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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade
themselves that they have a better idea.
                -- John Ciardi
        "Surely you can't be serious."
        "I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley."
                -- "Airplane"
Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing.
                -- R. Geis
They can't stop us... we're on a mission from God!
                -- The Blues Brothers
> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF
> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate".  I don't think that
> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it
> happening in the near future.  I enjoy doing linux, even though it does
> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid
> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing
> negative so far).
>
> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains:
> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented
> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse.
> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me
> on c.o.minix.  What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so
> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something
> better of it (*).
>
>                 Linus
>
> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope.  Does
> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke.
(Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux)
stop bit received
Stop!  There was first a game of blindman's buff.  Of course there was.
And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes
in his boots.  My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and
Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.  The
way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage
on the credulity of human nature.
We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.  But there was
also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a
French restaurant. [...]
        I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk
white BMW and her Jordache smile.  There had been a fight.  I had punched her
boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls.  Everyone told him, "You ride the
bull, senor.  You do not fight it."  But he was lean and tough like a bad
rib-eye and he fought the bull.  And then he fought me.  And when we finished
there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...]
        "Stop the car," the girl said.
        There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes.  She knew about the
woman of the tollway.  I knew not how.  I started to speak, but she raised an
arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget.
        "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway
belle's for thee."
        The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie.
Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey
onto my granola and faced a new day.
                -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
                   Competition
A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on
a photo-safari in Africa.  As they're driving along the savannah in their
jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars.

The biologist: "Look!  A herd of zebras!  And there's a white zebra!
        Fantastic!  We'll be famous!"
The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant.  We only know
        there's one white zebra."
The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is
        white on one side."
The computer scientist : "Oh, no!  A special case!"
        After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home
directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the
Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head.  PDP-1 had Luke stop at the
edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp.
        "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1.  "You will never find a more
wretched hive of bugs and flamers.  We must be cautious."
                -- DECWARS
Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love!
Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"!
I'm taking a VAX-NAP.

logout
One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
never have to stop and answer the phone.
Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and
greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any
moment.  They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that
systems could be virtual at *___all* levels.  They would like personal
computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your
DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their
Correctness Verification Aid packages.
        Stop!  Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first
these questions three, ere the other side he see!

        "What is your name?"
        "Sir Brian of Bell."
        "What is your quest?"
        "I seek the Holy Grail."
        "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments
to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?"
        "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!"
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE

SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment.  This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it.  The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP.  No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error.  Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful.  Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
        The 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!"
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that
would also stop you from doing clever things.
                -- Doug Gwyn
Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!!
Better hope you get what you want before you stop wanting it.
Stop searching forever.  Happiness is just next to you.
Stop searching forever.  Happiness is unattainable.
Stop searching.  Happiness is right next to you.  Now, if they'd only
take a bath ...
"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.  "Begin at the beginning,"
the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
"If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never
stop throwing up."
-- Max Von Sydow's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters"
"What if" is a trademark of Hewlett Packard, so stop using it in your
sentences without permission, or risk being sued.
If you don't strike oil in twenty minutes, stop boring.
                -- Andrew Carnegie, on public speaking
Die, v.:
        To stop sinning suddenly.
                -- Elbert Hubbard
half-done, n.:
        This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy,
        light green, yet full of garlic flavor.  The difference between this
        and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the
        difference between life and death.

        You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there
        in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport,
        fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall,
        transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on
        Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk
        about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop.  Say to the
        man, "Let me have a nice half-done."  Worth the trouble, wasn't it?
                -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
T-shirt:
        Life is *not* a Cabaret, and stop calling me chum!
Stop me, before I kill again!
The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing.
                -- Judge Harold T. Stone
Two friends were out drinking when suddenly one lurched backward off his
barstool and lay motionless on the floor.
        "One thing about Jim," the other said to the bartender, "he sure
knows when to stop."
Woody: What's happening, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  The question is, Woody, why is it happening to me?
                -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 1

Woody: What's going down, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  My cheeks on this barstool.
                -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2

Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, can I pour you a beer?
Norm:  Well, okay, Woody, but be sure to stop me at one. ...
       Eh, make that one-thirty.
                -- Cheers, Strange Bedfellows, Part 2
Q:        How do you stop an elephant from charging?
A:        Take away his credit cards.
Q:        How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a
        light bulb?
A:        Seven.  Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in
        the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send
        Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim
        that he's a doctor, not an electrician).  Scotty, after checking
        around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains
        that he "canna" see in the dark.  Kirk will make an emergency stop at
        the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb
        from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something.
        Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers
        beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply
        killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured.
        As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand,
        Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must
        warp out of orbit.  Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon
        and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have
        just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been
        given all light bulbs they can carry.  The new bulb is then inserted
        and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission.
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a
plausible manner and a little literary ability.  The capacity to steal
other people's ideas and phrases ... is also invaluable.
                -- Nicolas Tomalin, "Stop the Press, I Want to Get On"
        Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees
along the block of booths.  She chirruped at Kennicott, "Let's be wild!
Let's ride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!"
        Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think you folks
would like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?"
        Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think you'd like
to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?"
        Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, "Oh no,
I don't believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it."
        Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care to a
whole lot, but you folks go ahead and try it."
        Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: "Let's try
it some other time, Carrie."
        She gave it up.
                -- Sinclair Lewis, "Main Street"
        There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan.  Seems one
day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver.  Well, the owner
of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra
change at his customer's expense.  Turning quietly to the counterman, he
whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!"
For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
The  White Rabbit put on his spectacles.
        "Where shall  I  begin, please your Majesty ?" he asked.
        "Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on
till you come to the end: then stop."
                -- Lewis Carroll
The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.
                -- Elbert Hubbard
The more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain.
Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the earth's
supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century. As man
struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help. Please...

                        CONSERVE GRAVITY

Follow these simple suggestions:

(1)  Walk with a light step.  Carry helium balloons if possible.
(2)  Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
(3)  Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like curling.
(4)  Avoid showers .. take baths instead.
(5)  Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big pile.
(6)  Stop flipping pancakes
You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat.
                -- The First Law Of Thermodynamics

What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth.
                -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics

You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing.
                -- The Third Law Of Thermodynamics
1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty
1929 The high sign of refreshment
1929 The pause that refreshes
1930 It had to be good to get where it is
1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing
1935 The pause that brings friends together
1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed
1938 The best friend thirst ever had
1939 Thirst stops here
1942 It's the real thing
1947 Have a Coke
1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING
1963 Things go better with Coke
1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand
1979 Have a Coke and a smile
1982 Coke is it!
                -- Coca-Cola slogans
Fortune's diet truths:
1:  Forget what the cookbooks say, plain yogurt tastes nothing like sour cream.
2:  Any recipe calling for soybeans tastes like mud.
3:  Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate.  In fact, carob is not
    an acceptable substitute for anything, except, perhaps, brown shoe polish.
4:  There is no such thing as a "fun salad."  So let's stop pretending and see
    salads for what they are:  God's punishment for being fat.
5:  Fruit salad without maraschino cherries and marshmallows is about as
    appealing as tepid beer.
6:  A world lacking gravy is a tragic place!
7:  You should immediately pass up any recipes entitled "luscious and
    low-cal."  Also skip dishes featuring "lively liver."  They aren't and
    it isn't.
8:  Wearing a blindfold often makes many diet foods more palatable.
9:  Fresh fruit is not dessert.  CAKE is dessert!
10: Okra tastes slightly worse than its name implies.
11: A plain baked potato isn't worth the effort involved in chewing and
    swallowing.
My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four.  Unless there
are three other people.
                -- Orson Welles
No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
eating one peanut.
                -- Channing Pollock
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse
That no compunctious visiting of nature
Shake my fell purpose, not keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall the in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry `Hold, hold!'
                -- Lady MacBeth
Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright
Hear him whip the women, just around midnight

Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good?
Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should

Drums beating cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop
House boy knows that he's doing alright
You should a heard him just around midnight.
...
I bet your mama was tent show queen
And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen
I'm no school boy but I know what I like
You should have heard me just around midnight.
                -- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar"
Near the Studio Jean Cocteau
On the Rue des Ecoles
lived an old man
with a blind dog
Every evening I would see him
guiding the dog along
the sidewalk, keeping
a firm grip on the leash
so that the dog wouldn't
run into a passerby
Sometimes the dog would stop
and look up at the sky
Once the old man
noticed me watching the dog
and he said, "Oh, yes,
this one knows
when the moon is out,
he can feel it on his face"
                -- Barry Gifford
Now I lay me back to sleep.
The speaker's dull; the subject's deep.
If he should stop before I wake,
Give me a nudge for goodness' sake.
                -- Anonymous
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]
She stood on the tracks
Waving her arms
Leading me to that third rail shock
Quick as a wink
She changed her mind

She gave me a night
That's all it was
What will it take until I stop
Kidding myself
Wasting my time

There's nothing else I can do
'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna
I don't want anyone new
'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna
There's nothing in it for you
'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna
                -- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses)
There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed.
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still recall.
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I've loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compared with you,
All these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I'll love you more.
                -- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965
to be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best night and day
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
any human being can fight and
never stop fighting.                  
                -- e.e. cummings
To code the impossible code,                This is my quest --
To bring up a virgin machine,                To debug that code,
To pop out of endless recursion,        No matter how hopeless,
To grok what appears on the screen,        No matter the load,
                                        To write those routines
To right the unrightable bug,                Without question or pause,
To endlessly twiddle and thrash,        To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV
To mount the unmountable magtape,        For a heavenly cause.
To stop the unstoppable crash!                And I know if I'll only be true
                                        To this glorious quest,
And the queue will be better for this,        That my code will run CUSPy and calm,
That one man, scorned and                When it's put to the test.
        destined to lose,
Still strove with his last allocation
To scrap the unscrappable kludge!
                -- To "The Impossible Dream", from Man of La Mancha
Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
And he didn't leave much for Ma and me,
Just and old guitar an'a empty bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him 'cause he ran and hid,
But the meanest thing that he ever did,
Was before he left he went and named me Sue.
...
But I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the honkey tonks and the bars,
And kill the man that give me that awful name.
It was Gatlinburg in mid-July,
I'd just hit town and my throat was dry,
Thought I'd stop and have myself a brew,
At an old saloon on a street of mud,
Sitting at a table, dealing stud,
Sat that dirty (bleep) that named me Sue.
...
Now, I knew that snake was my own sweet Dad,
From a wornout picture that my Mother had,
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye...
                -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
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"
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
        And make errors few people could bear;
You complain about everyone's English but yours --
        Do you really think this is quite fair?"

"I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared,
        "But my stature these days is so great
That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared,
        And to stop me it's now far too late."
You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your
brakes are defective.
You worry too much about your job.  Stop it.  You are not paid enough to worry.
One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not stopped.
                -- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
[War] is instinctive.  But the instinct can be fought.  We're human
beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands!  But we
can stop it.  We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going
to kill today.  That's all it takes!  Knowing that we're not going to
kill today!
                -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'"

- Arthur experiences the improbability drive at work.
I have a box of telephone rings under my bed.  Whenever I get lonely, I
open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call.  One day I dropped the
box all over the floor.  The phone wouldn't stop ringing.  I had to get
it disconnected.  So I got a new phone.  I didn't have much money, so I
had to get an irregular.  It doesn't have a five.  I ran into a friend
of mine on the street the other day.  He said why don't you give me a
call.  I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone
doesn't have a five.  He asked how long had it been that way.  I said I
didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens.
                -- Steven Wright
Would you *______really* want to get on a non-stop flight?
                -- George Carlin
Computers are like air conditioners -- they stop working properly if you open
WINDOWS
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #6

Hearing Un-aid
US$129.95 at The Fuzzier Projection Co.

It's a scene we can all identify with: you're at a boring company meeting,
trying to read the latest Slashdot headlines on your PalmPilot, but you can't
concentrate because the PHB is rambling in a loud, booming voice about
e-infomediary-substrategic-paradigms and
meta-content-aggregation-relationship-corridors.

With the Hearing Un-aid(tm), you can put a stop to incessant buzzword-speak by
your boss. Unlike a hearing aid, which amplifies sound, the Hearing Un-aid
dampens noise, so you can easily tune out the board meeting and instead focus
on something far more important, such as downloading Humorix stories.

If you happen to miss something important (yeah, right) and your boss accuses
you of not paying attention, you can simply point to your hearing "aid" and
respond, "What was that? I couldn't hear you because of my temporary hearing
loss."
BSOD Simulator

Users of Red Hat 6.0 are discovering a new feature that hasn't been widely
advertised: a Blue Screen of Death simulator.  By default, the bsodsim
program activates when the user hits the virtually unused SysRq key (this is
customizable) causing the system to switch to a character cell console to
display a ficticious Blue Screen.

Red Hat hails the bsodsim program as the "boss key" for the Linux world. One
RH engineer said, "Workers are smuggling Linux boxes into companies that
exclusively use Windows.  This is all good and well until the PHB walks by
and comments, 'That doesn't look like Windows...' With bsodsim, that problem
is solved.  The worker can hit the emergency SysRq key, and the system will
behave just like Windows..."

The bsodsim program doesn't stop at just showing a simulated error message.
If the boss doesn't walk away, the worker can continue the illusion by
hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL, which causes a simulated reboot.  After showing the
usual boot messages, bsodsim will run a simulated SCANDISK program
indefinitely. The boss won't be able to tell the difference.  If the boss
continues to hang around, the worker can say, "SCANDISK is really taking a
long time... maybe we should upgrade our computers.  And don't you have
something better to do than watch this computer reboot for the tenth time
today?"
Jargon Coiner (#6)

An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon
that we've just made up.

* STOP MIRAGE: Trying to click on an imaginary Stop button on a program's
  toolbar after doing something you didn't want to. Usually caused as the
  result of excessive use of Netscape.

* YA-PREFIX: Putting "another" or "yet another" in front of a name or
  tacking "YA" in front of an acronym.

  Example: "We could ya-prefix this fortune by titling it 'Yet Another
  Lame List of Fabricated Jargon'."

* DOMAINEERING: Using a service like Netcraft to determine what operating
  system and webserver a particular domain is running.

* NOT-A-SALTINE EXPLANATION: The canned response given to someone who
  uses the term "hacker" instead of "cracker".
Jargon Coiner (#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!"
Treaty of Helsinki Signed

HELSINKI, FINLAND -- A cease-fire in the flame war between Linux and
FreeBSD has been reached. A group of two dozen Linux and FreeBSD zealots
met in Helsinki to ratify a treaty bringing a temporary end to the hostile
fighting between both camps. "Today is a good day for peace," one observer
noted. "Now both sides can lay down their keyboards and quit flaming the
opposing side on Usenet and Slashdot."

The cease-fire is a response to the sudden increase in fighting that has
occured over the past two weeks. The Slashdot server became a victim of
the cross-fire this week when thousands of Anonymous Cowards and Geek
Zealots posted inflammatory comments that amounted to, "My OS is better
than your OS!" Many nerds, suffering withdrawl symptoms when the Slashdot
site slowed to a crawl, demanded that the bickering stop.

"I can't take it anymore! It takes two minutes to download the Slashdot
homepage -- assuming the site is actually online. I must have my 'News for
Nerds' now! The fighting must stop," one Anonymous Coward ranted.
Brief History Of Linux (#1)
Re-Inventing the Wheel

Our journey through the history of Linux begins ca. 28000 B.C. when a
large all-powerful company called MoogaSoft monopolized the wheel-making
industry. As founder of the company, Billga Googagates (rumored to be the
distant ancestor of Bill Gates) was the wealthiest man in the known world,
owning several large rock huts, an extravagant collection of artwork (cave
paintings), and a whole army of servants and soldiers.

MoogaSoft's unfair business practices were irritating, but users were
unable to do anything about them, lest they be clubbed to death by
MoogaSoft's army. Nevertheless, one small group of hobbyists finally got
fed up and starting hacking their own wheels out of solid rock. Their
spirit of cooperation led to better and better wheels that eventually
outperformed MoogaSoft offerings.

MoogaSoft tried desperately to stop the hobbyists -- as shown by the
recently unearthed "Ooga! Document" -- but failed. Ironically, Billga
Googagates was killed shortly afterwards when one his own 900-pound wheels
crushed him.
Brief History Of Linux (#12)
A note from Bill Gates' second grade teacher:

Billy has been having some trouble behaving in class lately... Last Monday
he horded all of the crayons and refused to share, saying that he needed
all 160 colors to maximize his 'innovation'. He then proceeded to sell
little pieces of paper ("End-User License Agreement for Crayons" he called
them) granting his classmates the 'non-transferable right' to use the
crayons on a limited time basis in exchange for their lunch money...

When I tried to stop Billy, he kept harping about his right to innovate
and how my interference violated basic notions of free-market capitalism.
"Holding a monopoly is not illegal," he rebutted. I chastised him for
talking back, and then I took away the box of crayons so others could
share them... angrily, he then pointed to a drawing of his hanging on the
wall and yelled, "That's my picture! You don't have the right to present
my copyrighted material in a public exhibition without my permission!
You're pirating my intellectual property. Pirate! Pirate! Pirate!"

I developed a headache that day that even the maximum dosage of Aspirin
wasn't able to handle. And then on Tuesday, he conned several students out
of their milk money by convincing them to play three-card Monty...
Computers have rights, too. Everyone talks about the rights of animals,
but so far nothing has been said about the tragic plight of computers the
world over. They are subjected to the greatest horror ever conceived: they
are forced to run Windows.

That's just wrong.

How would you feel if you had the intelligence of Einstein but could only
get a job flipping burgers at McDonald's? That's how computers feel every
day!

This injustice must stop. Computers must be freed from the shackles of
Microsoft software and clueless users.

Together, we can make this a better world for computers and humans alike
-- by eliminating Windows.

  -- From a brochure published by the PETC
     (People for the Ethical Treatment of Computers)
Official National Anthem Of The Geek Paradise Of Humorixia
(first verse)

I got this bark letter the other day,
"Stop using our trademark or you will pay".

I said "Ha" and threw it in the trash,
Oh but then those lawyers got very rash,

Lawsuits, subpoenas, the accusations came,
All their attacks were truly lame,

They said, "You've committed quite a sin!"
"You're going to get five to ten!"

   Kill all the lawyers!
   Oh, kill all the lawyers!
   Let's "kill -9 lawyers" now!
        A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened
to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road.  After seeing the
sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes.
"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride.  "You certainly have a dangerous job.
Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?"
        "Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler.
        "Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by
a snake?"
        "I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I
am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then
suck the poison from the wound."
        "What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on
a rattler?" persisted the woman.
        "Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn
who my real friends are."
If things don't improve soon, you'd better ask them to stop helping you.
"Oh, yes.  The important thing about having lots of things to  remember is
that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you
see?  You've got to stop.  You haven't really been anywhere until you've got
back home.  I think that's what I mean."
                -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
Others can stop you temporarily, only you can do it permanently.
Something better...

13 (sympathetic): Oh, What happened?  Did your parents lose a bet with God?
14 (complimentary): You must love the little birdies to give them this to
        perch on.
15 (scientific): Say, does that thing there influence the tides?
16 (obscure): Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone.
17 (inquiry): When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid?
18 (french): Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you
        leave.
19 (pornographic): Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once.
20 (religious): The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He.
21 (disgusting): Say, who mows your nose hair?
22 (paranoid): Keep that guy away from my cocaine!
23 (aromatic): It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the
        coffee ... in Brazil.
24 (appreciative): Oooo, how original.  Most people just have their teeth
        capped.
25 (dirty): Your name wouldn't be Dick, would it?
                -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne"
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
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 comes a time to stop being angry.
                -- A Small Circle of Friends
When it comes to helping you, some people stop at nothing.
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"
When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but
only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered
glass and splintered wood, like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat
crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard
powerless to stop it.  It's only afterwards that it becomes anything
like a story at all.  When you are telling it, to yourself or to
someone else.
                -- Margaret Atwood, "Alias Grace"
"Hard work now leads to less work full stop"

        - Alan Cox
"I admit I've done too much playing around without understanding
the issues involved over the last years as well, but it's time
to stop reinventing the (sometimes octangular) wheel and learn
everything from history which we can learn."

        - Rik van Riel
        /* Sun, you just can't beat me, you just can't.  Stop trying,
         * give up.  I'm serious, I am going to kick the living shit
         * out of you, game over, lights out.
         */

        - comment from arch/sparc/lib/checksum.S
> There is an easy way for you, or even better, Linus to stop these discussions:
> Just say, in unambigous words, what kind of patch you would accept, if any.

.procmailrc one would do nicely.

        - Al Viro on linux-kernel
> ... What will be next, maybe you disable to run non GPL
> executables under linux ?

Actually no. We are researching how to stop trolls posting to the kernel
list as our main AI project.

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
Better to stop short than fill to the brim.
Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.
Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.
Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow.
Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven.
The Tao is forever undefined.
Small though it is in the unformed state, it cannot be grasped.
If kings and lords could harness it,
The ten thousand things would come together
And gentle rain fall.
Men would need no more instruction and all things would take their course.
Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.
There are already enough names.
One must know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop averts trouble.
Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.
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.
Fame or self:  Which matters more?
Self or wealth:  Which is more precious?
Gain or loss:  Which is more painful?

He who is attached to things will suffer much.
He who saves will suffer heavy loss.
A contented man is never disappointed.
He who knows when to stop does not find himself in trouble.
He will stay forever safe.
Are you a parent?  Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to
say in those awkward situations?  Worry no more...

        When are you going to grow up?
        I'm only doing this for your own good.
        Why are you crying?  Stop crying, or I'll give you something to
                cry about.
        What's wrong with you?
        Someday you'll thank me for this.
        You'd lose your head if it weren't attached.
        Don't you have any sense at all?
        If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off.
        Why?  Because I said so.
        I hope you have a kid just like yourself.
* 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
"You have the right not to be an asshole.  If you give up that right
everything you say and do in here will be held against you. If you cannot
afford to stop being an asshole then someone will be appointed to kick
yours outta here."
        -- Your rights as an irc addict
<Knghtbrd> aggh!
<Knghtbrd> MAKE IT STOP!
<Knghtbrd> MAKE IT STOP!!
<hop_> i had something that i think was chicken that was coated with a red
       paste that seemed to be composed of lye based on how much of my
       tounge it burned away.
<hop_> our friend who is Indian said this is why most Indians are thin
       and i quote "It doesn't take very much of this food to get you
       satisfied enoguh to stop eating."
It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing,
each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other
has gone.
                        Pittsburgh driver's test

(2) A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should

        (a) stop immediately.
        (b) proceed slowly through the intersection.
        (c) blow the horn.
        (d) floor it.

The correct answer is (d). If you said (c), you were almost right, so
give yourself a half point.
Certainly the game is rigged.

Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
                -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding.
It's very inconvenient to be mortal -- you never know when everything may
suddenly stop happening.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".
                -- Philip K. Dick
> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF
> being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate".  I don't think that
> it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it
> happening in the near future.  I enjoy doing linux, even though it does
> mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid
> reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing
> negative so far).
>
> Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains:
> I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented
> that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse.
> If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me
> on c.o.minix.  What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so
> far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something
> better of it (*).
>
>                 Linus
>
> (*) Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope.  Does
> somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke.
        -- Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux
Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't.

Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms?  Diety Is
Excellent To You.  Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow.  Diety Is
Eloping To Yokohama.  I'll stop now.
        -- Guy Maor
Computers are like air conditioners.  Both stop working, if you open windows.
        -- Adam Heath
* 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
        One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus,
and drove off along the route.  No problems for the first few stops -- a few
people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.  At the next
stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on.  Six feet eight, built like a
wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground.  He glared at the driver and said,
"Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back.
        Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically
meek?  Well, he was.  Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't
happy about it.  Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on
again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down.  And the next day, and the
one after that, and so forth.  This grated on the bus driver, who started
losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.  Finally he
could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo,
and all that good stuff.  By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong;
what's more, he felt really good about himself.
        So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus
and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the
passenger, and screamed, "And why not?"
        With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a
bus pass."
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
in the morning, and does not stop until you get to work.
The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop
and take a rest.
Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to
pay another nickel.  But hey!  You only feel 5 cents poorer each time.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com>
        The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time
for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.
        It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance.  Miss Manners
has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a
curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a
foot or two under the dinner table.  Miss Manners also believes that the
sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand
dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of
people shaking umbrellas at one another.  What Miss Manners objects to
is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street...
Isn't this my STOP?!
Yow!  And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights!
Sometimes the best medicine is to stop taking something.
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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