DEEn Dictionary De - En
DeEs De - Es
DePt De - Pt
 Vocabulary trainer

Spec. subjects Grammar Abbreviations Random search Preferences
Search in Sprachauswahl
Search for:
Mini search box
 
Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

I accept chaos.  I am not sure whether it accepts me.  I know some people
are terrified of the bomb.  But then some people are terrified to be seen
carrying a modern screen magazine.  Experience teaches us that silence
terrifies people the most.
                -- Bob Dylan
        So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve.  Richard and I were inching toward
it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
        Many people would have panicked at this point.  But Richard and
I were not "many people."  We were experienced waders, and we kept our
heads.  We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
our feet never once went below the surface of the water.  We ran all
the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
The Great Movie Posters:

The Miracle of the Age!!!  A LION in your lap!  A LOVER in your arms!
                -- Bwana Devil (1952)

OVERWHELMING!  ELECTRIFYING!  BAFFLING!
Fire Can't Burn Them!  Bullets Can't Kill Them!  See the Unfolding of
the Mysteries of the Moon as Murderous Robot Monsters Descend Upon the
Earth!  You've Never Seen Anything Like It!  Neither Has the World!
        SEE... Robots from Space in All Their Glory!!!
                -- Robot Monster (1953)

1,965 pyramids, 5,337 dancing girls, one million swaying bullrushes,
802 scared bulls!
                -- The Egyptian (1954)
If anyone has seen my dog, please contact me at x2883 as soon as possible.
We're offering a substantial reward.  He's a sable collie, with three legs,
blind in his left eye, is missing part of his right ear and the tip of his
tail.  He's been recently fixed.  Answers to "Lucky".
"Linux: the operating system with a CLUE...
Command Line User Environment".
(seen in a posting in comp.software.testing)
quit   When the quit statement is read, the  bc  processor
       is  terminated, regardless of where the quit state-
       ment is found.  For example, "if  (0  ==  1)  quit"
       will cause bc to terminate.
(Seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic)
We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.
(seen in someone's .signature)
Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession.
You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy
officials have gone by.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god.  He preferred
to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.  He never
claimed to be a god.  But then, he never claimed not to be a god.  Circum-
stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit.
Silence, though, could.  It was in the days of the rains that their prayers
went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of
prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri,
goddess of the Night.  The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through
the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the
Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze
rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday.
Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique...
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
                -- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.  Of all divers,
thou has dived the deepest.  That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has
moved amid the world's foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful
water-land, there was thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or
diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when
leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting
wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed
on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would
have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head! thou has
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!"
                -- H. Melville, "Moby Dick"
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
                -- D.E. Knuth
... computer hardware progress is so fast.  No other technology since
civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price
gain in 30 years.
                -- Fred Brooks
I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck.
                -- Rob Pike, on X.

Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be
gone in two years.  He was half right.
                -- Dennis Ritchie

Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong.
                -- Jim Gettys
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the
shoulders of giants.
                -- Isaac Newton

In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with
the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
                -- Gerald Holton

If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on
my shoulders.
                -- Hal Abelson

Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
                -- Gauss

Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists
stand on each other's toes.
                -- Richard Hamming

It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders.  If
this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and
software engineers dig each other's graves.
                -- Unknown
        *** STUDENT SUCCESSES ***

Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of
programming.  One former student developed the concept of the personalized
form letter.  Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a
winner!," sound familiar?  Another student writes "After only five lessons I
sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine.
Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management
program for my department manager.  My program touched him so deeply that he
was speechless.  He told me later that he had never seen such a program in
his entire career.  Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could
have made this possible."  Send for our introductory brochure which explains
in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll
be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which
can vie for a set of free steak knives.  If you don't do it now, you'll hate
yourself in the morning.
        The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the
forest, hunting bear.  They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took
their backpacks off and put them inside.  At which point the salesman turned
to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear."
        Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down
on the porch.  Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest.  The noises
got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like
hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and
most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen.
        "Open the door!", screamed the salesman.
        The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door,
suddenly stopped, and stepped aside.  The bear, unable to stop, continued
through the door and into the cabin.  The salesman slammed the door closed
and grinned at his friend.  "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this
one and I'll go rustle us up another!"
        "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?"
        "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food,
right?"
                -- MacNelley, "Shoe"
As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems:
(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418):

        Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where
        you have permission to stick it.

The post is by "redgekko"
Thou hast seen nothing yet.
                -- Miguel de Cervantes
We have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's out.
...computer hardware progress is so fast.  No other technology since
civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price
gain in 30 years.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.
"I've seen it.  It's rubbish."
-- Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!"
   "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!"
-- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger
Seen on a button at an SF Convention:
Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force.  1990-1951.
"I've seen the forgeries I've sent out."
-- John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US), about forging net news articles
        "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not
matter.  'I' do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality
and remembers words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his
fellows esteem him.  He looks upon the great transformations of the
world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon
reality for the first time.  Their names come to his lips and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming."
-- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
Once you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all.
Only two kinds of witnesses exist.  The first live in a neighborhood where
a crime has been committed and in no circumstances have ever seen anything
or even heard a shot.  The second category are the neighbors of anyone who
happens to be accused of the crime.  These have always looked out of their
windows when the shot was fired, and have noticed the accused person standing
peacefully on his balcony a few yards away.
                -- Sicilian police officer
Deja vu:
        French., already seen; unoriginal; trite.
        Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced
        something actually being encountered for the first time.
        Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced
        something actually being encountered for the first time.
Nouvelle cuisine, n.:
        French for "not enough food".

Continental breakfast, n.:
        English for "not enough food".

Tapas, n.:
        Spanish for "not enough food".

Dim Sum, n.:
        Chinese for more food than you've ever seen in your entire life.
zeal, n.:
        Quality seen in new graduates -- if you're quick.
I have seen the Great Pretender and he is not what he seems.
I know you're in search of yourself, I just haven't seen you anywhere.
I'd be a poorer man if I'd never seen an eagle fly.
                -- John Denver

[I saw an eagle fly once.  Fortunately, I had my eagle fly swatter handy.  Ed.]
See, these two penguins walked into a bar, which was really stupid, 'cause
the second one should have seen it.
NOTICE:
        Anyone seen smoking will be assumed to be on fire and will
        be summarily put out.
A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a
watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he
looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his
tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were
they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led
by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged,
killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting
could not be seen.  A little while later the two kings of the jungle
emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of
the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."
Have you seen the latest Japanese camera?  Apparently it is so fast it can
photograph an American with his mouth shut!
        Some 1500 miles west of the Big Apple we find the Minneapple, a
haven of tranquility in troubled times.  It's a good town, a civilized town.
A town where they still know how to get your shirts back by Thursday.  Let
the Big Apple have the feats of "Broadway Joe" Namath.  We have known the
stolid but steady Killebrew.  Listening to Cole Porter over a dry martini
may well suit those unlucky enough never to have heard the Whoopee John Polka
Band and never to have shared a pitcher of 3.2 Grain Belt Beer.  The loss is
theirs.  And the Big Apple has yet to bake the bagel that can match peanut
butter on lefse.  Here is a town where the major urban problem is dutch elm
disease and the number one crime is overtime parking.  We boast more theater
per capita than the Big Apple.  We go to see, not to be seen.  We go even
when we must shovel ten inches of snow from the driveway to get there.  Indeed
the winters are fierce.  But then comes the marvel of the Minneapple summer.
People flock to the city's lakes to frolic and rejoice at the sight of so
much happy humanity free from the bonds of the traditional down-filled parka.
Here's to the Minneapple.  And to its people.  Our flair for style is balanced
by a healthy respect for wind chill factors.
        And we always, always eat our vegetables.
        This is the Minneapple.
I do not remember ever having seen a sustained argument by an author which,
starting from philosophical premises likely to meet with general acceptance,
reached the conclusion that a praiseworthy ordering of one's life is to
devote it to research in mathematics.
                -- Sir Edmund Whittaker, "Scientific American", Vol. 183
If I have not seen so far it is because I stood in giant's footsteps.
Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody
else has thought.
The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals
because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage
and tourist handouts.  This bear has learned to open car doors in
Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens
of thousands of dollars a year.  Campaigns to bearproof all garbage
containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist
put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels
of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."
A fitter fits;                                Though sinners sin
A cutter cuts;                                And thinners thin
And an aircraft spotter spots;                And paper-blotters blot
A baby-sitter                                I've never yet
Baby-sits --                                Had letters let
But an otter never ots.                        Or seen an otter ot.

A batter bats
(Or scatters scats);
A potting shed's for potting;
But no one's found
A bounder bound
Or caught an otter otting.
                -- Ralph Lewin
And did those feet, in ancient times,
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
In England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon these crowded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spears!  O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I shall not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword rest in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
                -- William Blake, "Jerusalem"
Ever since I was a young boy,
I've hacked the ARPA net,
From Berkeley down to Rutgers,                He's on my favorite terminal,
Any access I could get,                        He cats C right into foo,
But ain't seen nothing like him,        His disciples lead him in,
On any campus yet,                        And he just breaks the root,
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,                Always has full SYS-PRIV's,
Sure sends a mean packet.                Never uses lint,
                                        That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,
                                        Sure sends a mean packet.
He's a UNIX wizard,
There has to be a twist.
The UNIX wizard's got                        Ain't got no distractions,
Unlimited space on disk.                Can't hear no whistles or bells,
How do you think he does it?                Can't see no message flashing,
I don't know.                                Types by sense of smell,
What makes him so good?                        Those crazy little programs,
                                        The proper bit flags set,
                                        That deaf, dumb, and blind kid,
                                        Sure sends a mean packet.
                -- UNIX Wizard
Gil-galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.

His sword was long, his lance was keen,
his shining helm afar was seen;
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield.

But long ago he rode away,
and where he dwelleth none can say;
for into darkness fell his star
in Mordor where the shadows are.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Have you seen how Sonny's burning,
Like some bright erotic star,
He lights up the proceedings,
And raises the temperature.
                -- The Birthday Party, "Sonny's Burning"
Have you seen the old man in the closed down market,
Kicking up the papers in his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride, hands hang loosely at his side
Yesterdays papers, telling yesterdays news.

How can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand
Lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind...

Have you seen the old man outside the sea-man's mission
Memories fading like the metal ribbons that he wears.
In our winter city the rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care...
Have you seen the well-to-do, up and down Park Avenue?
On that famous thoroughfare, with their noses in the air,
High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars,
Spending every dime, for a wonderful time...
If you're blue and you don't know where to go to,
Why don't you go where fashion sits,
...
Dressed up like a million dollar trooper,
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, (super dooper)
Come, let's mix where Rockefeller's walk with sticks,
Or umberellas, in their mitts,
Puttin' on the Ritz.
...
If you're blue and you don't know where to go to,
Why don't you go where fashion sits,
Puttin' on the Ritz.
Puttin' on the Ritz.
Puttin' on the Ritz.
Puttin' on the Ritz.
I don't need no arms around me...
I don't need no drugs to calm me...
I have seen the writing on the wall.
Don't think I need anything at all.
No!  Don't think I need anything at all!
All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall.
All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall.
                -- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda
        S-O-D-A soda
I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
        Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda

Well I've been around but I ain't never seen
A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green
        Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand
        Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
                -- Weird Al Yankovic, "The Star Wars Song," to the tune of
                   "Lola" by the Kinks
I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.
                -- Gellett Burgess

I've never seen a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But from the milk we're getting now
There certainly must be one
                -- Odgen Nash

Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow"  
I'm sorry now I wrote it
But I can tell you anyhow
I'll kill you if you quote it.
                -- Gellett Burgess, many years later
I used to be such a sweet sweet thing, 'til they got a hold of me,
I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see,
I got no friends 'cause they read the papers, they can't be seen,
With me, and I'm feelin' real shot down,
And I'm, uh, feelin' mean,
        No more, Mr. Nice Guy,
        No more, Mr. Clean,
        No more, Mr. Nice Guy,
They say "He's sick, he's obscene".

My dog bit me on the leg today, my cat clawed my eyes,
Ma's been thrown out of the social circle, and Dad has to hide,
I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose,
The reverend Smithy, he recognized me,
And punched me in the nose, he said,
(chorus)
He said "You're sick, you're obscene".
                -- Alice Cooper, "No More Mr. Nice Guy"
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind starts and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.
Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone,
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you,
I went out this morning and I wrote down this song,
Just can't remember who to send it to...

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end,
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again.
Thought I'd see you one more time again.
                -- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain"
One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple,
By the Relief Office, I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling,
This land was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back,
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing."
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
                -- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7)
        [If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad
         wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't
         heard all of Woody's songs]
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream,
I wonder how the old folks are tonight,
Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face,
She left me not knowing what to do.

Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you,
Carefree Highway, you seen better days,
The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes,
Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you...

Turning back the pages to the times I love best,
I wonder if she'll ever do the same,
Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied,
With knowing I got noone left to blame.
Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame...

Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep,
I wonder if the years have closed her mind,
I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free,
From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew.
                -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway"
The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tin'uviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains colds,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away.
                -- Dorothy Parker, "The Fisherwoman"
The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age,
But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything.
I know I keep you amused,
But I feel I'm being used.
Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face.

You took me away from home,
Just to save you from being alone;
You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts.

I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school,
Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool,
Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band,
That needs a helping hand,
Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face.

You made a first-class fool out of me,
But I'm as blind as a fool can be.
You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without.
                -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May"
The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door.
He said, "I am not fighting for you any more."
The queen knew she had seen his face someplace before,
And slowly she let him inside.

He said, "I see you now, and you're so very young,
But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won,
And I have this intuition that it's all for your fun.
And now will you tell me why?"
                -- Suzanne Vega, "The Queen and The Soldier"
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
        By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
        That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
        But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
        I cremated Sam McGee.
                -- Robert W. Service
Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.        Still round the corner there may wait
  Tree and flower and leaf and grass,        A new road or a secret gate,
  Let them pass!  Let them pass!        And though we pass them by today
  Hill and water under sky,                Tomorrow we may come this way
  Pass them by!  Pass them by!                And take the hidden paths that run
                                        Towards the Moon or to the Sun,
Home is behind, the world ahead,          Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,
And there are many paths to tread          Let them go!  Let them go!
Through shadows to the edge of night,          Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Until the stars are all alight.                  Fare you well!  Fare you well!
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
  Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
  Away shall fade!  Away shall fade!
  Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
  And then to bed!  And then to bed!
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
What with chromodynamics and electroweak too
Our Standardized Model should please even you,
Tho' once you did say that of charm there was none
It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun.
Yet your state of the union penultimate large
Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge,
And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll
Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole.
Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back
For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track,
But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude
Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed.
Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more,
You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore,
That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere
Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear
Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta
Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later.
                -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, December, 1984
When 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"
        A boy scout troop went on a hike.  Crossing over a stream, one of
the boys dropped his wallet into the water.  Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed
the wallet and tossed it to another carp.  Then that carp passed it to
another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back
and forth.
        "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case
of carp-to-carp walleting."
        "It's hard to believe that something which is neither seen nor felt can
do so much harm."
        "That's true.  But an idea can't be seen or felt.  And that's what kept
the Troglytes in the mines all these centuries.  A mistaken idea."
                -- Vanna and Kirk, "The Cloud Minders", stardate 5819.0
I have a hobby.  I have the world's largest collection of sea shells.  I keep
it scattered on beaches all over the world.  Maybe you've seen some of it.
                -- Steven Wright
        "Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the
name of shaman," he said.  Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and
they are called sorcerers.  A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the
soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters.  But none have
seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they
are known as idio--"
        The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry
of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief
blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the
apparition vanished.
        There was a long silence.  Then a slightly shorter silence.  Then
the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through
upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?"
        The boy looked at him levelly.  "Certainly not," he said.
        The old man heaved a sigh of relief.  "Thank goodness for that," he
said.  "Neither did I."
                -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
                -- Benjamin Franklin.
  "A unified, neutral Germany? Given that nation's heritage, such a
  phrase may prove to be the oxymoron of the decade." -Kevin M.
  Matarese, Fulda, West Germany; as seen in "Letters", Time
  magazine, p. 5, March 5, 1990.
  Most bacteria have the decency to be microscopic. Epulopiscium
  fishelsoni is not among them. The newly identified one-celled
  macro-microorganism is a full .5 mm long, large enough to be seen
  with the naked eye. Described in the current Nature, "It is a
  million times as massive as a typical bacterium."-Time, page 25,
  March 29, 1993
  William Safire's rules for writing as seen in the New York Times

     Do not put statements in the negative form.
     And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
     If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great
     deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
     Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
     Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
     If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
     Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
     Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
     Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
     Last, but not least, avoid cliche's like the plague.
  Everyone writes on the walls except me. -Said to be graffiti seen in Pompeii
Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the
grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin
charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what
they say if they had.

   -- Linus Torvalds
Statements recently seen on Slashdot:

"The Internet interprets advertising as damage and routes around it."

"Accept risk. Accept responsibility. Put a lawyer out of business."

"A beowulf cluster of Cisco routers? Isn't that the Internet?"

"Geeks aren't interested in politics because government doesn't double its
efficiency and speed once every 18 months."

"Windows 98 hasn't crashed for me once in over a year, either. Oh, wait, I
haven't booted it in over a year."

"For more than 4 generations the IT Professionals were the guardians of
quality and stability in software. Before the dark times. Before
Microsoft..."

"You can tell how desperate they are by counting the number of times
they say 'innovate' in their press releases."
Linux Dominates Academic Research

A recent survey of colleges and high school reveals that Linux, Open Source
Software, and Microsoft are favorite topics for research projects.  Internet
Censorship, a popular topic for the past two years, was supplanted by Biology
of Penguins as another of this year's most popular subjects for research
papers.

"The Internet has changed all the rules," one college professor told
Humorix.  "Nobody wants to write papers about traditional topics like the
death penalty, freedom of speech, abortion, juvenile crime, etc. Most of the
research papers I've seen the past year have been computer related, and most
of the reference material has come from the Net.  This isn't necessarily
good; there's a lot of crap on the Net.  One student tried to use 'Bob's
Totally Wicked Anti-Microsoft Homepage of Doom' and 'The Support Group for
People Used by Microsoft' as primary sources of information for his paper
about Microsoft."

A high school English teacher added, "Plagarism is a problem with the Net.
One of my students 'wrote' a brilliant piece about the free software
revolution. Upon further inspection, however, almost everything was stolen
from Eric S. Raymond's website.  I asked the student, "What does noosphere
mean?"  He responded, 'New-what?'  Needless to say, he failed the class."
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."
Invasion of the Dancing Penguin

Those annoying, dancing cartoon characters embedded in software applications
are no longer confined to Microsoft programs.  They have entered the realm
of Linux.  A new Linux distribution under development, called LinTux,
promises to provide a more "user-friendly" environment through its "Dancing
Penguin" assistant.

Dancing Tux will "guide" users through the installation process and will be
a permanent fixture of the X root window.  The LinTux staff demonstrated a
prototype version of the Dancing Tux program to this Humorix reporter.  It
was certainly impressive, but, like the Dancing Paper Clip in Microsoft
Office, it becomes annoying very fast.

The one redeeming feature of LinTux is that, when the system is idle,
Dancing Tux becomes a make-shift screen saver.  The animations included in
the prototype were quite amusing.  For instance, in one scene, Tux chases
Bill Gates through an Antarctic backdrop.  In another animation, Tux can be
seen drinking beers with his penguin pals and telling Microsoft jokes.
Affordable Virtual Beowulf Cluster

Every nerd drools over Beowulf clusters, but very few have even seen one,
much less own one. Until now, that is. Eric Gylgen, the open source hacker
famous for EviL (the dancing ASCII paperclip add-on to vi), is working on
a program that will emulate Beowulf clusters on a standard desktop PC.

"Of course," he added candidly, "the performance of my virtual cluster
will be many orders of magnitude less than a real cluster, but that's not
really the point. I just want to be able to brag that I run a 256 node
cluster. Nobody has to know I only spent $500 on the hardware it uses."

Eric has prior experience in this field. Last month he successfully built
a real 32 node Beowulf cluster out of Palm Pilots, old TI-8x graphing
calculators, various digital cameras, and even some TRS-80s.

He demonstrated a pre-alpha version of his VirtualEpicPoem software to us
yesterday. His Athlon machine emulated a 256 node Beowulf cluster in which
each node, running Linux, was emulating its own 16 node cluster in which
each node, running Bochs, was emulating VMWare to emulate Linux running
old Amiga software. The system was extremely slow, but it worked.
Throwing Windows Out The Window

The Federal Bureau Of Missing Socks has banned the use of Microsoft Windows
and Office on all employee computers. But don't get too excited; they aren't
going to replace them with Linux. Instead, this government agency has decided
to go back to using abucusses, slide rules, and manual typewriters.

The banishment of Microsoft software stems from the agency's new policy
against computer games. MS Office, which contains several games in the form of
Easter Eggs, is now verboten on all agency computers. "Flight simulators,
pinball games, magic eight balls... they all violate our policy," said the
sub-adjunct administrator second-class. "So we can't use Office."

Windows is forbidden for the same reason. "We've had way too many
employees wasting time playing Solitaire," she said. "Unfortunately,
Solitaire is an integral part of Windows -- Microsoft executives said so
during the anti-trust trial. If Solitaire is removed, the operating system
won't function properly. Therefore, we have no choice but to banish all
Windows computers."

The Bureau's Assistant Technology Consultant, Mr. Reginald "Red" Taype,
asked,  "Have you ever seen an abucus crash? Have you ever seen anybody
have fun with a slide rule? Do adding machines contain undocumented easter
eggs? No! That's why we're ditching our PCs."
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.
Ted Turner Unveils All-Commercial Channel

For years, the pundits have predicted that the Web would become more like
television. However, media tycoon Ted Turner is pursuing the exact
opposite. Taking a cue from pop-under advertisements, Flash ads,
get-rich-quick spam emails, viral marketing, and "Gator" programs, Turner
has unveiled "TCC", the Turner Commercial Channel, for cable TV.

TCC will feature "shows" like "Best Commercials That You've Seen A Million
Times", "Life Is A Slogan, Just Buy It", and "Name That Jingle". These
shows will occupy about 30% of the screen, while several rows of marquees
at the bottom will flash various advertising messages. An animated "TCC"
watermark will float around the screen while corporate logos are flashed
randomly in the corners.

Meanwhile, "pop-up ads" will randomly appear that obscure the other ads.
These pop-ups will sometimes be further obscured by meta-pop-ups.
Likewise, corporate jingles will play in the background, interfering with
other jingles and advertising sounds.
Jon Splatz's Movie Review: "Lord of the Pings"

I've never walked out on a movie before. When I pay $9.50 to see a movie
(plus $16.50 for snacks), I'm going to sit through every single minute no
matter how awful. The resolve to get my money's worth allowed me to watch
Jar Jar Binks without even flinching last year.

But I couldn't make it through "Lord of the Pings". This movie contains a
scene that is so appalling, so despicable, so vile, so terrible, so
crappy, and so gut-wrenching that I simply had to get up, run out of the
theater, and puke in the nearest restroom. It was just that bad.

The whole thing is completely ruined by a scene that takes place only 52
seconds into the flick. Brace yourself: big letters appear on screen that
say "An AOL/Time Warner Production".

...

Because this film is brought to you by the letters A-O-L-T-W, I must give
it an F-minus even though I've only seen 53 seconds of it.
I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park
there's nothing else to do.
                -- Lenny Bruce
"I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer"
                -- Senator Claghorn
        What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional
chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that
conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and
repulsion.  You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and
they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor
passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run.  Conversely,
all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice
and they remain permanent influences on your life.
        Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen
as familiar wallpaper or instant friend.  The chemical action it entails is
less worth analyzing than enjoying.  At any rate, these six pieces are about
men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's
more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy".
                -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men"
Alan Olsen wrote:
> things correctly they have enhanced Wake-on-LAN to allow you to do
> things like reset the machine, update the BIOS and such by sending
> magic packets which are interpreted by the network card. Or maybe I am

Normally 'sending magic packets resets the machine' is considered a feature
reported to bugtraq. The alert stuff I have seen is more akin to sending SNMP
traps for things like people opening the lid, or fan failure

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
Steve Underwood wrote:
> Dave Miller wrote:
> > alterity wrote:
> > > Haven't seen a post for sometime from the usually prolific Mr Cox.
> > > What's the gossip?
> >
> > They needed some help from him to position Mir for it's
> > final descent.
>
> Strange. I thought his key skill was stopping things from crashing!

This crash was inevitable, he's just making sure the disks get
sync'd.

        - Dave Miller on linux-kernel
> The only idea is that 2.4.x kernel turns off cache (L1 & L2) on
> processor (on my cpu). How can I check it? Any ideas?

We don't touch the caches like that. First guess is to disable the ACPI
support, because we've seen that do a million bogus things

        - Alan Cox explaining the merits of ACPI on linux-kernel
The valley spirit never dies;
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and Earth.
It is like a veil barely seen.
Use it; it will never fail.
Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.

From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.

Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.

Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.
The heavy is the root of the light.
The still is the master of unrest.

Therefore the sage, traveling all day,
Does not lose sight of his baggage.
Though there are beautiful things to be seen,
He remains unattached and calm.

Why should the lord of ten thousand chariots act lightly in public?
To be light is to lose one's root.
To be restless is to lose one's control.
All men will come to him who keeps to the one,
For there lie rest and happiness and peace.

Passersby may stop for music and good food,
But a description of the Tao
Seems without substance or flavor.
It cannot be seen, it cannot be heard,
And yet it cannot be exhausted.
Are you a parent?  Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to
say in those awkward situations?  Worry no more...

        Go away.  You bother me.
        Why?   Because life is unfair.
        That's a nice drawing.  What is it?
        Children should be seen and not heard.
        You'll be the death of me.
        You'll understand when you're older.
        Because.
        Wipe that smile off your face.
        I don't believe you.
        How many times have I told you to be careful?
        Just because.
                        -- 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"
"Actually, the only distribution of Linux I've ever used that passed the
rootshell test out of the box (hit rootshell at the time the dist is
released and see if you can break the OS with scripts from there) is
Debian."
        -- seen on the Linux security-audit mailing list
"I wonder if this is the first constitution in the history of mankind
where you have to calculate a square root to determine if a motion
passes.  :-)"
        -- Seen on Slashdot
<MrCurious> by the power of greyskull
<MrCurious> someone tell me the ban to place
<Sopwith> mrcurious: *.debian.org, *.novare.net
<philX> *.debian.org.  that's awesome.
        -- Seen on LinuxNet #linux
"What does this tell me?  That if Microsoft were the last software
company left in the world, 13% of the US population would be scouring
garage sales & Goodwill for old TRS-80s, CPM machines & Apple ]['s before
they would buy Microsoft. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement."
        -- Seen on Slashdot
<LauraDax> !seen god
<Tabi-> LauraDax, I don't remember seeing "god"
<Apple_IIe> anyone seen my 80 column card?
This message was written with vi!  (not that anyone in the world cares)
        -- seen on an old message from an anon.penet.fi address
A friend of mine has a barcode on his arm.
He rings up as a $.35 pack of JuicyFruit.
        -- Seen on Slashdot
<NullC> I like the seed code for computing masking curves.
<NullC> I've never seen code that made be want to drink before that...
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)
        -- Seen on Slashdot
RFC 882 put the dot in .com, not Sun Microsystems
        -- Seen on Slashdot
NOTICE: anyone seen smoking will be assumed to be on fire and will be
        summarily put out.
... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality and remembers
words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.
                -- William Allen White
I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.
                -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
Joshu:        What is the true Way?
Nansen:        Every way is the true Way.
J:        Can I study it?
N:        The more you study, the further from the Way.
J:        If I don't study it, how can I know it?
N:        The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen.
        It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown.  Do
        not seek it, study it, or name it.  To find yourself on it, open
        yourself as wide as the sky.
Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers
gathered around to hear what had passed.  "At this time," said Nasrudin, "I
only want to say that the King spoke to me."  All the villagers but the
stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news.  The remaining villager
asked, "What did the King say to you?"  "What he said -- and quite distinctly,
for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed;
he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they
were spoken to.
Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to serve
him.  Nasrudin said, "First things first.  Did you see me walk into your
shop?"
        "Of course."
        "Have you ever seen me before?"
        "Never."
        "Then how do you know it was me?"
Seeing is believing.  You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't believed it.
Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The Labs.
        -- Dennis Ritchie
We are Pentium of Borg.  Division is futile.  You will be approximated.
        -- seen in someone's .signature
Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... Command Line User Environment.
        -- seen in a posting in comp.software.testing
quit   When the quit statement is read, the  bc  processor
       is  terminated, regardless of where the quit state-
       ment is found.  For example, "if  (0  ==  1)  quit"
       will cause bc to terminate.
        -- seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic
> Linux is not user-friendly.
It _is_ user-friendly.  It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly.
        -- Seen somewhere on the net
Go not unto the Usenet for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (and
quite a few things that just have nothing at all to do with the question).
        -- seen in a .sig somewhere
Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the
grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin
charging at them in excess of 100mph.  They'd be a lot more careful about what
they say if they had.
        -- Linus Torvalds, announcing Linux v2.0
> If you don't need X then little VT-100 terminals are available for real
> cheap.  Should be able to find decent ones used for around $40 each.
> For that price, they're a must for the kitchen, den, bathrooms, etc.. :)
You're right. Can you explain this to my wife?
        -- Seen on c.o.l.development.system, on the subject of extra terminals
> What does ELF stand for (in respect to Linux?)
ELF is the first rock group that Ronnie James Dio performed with back in
the early 1970's.  In constrast, a.out is a misspelling         of the French word
for the month of August.  What the two have in common is beyond me, but
Linux users seem to use the two words together.
        -- seen on c.o.l.misc
> Is there any hope for me? Am I just thick? Does anyone remember the
> Rubiks Cube, it was easier!
I found that the Rubiks cube and Linux are alike. Looks real confusing
until you read the right book. :-)
        -- seen on c.o.l.misc, about the "Linux Learning Curve"
> I've hacked the Xaw3d library to give you a Win95 like interface and it
> is named Xaw95. You can replace your Xaw3d library.
Oh God, this is so disgusting!
        -- seen on c.o.l.development.apps, about the "Win95 look-alike"
Besides, its really not worthwhile to use more than two times your physical
ram in swap (except in a select few situations). The performance of the system
becomes so abysmal you'd rather heat pins under your toenails while reciting
Windows95 source code and staring at porn flicks of Bob Dole than actually try
to type something.
        -- seen on c.o.l.development.system, about the size of the swap space
> I get the following error messages at bootup, could anyone tell me
> what they mean?
> fcntl_setlk() called by process 51 (lpd) with broken flock() emulation
They mean that you have not read the documentation when upgrading the
kernel.
        -- seen on c.o.l.misc
<SomeLamer> what's the difference between chattr and chmod?
<SomeGuru> SomeLamer: man chattr > 1; man chmod > 2; diff -u 1 2 | less
        -- Seen on #linux on irc
*** PUBLIC flooding detected from erikyyy
<lewnie> THAT's an erik, pholx.... ;)
        -- Seen on #LinuxGER
* Jes wonders why so many people in here uses fooZZZZZ and foo_sleeping nicks
<peter> Jes: Because they are sleeping?
        -- Seen on #Linux
* gb notes that fdisk thinks his cdrom can store one terabyte
        -- Seen on #Linux
Sex dumps core
(Sex is a Simple editor for X11)
        -- Seen on debian bugtracking
-  long    f_ffree;    /* free file nodes in fs */
+  long    f_ffree;    /* freie Dateiknoten im Dateisystem */
        -- Seen in a translation
* Phaedrus wishes he could get a machine that consists of Sparc IO,
  Alpha Processors and sleek design of an SGI
<pp> And intel prices
        -- Seen on #Linux
<Tazman> damn my office is cold.
<Tazman> need a hot secretary to warm it up.
        -- Seen on #Linux
<miguel> any new sendmail hole I have to fix before going on vacations?
        -- Seen on #Linux
<lilo> Fairlight: udp is the light margarine of tcp/ip transport protocols :)
        -- Seen on #Linux
People are going to scream bloody murder about that.
        -- Seen on linux-kernel
>   1. is qmail as secure as they say?

Depends on what they were saying, but most likely yes.
        -- Seen on debian-devel
<Myxie> I know. Unless htere is a cookie monster somewhere between us tat muches the amil.
<Myxie> amil/mail
<Myxie> muches/munches tat/that htere/there
<HippieGuy> heheh
<HippieGuy> problems? :)
* Myxie needs an ircii addon that pipes teh command line through ispell :)
        -- Seen on #Debian
<sct> Anyone want the new supermount? :)
<klogd> whats new aboutit
<sct> klogd: It cleans whiter than white. :)
        -- Seen on #Linux
<Joey> gorgo: *lol*
<gorgo> joey: what's so funny? :)
<Culus> shh, joey is losing all sanity from lack of sleep
<Culus> 'yes joey, very funny'
<Culus> Humor him :>
        -- Seen on #Debian
* SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in sendmail
  is NON-TRIVIAL
        -- Seen on #Debian
* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record,
  that Joey rules."
        -- Seen on #Debian
* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits in the first place...
* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress
        -- Seen on #Debian
* Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am
<Joey>    * DFSC Free cgi library
<Joey> What's that? DFSC?
<jim> Debian Free Software mroooooCows
        -- Seen on #Debian
<posix> this guy _is_ crazy
<stargazer> posix: from the looks of Enlightenment he's on LSD
<posix> LSD is nothing compared to what this guy's on..
        -- Seen on #Unix
<Stealth> How do I bind a computer to an NIS server?
<Joey> Use a rope?
        -- Seen on #Debian
<grin> seen jhm
<dpkg> jhm is Sarek, and jhm is on the channel right now!
* JHM wonders why dpkg remembers that particular nick.
<grin> dpkg: Sarek? ermm, sure, and I am Khan
        -- Seen on #Debian
<Culus> aIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
<Culus> MY LIGHT JUST DIED
<Culus> I AM SO SAD
<Culus> I'm blind! I'm blind!
<dark> Light?
<dark> Turn all your xterms to black-on-white :)  Plenty of light that way.
        -- Seen on #Debian
<dark> eat Depends: cook | eat-out.
       But eat-out is non-free so that's out.
       And cook Recommends: clean-pans.
        -- Seen on #Debian
<james> abuse me.  I'm so lame I sent a bug report to debian-devel-changes
        -- Seen on #Debian
I've seen people with new children before, they go from ultra happy to
looking like something out of a zombie film in about a week.
        -- Alan Cox about Linus after his 2nd daughter
<doogie> Thinking is dangerous.  It leads to ideas.
        -- Seen on #Debian
<james> Are we going to make an emacs out of apt?
        APT - Debian in a program.  It even does your laundry
        -- Seen on #Debian
<jim> Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove
      pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity
      "important".  True or false?
<JHM> jim: "important" or higher.  True.
<jim> Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :)
* netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful
<Joey> We still have rpm....
        -- Seen on #Debian
* JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record,
  that Joey rules."
        -- Seen on #Debian
*** Rince is wagner@schizo.DAINet.de (We have Joey, we have Fun, we have Linux on a Sun)
        -- Seen on #Debian
<alaint> joey--very clever !!!
<alaint> joey--no wonder that Debian is a good distrib with coder like you
        -- Seen on #Debian (referring to my RAID article for the LJ)
<dark> Turns out that grep returns error code 1 when there are no matches.
       I KNEW that.  Why did it take me half an hour?
        -- Seen on #Debian
<Overfiend> partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this
            package.  I actually had a DREAM about introducing a
            stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night.  That's a
            Bad Sign.
        -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0
<core> i'm glad Debian finally got into
        polar-deep-freeze-we-arent-shitting-you state finally.
        -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0
<dark> Looks like the channel is back to normal :)
<jim> You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :)
        -- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0
<Skyhook> Where is 'bavaria' proper?  I thought it was austria.
        -- Seen on #Linux
An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's
chance to kiss the tea-girl.  It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the
Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone
who has seen the Managing Director face on).
                -- Katherine Whitehorn, "Roundabout"
Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
great effort pushing boulders into a single word.

It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.
Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin
equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the
destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass
both Parliament and Party.

It stands today, a monument to human spirit.  If life exists on other
planets, this may be the first message received from us.
                -- The Realist, November, 1964.
        Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to
pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber,
hardware, and toasters all in one location.  Notice I say "shop for," as
opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are
always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees.  The home center
employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy
applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail
and screw -- in the entire store ...

        Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a
replacement.  The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside
of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way
that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic
calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime
around the middle of next week."
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
It's fabulous!  We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!
                -- Macy's
Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
world has ever seen.
-- I have seen the FUN --
I have seen these EGG EXTENDERS in my Supermarket ... I have read the
INSTRUCTIONS ...
        The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood as he
reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all.  The Gray
Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace
of Gilpkerio Kistomerces.  Even though twenty-four parts in twenty-five of
him are dead, he is alive.
        "Now about Lankhmar.  She's been invaded, her walls breached
everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce
host which out-numbers Lankhamar's inhabitants by fifty to one -- and
equipped with all modern weapons.  Yet you can save the city."
        "How?" demanded Fafhrd.
        Ningauble shrugged.  "You're a hero.  You should know."
                -- Fritz Leiber, "The Swords of Lankhmar"
        "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly.  "In the past year
strange and fearful wonders I have seen.  Fields sown with barley reap
crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts.
There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon.  Calendars are made with
a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance
salesmen.  The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in
square knots.  The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down
soggy potato chips."
        "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.
        "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good
copy."
                -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
When I say the magic word to all these people, they will vanish forever.
I will then say the magic words to you, and you, too, will vanish -- never
to be seen again.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Between Time and Timbuktu"
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
Your feedback:
Ad partners