper? | |
Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go into a "Pearl Harbor File". | |
I might have gone to West Point, but I was too proud to speak to a congressman. -- Will Rogers | |
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. -- Frederick Douglass | |
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 price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us. -- Mario Cuomo | |
There are only two things in this world that I am sure of, death and taxes, and we just might do something about death one of these days. -- shades | |
I do not patronize poor, ill educated, or disenfranchised people by exempting them from the same critical examination I feel free to direct toward the rest of society, however much I might champion the same minority or disadvantaged group in the forums of that society. -- James Moffitt | |
Eagleson's Law: Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.) | |
First law of debate: Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference. | |
Five rules for eternal misery: (1) Always try to exhort others to look upon you favorably. (2) Make lots of assumptions about situations and be sure to treat these assumptions as though they are reality. (3) Then treat each new situation as though it's a crisis. (4) Live in the past and future only (become obsessed with how much better things might have been or how much worse things might become). (5) Occasionally stomp on yourself for being so stupid as to follow the first four rules. | |
Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Performance: A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored to be working over in Jersey about a month ago. | |
QOTD: "I'd never marry a woman who didn't like pizza... I might play golf with her, but I wouldn't marry her!" | |
White's Statement: Don't lose heart! Owen's Commentary on White's Statement: ...they might want to cut it out... Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary: ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search. | |
Don't quit now, we might just as well lock the door and throw away the key. | |
Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had been different in the past. | |
Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. -- Ogden Nash | |
Best Beer: A panel of tasters assembled by the Consumer's Union in 1969 judged Coors and Miller's High Life to be among the very best. Those who doubt that beer is a serious subject might ponder its effect on American history. For example, New England's first colonists decided to drop anchor at Plymouth Rock instead of continuing on to Virginia because, as one of them put it, "We could not now take time for further consideration, our victuals being spent and especially our beer." -- Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst & Most Unusual | |
Don't drink when you drive -- you might hit a bump and spill it. | |
Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying. | |
Q: Know what the difference between your latest project and putting wings on an elephant is? A: Who knows? The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh... | |
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. | |
If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more! | |
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" | |
Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed, and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under. Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that. No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car. -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" | |
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 | |
... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. -- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism" | |
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!" | |
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
I had a feeling once about mathematics -- that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me -- the Byss and the Abyss. I saw -- as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show -- a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why tergiversation was inevitable -- but it was after dinner and I let it go. -- Winston Churchill | |
"I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. I think very probably he might be cured." "That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob. "His brain is affected," said the blind doctor. The elders murmured assent. "Now, what affects it?" "Ah!" said old Yacob. "This," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and his eyelids move, and cosequently his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction." "Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?" "And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical operation -- namely, to remove those irritant bodies." "And then he will be sane?" "Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen." "Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob. -- H.G. Wells, "The Country of the Blind" | |
I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain" | |
If I set here and stare at nothing long enough, people might think I'm an engineer working on something. -- S.R. McElroy | |
If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. -- Vannevar Bush | |
"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only have wings by not being Walter's horse. I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me. -- A.N. Prior, "Time and Modality" | |
It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong. -- Chris Torek | |
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365, 365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be as much fun to watch. -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics" | |
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. | |
You first parents of the human race... who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey? -- Brillat-savarin, "Physiologie du Gout" | |
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.] | |
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list -- I've got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. -- Koko, "The Mikado" | |
Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait! Catholic girls start much too late, Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate, I might as well be the one. Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray, Built you a temple and locked you away, Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid, The things that you might have done. So come on, Virginia, show me a sign, Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line, That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind, Never lets in the sun. Darling, only the good die young! -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young" | |
"Force is but might," the teacher said-- "That definition's just." The boy said naught but thought instead, Remembering his pounded head: "Force is not might but must!" | |
"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!" "As a programmer, yes," she replied, "And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!" "You said you were blonde, but you lied!" Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too, They had so much in common, you'd say. They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks, And prompts that were cute or risque'. He sent her a picture of his brother Sam, She sent one from some past high school day, And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives, If they hadn't met in L.A. "Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust. He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!" And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest If you were not so totally weird!" If she had not said what he wanted to hear, And he had not done just the same, They'd have been far more honest, and never have met, And would not have had fun with the game. -- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of Electronic Mail" | |
If she had not been cupric in her ions, Her shape ovoidal, Their romance might have flourished. But he built tetrahedral in his shape, His ions ferric, Love could not help but die, Uncatylised, inert, and undernourished. | |
O love, could thou and I with fate conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Might we not smash it to bits And mould it closer to our hearts' desire? -- Omar Khayyam, tr. FitzGerald | |
Razors pain you; Rivers are damp. Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give. Gas smells awful-- You might as well live! -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926 | |
The bank sent our statement this morning, The red ink was a sight of great awe! Their figures and mine might have balanced, But my wife was too quick on the draw. | |
The sounds of the nouns are mostly unbound. In town a noun might wear a gown, or further down, might dress a clown. A noun that's sound would never clown, but unsound nouns jump up and down. The sound of a noun could distrub the plowing, and then, my dear, you'd be put in the pound. But please don't let that get you down, the renown of your gown is the talk of the town. -- A. Nonnie Mouse | |
The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright -- And this was very odd, because it was The middle of the night. -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
Though I respect that a lot I'd be fired if that were my job After killing Jason off and Countless screaming argonauts Bluebird of friendliness Like guardian angels it's Always near Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch Who watches over you Make a little birdhouse in your soul Not to put too fine a point on it Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet Make a little birdhouse in your soul -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants | |
Well I looked at my watch and it said a quarter to five, The headline screamed that I was still alive, I couldn't understand it, I thought I died last night. I dreamed I'd been in a border town, In a little cantina that the boys had found, I was desperate to dance, just to dig the local sounds. When along came a senorita, She looked so good that I had to meet her, I was ready to approach her with my English charm, When her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm, And he said, grow some funk of your own, amigo, Grow some funk of your own. We no like to with the gringo fight, But there might be a death in Mexico tonite. ... Take my advice, take the next flight, And grow some funk, grow your funk at home. -- Elton John, "Grow Some Funk of Your Own" | |
Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain. Fancy giving money to the Government! Nobody will see the stuff again. Well, they've no idea what money's for -- Ten to one they'll start another war. I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'! Fancy giving money to the Government! -- A.P. Herbert | |
Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. -- Core Dumped Blues | |
When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got, Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott, Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes? U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli, They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli, But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines! For might makes right, Members of the corps And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war: They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means. All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression-- Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression! We only want the world to know That we support the status quo; They love us everywhere we go, So when in doubt, send the Marines! -- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines" | |
Yes me, I got a bottle in front of me. And Jimmy has a frontal lobotomy. Just different ways to kill the pain the same. But I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, Than to have to have a frontal lobotomy. I might be drunk but at least I'm not insane. -- Randy Ansley M.D. (Dr. Rock) | |
"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?" | |
Make a wish, it might come true. | |
Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). | |
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 | |
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" | |
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" | |
It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. -- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4 | |
"`...we might as well start with where your hand is now.' Arthur said, `So which way do I go?' `Down,' said Fenchurch, `on this occaision.' He moved his hand. `Down,' she said, `is in fact the other way.' `Oh yes.'" - Arthur trying to discover which part of Fenchurch is wrong. | |
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." - One of the laws of computers and programming revealed. | |
"I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly. "AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT." "Why?" "THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF." -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something to be avoided than harped upon. Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something about helping to postpone this reunion. -- Douglas Adams | |
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If... 1. When a Microsoft program crashes for the millionth time, you say "Oh, well!" and reboot without any negative thoughts 2. The Windows 95 startup screen (the clouds) makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside 3. You fully understand why Windows 95's Shutdown Option has to be accessed from the Start Menu 4. You believe Internet Explorer's security flaws were slipped in by a crack team of Netscape programmers 5. You keep valuable papers near your fireplace. Therefore, you are comfortable with Windows 95's "may-delete-it-at-anytime" philosophy 6. You're the Bob that Microsoft Bob was named after 7. Instead of "I'd rather be fishing," your bumper sticker says, "I'd rather be writing buggy Microsoft code" 8. You know the technical difference between OLE 1.0 and OLE 2.0 9. You've ever completed your income taxes while waiting for Windows 95 to boot, and didn't think anything of it 10. You run Solitaire more than any other program, and therefore you consider your computer a Dedicated Solitaire Engine (DSE) | |
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 | |
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. | |
I'm still waiting for the "Honk if you hate Microsoft" [bumper sticker], but that might get annoying, everyone honking at you. -- From a Slashdot.org post | |
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. | |
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." | |
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. | |
Jargon Coiner (#9) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * RHYMES WITH CYNICS: The final answer to any debate about how to pronounce Linux. Of course, "cynics" might not be the best word to associate Linux with... * WISL? (Will It Support Linux?): The very first thought that springs into a Linux user's mind when a cool new piece of software or hardware is announced. * JJMD! (Jar Jar Must Die!): Meaningless reply given to a question or poll for which you don't have a good answer. Example: Question: "When did you stop beating your wife?" Answer: "JJMD!" | |
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. | |
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. | |
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 | |
Brief History Of Linux (#11) Birth of Gates and the Anti-Gates October 28, 1955 saw the birth of William H. Gates, who would rise above his humble beginnings as the son of Seattle's most powerful millionaire lawyer and become the World's Richest Man(tm). A classic American rags-to-riches story (with "rags" referring to the dollar bills that the Gates family used for toilet paper), Bill Gates is now regarded as the world's most respected businessman by millions of clueless people that have obviously never touched a Windows machine. Nature is all about balance. The birth of Gates in 1955 tipped the cosmic scales toward evil, but the birth of Linus Torvalds in 1969 finally balanced them out. Linus' destiny as the savior of Unix and the slayer of money-breathing Redmond dragons was sealed when, just mere hours after his birth, the Unix epoch began January 1st, 1970. While the baseline for Unix timekeeping might be arbitrary, we here at Humorix like to thank the its proximity of Linus' birth is no coincidence. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#19) Boy meets operating system The young Linus Torvalds might have been just another CompSci student if it wasn't for his experiences in the Univ. of Helsinki's Fall 1990 Unix & C course. During one class, the professor experienced difficulty getting Minix to work properly on a Sun box. "Who the heck designed this thing?" the angry prof asked, and somebody responded, "Andrew Tanenbaum". The name of the Unix & C professor has already escaped from Linus, but the words he spoke next remain forever etched in his grey matter: "Tanenbaum... ah, yes, that Amsterdam weenie who thinks microkernels are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, they're not. I would just love to see somebody create their own superior Unix-like 32-bit operating system using a monolithic kernel just to show Tanenbaum up!" His professor's outburst inspired Linus to order a new IBM PC so he could hack Minix. You can probably guess what happened next. Inspired by his professor's words, Linus Torvalds hacks together his own superior Unix-like 32-but operating system using a monolithic kernel just to show Mr. Christmas Tree up. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#20) Linux is born Linus' superhuman programming talent produced, within a year, a full operating system that rivaled Minix. The first official announcement on comp.os.minix came October 5th, in which Linus wrote these famous words: Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers? Do you want to cut your teeth on an operating system that will achieve world domination within 15 years? Want to get rich quick by the end of the century by taking money from hordes of venture capitalists and clueless Wall Street suits? Need to get even with Bill Gates but don't know what to do except throw cream pies at him? Then this post might just be for you :-) Linux (which was known as "Lindows", "Freax", and "Billsux" for short periods in 1991) hit the bigtime on January 5, 1992 (exactly one year after Linus wasn't hit by a bus) when version 0.12 was released under the GNU GPL. Linus called his creation a "better Minix than Minix"; the famous Linus vs. Tanenbaum flamewar erupted soon thereafter on January 29th and injured several Usenet bystanders. | |
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'." | |
Unobfuscated Perl (#1) 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: Program contains zero comments. You've probably never seen or used one before; they begin with a # symbol. Please start using them or else a representative from the nearest Perl Mongers group will come to your house and beat you over the head with a cluestick. * Warning: Program uses a cute trick at line 125 that might make sense in C. But this isn't C! * Warning: Code at line 412 indicates that programmer is an idiot. Please correct error between chair and monitor. * Warning: While There's More Than One Way To Do It, your method at line 523 is particularly stupid. Please try again. | |
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. | |
A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest. -- Lazarus Long | |
Being popular is important. Otherwise people might not like you. | |
But I find the old notions somehow appealing. Not that I want to go back to them -- it is outrageous to have some outer authority tell you what is proper use and abuse of your own faculties, and it is ludicrous to hold reason higher than body or feeling. Still there is something true and profoundly sane about the belief that acts like murder or theft or assault violate the doer as well as the done to. We might even, if we thought this way, have less crime. The popular view of crime, as far as I can deduce it from the movies and television, is that it is a breaking of a rule by someone who thinks they can get away with that; implicitly, everyone would like to break the rule, but not everyone is arrogant enough to imagine they can get away with it. It therefore becomes very important for the rule upholders to bring such arrogance down. -- Marilyn French, "The Woman's Room" | |
Class, that's the only thing that counts in life. Class. Without class and style, a man's a bum; he might as well be dead. -- "Bugsy" Siegel | |
Don't ever slam a door; you might want to go back. | |
Don't shout for help at night. You might wake your neighbors. -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" | |
Don't try to have the last word -- you might get it. -- Lazarus Long | |
Hi! I'm Larry. This is my brother Bob, and this is my other brother Jimbo. We thought you might like to know the names of your assailants. | |
Never argue with a fool -- people might not be able to tell the difference. | |
The point is, you see, that there is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later. | |
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day. -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. -- Whole Earth Catalog | |
You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. -- Yogi Berra | |
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" | |
"If we can't keep this sort of thing out of the kernel, we might as well pack it up and go run Solaris." - Larry McVoy | |
"I would suggest you to read through the following book and files: * Kernighan & Pike, "The Practice of Programming" * Documentation/CodingStyle * drivers/net/aironet4500_proc.c and consider, erm, discrepancies. On the second thought, reading K&R might also be useful. IOW, no offense, but your C is bad beyond belief." - Al Viro | |
> around line mm/vmscan.c:487 that says: Yeah, yeah, it's 7PM Christmas Eve over there, and you're in the middle of your Christmas dinner. You might feel that it's unreasonable of me to ask you to test out my latest crazy idea. How selfish of you. Get back there in front of the computer NOW. Christmas can wait. Linus "the Grinch" Torvalds | |
<matton> it might be broken? <al> matton: sigh... all software sucks, but usually there are symptomes beyond "it doesn't work" - Al Viro on #kernelnewbies | |
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 | |
(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 | |
If Nvidia would like to pay me as much as Microsoft is paid for driver certification then I might be able to find the time - Alan Cox 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 | |
-- 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" | |
Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" | |
<stu> you should be afraid to use KDE because RMS might come to your house and cleave your monitor with an axe or something :) | |
* wichert_ imagines master without a MTA <james> wichert: ehm? that might hinder peformance of the BTS :p | |
> > But IANAL, of course. > > IANAL either. My son is, but if I asked him I might get an answer I > wouldn't want to hear. "Here's my invoice." ? =D | |
Given some of the recent threads, the interactive discussions might need to be conducted on canvas, in the presence of a referee, while wearing padded gloves. ;-) -- Phil Hands | |
<Espy> be careful, some twit might quote you <Espy> out of context... | |
How do you insult a lawyer? You might as well not even try. Consider: of all the highly trained and educated professions, law is the only one in which the prime lesson is that *winning* is more important than *truth*. Once someone has sunk to that level, what worse can you say about them? | |
If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, it might well prolong his life. -- Charles Darling, "Scintillae Juris, 1877 | |
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a law against it by that time. | |
NEVER swerve to hit a lawyer riding a bicycle -- it might be your bicycle. | |
(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 | |
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'" -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" | |
If you put it off long enough, it might go away. | |
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." | |
...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved linux kernel version. -- Linus Torvalds | |
Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza." Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza". [1] Licenced - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government licence to sell liquor. -- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University | |
I mean, well, if it were not for Linux I might be roaming the streets looking for drugs or prostitutes or something. Hannu and Linus have my highest admiration (apple polishing mode off). -- Phil Lewis, plewis@nyx.nyx.net | |
The only other people who might benefit from Linux8086 would be owners of PDP/11's and other roomsized computers from the same era. -- Alan Cox | |
Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, please? I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds | |
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" | |
One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. "You will not succeed," they told him. "No one can." To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing. -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Niven and Pournelle | |
"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" | |
The annual meeting of the "You Have To Listen To Experience" Club is now in session. Our Achievement Awards this year are in the fields of publishing, advertising and industry. For best consistent contribution in the field of publishing our award goes to editor, R.L.K., [...] for his unrivalled alle- giance without variation to the statement: "Personally I'd love to do it, we'd ALL love to do it. But we're not going to do it. It's not the kind of book our house knows how to handle." Our superior performance award in the field of advertising goes to media executive, E.L.M., [...] for the continu- ally creative use of the old favorite: "I think what you've got here could be very exciting. Why not give it one more try based on the approach I've out- lined and see if you can come up with something fresh." Our final award for courageous holding action in the field of industry goes to supervisor, R.S., [...] for her unyielding grip on "I don't care if they fire me, I've been arguing for a new approach for YEARS but are we SURE that this is the right time--" I would like to conclude this meeting with a verse written specially for our prospectus by our founding president fifty years ago -- and now, as then, fully expressive of the emotion most close to all our hearts -- Treat freshness as a youthful quirk, And dare not stray to ideas new, For if t'were tried they might e'en work And for a living what woulds't we do? | |
The Worst Car Hire Service When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles. To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and he now has 26 thriving branches all over America. "People like driving round in the worst cars available," he said. Of course they do. "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'. If they bring a car back late we overlook it. If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle we might overlook that too." "Where's the ashtray?" asked on Los Angeles wife, as she settled into the ripped interior. "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the ash tray." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures" | |
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!" | |
I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value, but it wouldn't be as clean. I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall | |
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> | |
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> | |
The reason I like hitching a ride on strict vars is that it cuts down the number of rarely used pragmas people have to remember, yet provides a way to get to the point where we might, just maybe, someday, make local lexicals the default for everyone, without having useless pragmas wandering around various programs, or using up another bit in $^H. -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org> | |
I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible. -- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer" | |
"I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with them, or something?" "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49" | |
Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very _____least he can do is to shut up! -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was" | |
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. | |
Well, I'm INVISIBLE AGAIN ... I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES ROOM ... | |
Watch Rincewind. Look at him. Scrawny, like most wizards, and clad in a dark red robe on which a few mystic sigils were embroidered in tarnished sequins. Some might have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality. Yet around his neck was a chain bearing the bronze octagon that marked him as an alumnus of Unseen University, the high school of magic whose time-and-space transcendent campus is never precisely Here or There. Graduates were usually destined for mageship at least, but Rincewind--after an unfortunate event--had left knowing only one spell and made a living of sorts around the town by capitalizing on an innate gift for languages. He avoided work as a rule, but had a quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic" | |
A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT. Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose valuable scientific objectivity. 2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES. Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the gentleness and reassurance he can get. 3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED. Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold. | |
"Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the psycho-prompter couch?" "Thank you, Red." "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem." "Yes, Red." "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now, at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?" "Yes, Red." "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000 explain the failure of your three marriages." "Well, I--" "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our product." -- Jules Feiffer |