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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing.
                -- R. Geis
The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
lists of "Ten Best".
                -- H. Allen Smith
"[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I
thought of it.  (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less
abusive.')"
(By Matt Welsh)
"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development."
(By dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.  Except a
creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely
a loose misapplication of the word.  Consider the flea!--incomparably the
bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.
Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact
that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth
to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the
very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more
afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by
an earthquake ten centuries before.  When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam
as men who "didn't know what fear was," we ought always to add the flea--and
put him at the head of the procession.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
        A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements
document for a new application.  The manager asked the master: "How long will
it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"
        "It will take one year," said the master promptly.
        "But we need this system immediately or even sooner!  How long will it
take it I assign ten programmers to it?"
        The master programmer frowned.  "In that case, it will take two years."
        "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"
        The master programmer shrugged.  "Then the design will never be
completed," he said.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt
ax.  It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
                -- Edsger Dijkstra
Fellow programmer, greetings!  You are reading a letter which will bring
you luck and good fortune.  Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter
to ten of your friends.  Before you make the copies, send a chip or
other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the
list given at the bottom of this letter.  Then delete their name and add
yours to the bottom of the list.

Don't break the chain!  Make the copy within 48 hours.  Gerald R. of San
Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find
his job description changed to "COBOL programmer."  Fred A. of New York sent
out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to
build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork.  Martha H. of Chicago laughed at
this letter and broke the chain.  Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in
her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's.

Don't break the chain!  Send out your ten copies today!
For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu.  But if
you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or
not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt).  The rule is
that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip;
when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor
1mu=1pt is always used.  The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and
'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear.
                -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80
        If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great.  If the
operating system is great, then the compiler is great.  If the compiler
is great, then the application is great.  If the application is great, then
the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world.
        The Tao gave birth to machine language.  Machine language gave birth
to the assembler.
        The assembler gave birth to the compiler.  Now there are ten thousand
languages.
        Each language has its purpose, however humble.  Each language
expresses the Yin and Yang of software.  Each language has its place within
the Tao.
        But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but
it is also very memorable.  I vividly recall the night we decided how to
organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360.  The
manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and
I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities.
        The architecture manager had 10 good men.  He asserted that they
could write the specifications and do it right.  It would take ten months,
three more than the schedule allowed.
        The control program manager had 150 men.  He asserted that they
could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating;
it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule.
Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling
their thumbs for ten months.
        To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control
program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time,
but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality.  I did, and
it was.  He was right on both counts.  Moreover, the lack of conceptual
integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would
estimate that it added a year to debugging time.
                -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are?
        "Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years."
        "What about X?"
        "I said `intellectual'."
                ;login, 9/1990
"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."

Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
                -- Chuq Von Rospach
        One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic
is our support for UNIX?
        Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago.
Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our
VAXs are going for UNIX use.  UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand,
easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual
users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines.
And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it.  We have
good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
        It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run
out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end
up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
        With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly
check that small manual and find out that it's not there.  With VMS, no matter
what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if
you look long enough it's there.  That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX
is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
                -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken
Olsen's brain.  Ed.]
                The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance
The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system
in a portable package the size of a briefcase.  The guy on the left has an
Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case.  Also in the case are four
fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition.  The owner of the
Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on
target -- in less time, and with less effort.  All for $795. It's inevitable.
If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal
computer -- he's the one who's in trouble.  One round from an Uzi can zip
through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do
to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum.  In fact, detachable magazines
for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can
take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied
into Ethernet or other local-area networks.  What about the new 16-bit
computers, like the Lisa and Fortune?  Even with the Winchester backup,
they're no match for the Uzi.  One quick burst and they'll find out what
Unix means.  Make your commanding officer proud.  Get an Uzi -- and come home
a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons.
                -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity
-- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings:

        (10) Sorry, but that's too useful.
         (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent!
         (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell
             #pragma is for.
         (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too
             hard to write.
         (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar.
         (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in
             here?
         (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!"
         (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this
             sucker.
         (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth.
         (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'.
One picture is worth more than ten thousand words.
                -- Chinese proverb
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it
is also very memorable.  I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize
the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360.  The manager of
architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were
threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities.

The architecture manager had 10 good men.  He asserted that they could write
the specifications and do it right.  It would take ten months, three more
than the schedule allowed.

The control program manager had 150 men.  He asserted that they could prepare
the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be
well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule.  Futhermore, if
the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs
for ten months.

To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program
team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would
also be three months late, and of much lower quality.  I did, and it was.  He
was right on both counts.  Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made
the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it
added a year to debugging time.
- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand
years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man
is and will always be a wild animal.
-- Charles Galton Darwin
"It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your AI programs are?"  -- Peter Oakley
>One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative.

Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
-- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM
"(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance
specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its
documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and
considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied
mathematics, business data handling, or whatever."
-- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_
Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
                -- Napoleon I
        The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner
workings of the U.S. Air Force.
        "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked.
        In his head he ran through his standard explanations.  "It's not so,"
he thought.  "It's a deterrent."  Soon he came up with, "It's computerized,
Senator.  Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied.  Try
a cup."
        The Senator did.  "Pfffttt!  Tastes like jet fuel!"
        "It's not so," the General thought.  "It's a deterrent."
        Then he remembered something.  "We bought a lot of untested computer
chips," the General answered.  "They got into everything.  Just a little
mix-up.  Nothing serious."
        Then he remembered something else.  It was at the site of the
mysterious B-1 crash.  A strange smell in the fuel lines.  It smelled like
coffee.  Smooth and full bodied...
                -- Another Episode of General's Hospital
flowchart, n. & v.:
        [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart
"a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."]
1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction
problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation
using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template.  2. n. Neronic
doodling while the system burns.  3. n. A low-cost substitute for
wallpaper.  4. n.  The innumerate misleading the illiterate.  "A
thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's
Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps.  5. v.intrans. To produce
flowcharts with no particular object in mind.  6. v.trans. To obfuscate
(a problem) with esoteric cartoons.
                -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
        The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
        the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
Steele's Law:
        There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men
        or fewer than one hundred.
        A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father,
and her first name by her mother.  By the time she was ten, didn't know if she
was Carmen or Cohen.
If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them end to
end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.
                -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten"
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game.  Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge.  Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match.  Then, the
paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it.  Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs.
                -- Audobon Society Magazine
        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.
There was this New Yorker that had a lifelong ambition to be an Texan.
Fortunately, he had an Texan friend and went to him for advice.  "Mike,
you know I've always wanted to be a Texan.  You're a *____real* Texan, what
should I do?"
        "Well," answered Mike, "The first thing you've got to do is look
like a Texan.  That means you have to dress right.  The second thing
you've got to do is speak in a southern drawl."
        "Thanks, Mike, I'll give it a try," replied the New Yorker.
        A few weeks passed and the New Yorker saunters into a store dressed
in a ten-gallon hat, cowboy boots, Levi jeans and a bandanna.  "Hey, there,
pardner, I'd like some beef, not too rare, and some of them fresh biscuits,"
he tells the counterman.
        The guy behind the counter takes a long look at him and then says,
"You must be from New York."
        The New Yorker blushes, and says, "Well, yes, I am.  How did
you know?"
        "Because this is a hardware store."
A gangster assembled an engineer, a chemist, and a physicist.  He explained
that he was entering a horse in a race the following week and the three
assembled guys had the job of assuring that the gangster's horse would win.
They were to reconvene the day before the race to tell the gangster how they
each propose to ensure a win.  When they reconvened the gangster started with
the engineer:
        
Gangster: OK, Mr. engineer, what have you got?
Engineer: Well, I've invented a way to weave metallic threads into the saddle
          blanket so that they will act as the plates of a battery and provide
          electrical shock to the horse.
G:          That's very good!  But let's hear from the chemist.
Chemist:  I've synthesized a powerful stimulant that disolves
          into simple blood sugars after ten minutes and therefore
          cannot be detected in post-race tests.
G:          Excellent, excellent!  But I want to hear from the physicist before
          I decide what to do.  Physicist?  
Physicist: Well, first consider a spherical horse in simple harmonic motion...
Good morning.  This is the telephone company.  Due to repairs, we're
giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely
at ten o'clock.  That's two minutes from now.
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365,
365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365".  He [ten-year-old Truman Henry
Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the
tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more
than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!"
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be
as much fun to watch.
                -- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available
data.  Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon
shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold,
as the light of seven days."  Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times
as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all.  The light we
receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the
Sun, so we can ignore that.  With these data we can compute the temperature
of Heaven.  The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where
the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation,
i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation.  Using
the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute
temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C).  The exact
temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the
temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas.
Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."  A lake of molten
brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point,
or 444.6C  (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.)  We have,
then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
                -- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972
Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up
the pillow was gone.
                -- Tommy Cooper
And now your toner's toney,                Disk blocks aplenty
And your paper near pure white,                Await your laser drawn lines,
The smudges on your soul are gone        Your intricate fonts,
And your output's clean as light..        Your pictures and signs.

We've labored with your father,                Your amputative absence
The venerable XGP,                        Has made the Ten dumb,
But his slow artistic hand,                Without you, Dover,
Lacks your clean velocity.                We're system untounged-

Theses and papers                         DRAW Plots and TEXage
And code in a queue                        Have been biding their time,
Dover, oh Dover,                        With LISP code and programs,
We've been waiting for you.                And this crufty rhyme.

Dover, oh Dover,                Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead.
We welcome you back,                Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed.
Though still you may jam,        Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab.
You're on the right track.        Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean
                                        hand...
Hit them biscuits with another touch of gravy,
Burn that sausage just a match or two more done.
Pour my black old coffee longer,
While that smell is gettin' stronger
A semi-meal ain't nuthin' much to want.

Loan me ten, I got a feelin' it'll save me,
With an ornery soul who don't shoot pool for fun,
If that coat'll fit you're wearin',
The Lord'll bless your sharin'
A semi-friend ain't nuthin' much to want.

And let me halfway fall in love,
For part of a lonely night,
With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.
Yes, I could halfway fall in deep--
Into a snugglin', lovin' heap,
With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.
                -- Elroy Blunt
I always will remember --                I was in no mood to trifle;
'Twas a year ago November --                I got down my trusty rifle
I went out to shoot some deer                And went out to stalk my prey --
On a morning bright and clear.                What a haul I made that day!
I went and shot the maximum                I tied them to my bumper and
The game laws would allow:                I drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters,        Two game wardens, seven hunters,
And a cow.                                And a cow.

The Law was very firm, it                People ask me how I do it
Took away my permit--                        And I say, "There's nothin' to it!
The worst punishment I ever endured.        You just stand there lookin' cute,
It turns out there was a reason:        And when something moves, you shoot."
Cows were out of season, and                And there's ten stuffed heads
One of the hunters wasn't insured.        In my trophy room right now:
                                        Two game wardens, seven hunters,
                                        And a pure-bred guernsey cow.
                -- Tom Lehrer, "The Hunting Song"
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
                -- Dorothy Parker
My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want
It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures,
        and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits.
It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating
        decimal points for the sake of precision.
Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes,
        I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me.
It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an
        arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers.
It annoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are
        over.
Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my
        life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever.
Now of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It leaves me only fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
                -- A.E. Housman
One pill makes you larger,                And if you go chasing rabbits
And one pill makes you small.                And you know you're going to fall.
And the ones that mother gives you,        Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Don't do anything at all.                Has given you the call.
Go ask Alice                                Call Alice
When she's ten feet tall.                When she was just small.

When men on the chessboard                When logic and proportion
Get up and tell you where to go.        Have fallen sloppy dead,
And you've just had some kind of        And the White Knight is talking
        mushroom                                backwards
And your mind is moving low.                And the Red Queen's lost her head
Go ask Alice                                Remember what the dormouse said:
I think she'll know.                                Feed your head.
                                                Feed your head.
                                                Feed your head.
                -- Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"
Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun,
With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done.
The deal was made in Denmark, on a dark and stormy day,
So he set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray.
Through sixty-six and seven, they fought the Congo war,
With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore.
Days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees,
They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese.
        Roland the Thompson gunner...
His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest,
But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best.
So the C.I.A decided, they wanted Roland dead,
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen, blew off Roland's head.
        Roland the headless Thompson gunner...
Roland searched the continent, for the man who'd done him in.
He found him in Mombasa, in a bar room drinking gin,
Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word,
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg.
The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night,
Now it's ten years later, but he stills keeps up the fight.
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Berkeley,
Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.
                -- Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
She can kill all your files;
She can freeze with a frown.
And a wave of her hand brings the whole system down.
And she works on her code until ten after three.
She lives like a bat but she's always a hacker to me.
                -- Apologies to Billy Joel
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine                And then one day you find
Staying home to watch the rain                Ten years have got behind you
You are young and life is long                No one told you when to run
And there is time to kill today                You missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter                Hanging on in quiet desperation
                                                is the English way
Never seem to find the time                The time is gone, the song is over
Plans that either come to nought        Thought I'd something more to say...
Or half a page of scribbled lines
                -- Pink Floyd, "Time"
Well, fancy giving money to the Government!
Might as well have put it down the drain.
Fancy giving money to the Government!
Nobody will see the stuff again.
Well, they've no idea what money's for --
Ten to one they'll start another war.
I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'!
Fancy giving money to the Government!
                -- A.P. Herbert
Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come,
I hope they comin' for me!
And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good,
I hope they doin' it for free!
They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever!
First time that I got it I was just ten years old,
Got it from the kitty next door...
I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure,
I think I got it some more!
Got a bad scratch fever...
                -- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever"
Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers,
And we're loved everywhere we go.
We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth,
At ten thousand dollars a show.
We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills,
But the thrill we've never known,
Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie,
Who embroiders on my jeans.
I got my poor old gray-haired daddy,
Drivin' my limousine.
Now it's all designed, to blow our minds,
But our minds won't be really be blown;
Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies,
Who'll do anything we say.
We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way.
We got all the friends that money can buy,
So we never have to be alone.
And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
                -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
                [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.]
Why are you watching
The washing machine?
I love entertainment
So long as it's clean.

Professor Doberman:
        While the preceding poem is unarguably a change from the guarded
pessimism of "The Hound of Heaven," it cannot be regarded as an unqualified
improvement.  Obscurity is of value only when it tends to clarify the poetic
experience.  As much as one is compelled to admire the poem's technique, one
must question whether its byplay of complex literary allusions does not in
fact distract from the unity of the whole.  In the final analysis, one
receives the distinct impression that the poem's length could safely have
been reduced by a factor of eight or ten without sacrificing any of its
meaning.  It is to be hoped that further publication of this poem can be
suspended pending a thorough investigation of its potential subversive
implications.
Good news.  Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.
        COONDOG MEMORY
        (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago)

Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as
old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot.
For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and
is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to
try out ol' Sis here.  So I turned her out south of the house and she made
two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set
back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods,
come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air,
run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had
something treed.  We went over there with our flashlights and shone them
up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my
neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she
stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it.  So I pulled off my
coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon
skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up.
Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow
was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the
air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the
Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back.  Now, this dog
is for sale.
                -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly
Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to
shoot some craps.  The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable.
        When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his
entire wad, shook the dice and rolled.  A smile crossed his face as a
seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out
of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others.  No one said a
word.  Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket
and handed the others to Dutsky.
        "Roll 'em," Lucci said.  "Your point is thirteen."
"`Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.'
`Very deep,' said Arthur, `you should send that in to the
"Reader's Digest". They've got a page for people like you.'"

- Ford convincing Arthur to drink three pints in ten
minutes at lunchtime.
"`The first ten million years were the worst,' said Marvin,
`and the second ten million, they were the worst too. The
third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went
into a bit of a decline.'"

- Marvin reflecting back on his 576,000,003,579 year
career as Milliways' car park attendent.
"OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million
for good thinking, yeah? "
Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.
                -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo"
MS-DOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development
It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your source code is?

   -- From a Slashdot.org post
It's ten o'clock. Do you know where your source code is?
Top Ten Changes If Linus Torvalds Achieves World Domination

10. That annoying Linus character from the Peanuts cartoons would be killed off
9. New fashion style: Scantily clad females, even in twenty below weather
8. Forget Disney World, say hello to Penguin World!
7. Late Show with Linus Torvalds
6. High schools offer classes on kernel hacking
5. Microsoft stock certificates traded as rare collectors' items, along with
    Confederate money and Roman coins
4. Beowolf Clusters for everyone!
3. Computers no longer come with reset buttons
2. United States of Linusia
1. Three words: Open Source Beer
Top Ten Ways to Pronounce Linux
  
1. Lih-nucks
2. Lie-nucks
3. Not Win-doze
4. World Domination
5. Lin-doze
6. God's OS
7. Better Than Microsoft
8. Crash-free
9. Heaven
10. Gates' Worst Nightmare
Microsoft ActivePromo Campaign: "What Slogan Do You Want to See Tommorrow?"

Microsoft's PR masterminds are planning a massive marketing campaign,
code-named "ActivePromo 2000", to promote the upcoming release of Windows
2000 (scheduled for February 2001).  This marketing campaign will include a
"What Slogan Do You Want to See Tommorrow?" promotion.

Children under age 16 will have to opportunity to create their own Microsoft
slogan to replace the aging "Where Do You Want to Go Today?"(R) motto.
Microsoft will set up a special email alias where children can submit their
entries along with detailed personal and demographic information (for
verification purposes, of course).  A panel of Microsoft employees will
select a winning entry, which will become the official slogan.  The winner
and his/her family will receive an all-expense paid week-long vacation to
Redmond, WA ("The Vacation Capital of East Central Washington State"),
including a guided tour of the Microsoft campus and a personal ten minute
photo-opportunity with Chairman Bill.

We personally believe that "Don't Think About Going Anywhere Else Today"
would make a perfect Microsoft slogan.  "Crashes Are Normal" might also be a
good choice.
Top Ten Differences If Thomas Jefferson Behaved Like Eric Raymond During
the American Revolution

2. The preamble to the Constitution would say, "We the pragmatists of the
Open States of America, in order to foster the production of higher
quality tea and tobacco..."

5. The phrases "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed" and "Geeks
With Guns" would be plastered throughout the O.S.A. Constitution.

9. Instead of Congress, the "Open States Institute" board of directors
would make all of the national legislative decisions.

10. Raymond, New Hampshire would be the home of the O.S.A. capitol.
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!
As Easy As /usr/src/linux

Wiping the sweat from his brow, the contestant diligently continues to
recite, "'i' equals 'NR' underscore 'TASKS' semicolon newline 'p' equals
ampersand 'task' bracket 'NR' underscore 'TASKS' close-bracket semicolon
newline while parens minus minus 'i' parens brace if parens star minus..."

Bzzzt! One of the judges says, "You missed an exclamation point. Ten point
penalty for that error."  The contestant realizes it's all over. He had
spent 500 hours memorizing the source code to the Linux 0.01 kernel and
then blew it all by forgetting one stupid ASCII character in sched.c.

Welcome to the First Annual Linux Kernel Memorization Contest in New
Haven, Connecticut, where the stakes are high and the frustration is
simply unbearable. Linuxer longhairs from all over the globe have
descended on the Offramp Motel to show off their memorization skills in
front of a crowd of... dozens.

"Those math freaks can memorize PI and other irrational constants all they
want. I'll stick with the Linux 0.01 kernel source code thank you very
much," said Bob Notmyrealname, the organizer of the event. %
If people see that you mean them no harm, they'll never hurt you, nine
times out of ten!
Man has never reconciled himself to the ten commandments.
Would a giant, profit-oriented cartel lie to you?
                -- Top Ten List, Late Night with David Letterman
Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> It's a "tomorrow" thing. Ten hours it too long to stare at a
> screen.

Sissy!

        - Jens Axboe on linux-kernel
        (IBM motto: "We found five vowels hiding in a corner, and we used
them _all_ for the 'eieio' instruction so that we wouldn't have to use
them anywhere else").

        [...]

(IBM motto: "If you can't read our assembly language, you must be
borderline dyslexic, and we don't want you to mess with it anyway").

        [...]

(IBM motto: "TEN vowels? Don't you know vowels are scrd?")

        - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name; this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other:
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not.
Working, yet not taking credit.
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.
The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled.
Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things!
Blunt the sharpness,
Untangle the knot,
Soften the glare,
Merge with dust.
Oh, hidden deep but ever present!
I do not know from whence it comes.
It is the forefather of the gods.
Heaven and Earth are impartial;
They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs.
The wise are impartial;
They see the people as straw dogs.
The space between heaven and Earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold fast to the center.
The highest good is like water.
Water give life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In daily life, be competent.
In action, be aware of the time and the season.
No fight:  No blame.
Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.
Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and Earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows
I flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, "Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great."
These are the four great powers of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows Earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.
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.
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.
The great Tao flows everywhere, both to the left and to the right.
The ten thousand things depend upon it; it holds nothing back.
It fulfills its purpose silently and makes no claim.
It nourishes the ten thousand things,
And yet is not their lord.
It has no aim; it is very small.
The ten thousand things return to it,
Yet it is not their lord.
It is very great.

It does not show greatness,
And is therefore truly great.
Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords observed this,
The ten thousand things would develop naturally.
If they still desired to act,
They would return to the simplicity of formless substance.
Without for there is no desire.
Without desire there is.
And in this way all things would be at peace.
These things from ancient times arise from one:
The sky is whole and clear.
The earth is whole and firm.
The spirit is whole and strong.
The valley is whole and full.
The ten thousand things are whole and alive.
Kings and lords are whole, and the country is upright.
All these are in virtue of wholeness.

The clarity of the sky prevents its falling.
The firmness of the earth prevents its splitting.
The strength of the spirit prevents its being used up.
The fullness of the valley prevents its running dry.
The growth of the ten thousand things prevents their drying out.
The leadership of kings and lords prevents the downfall of the country.

Therefore the humble is the root of the noble.
The low is the foundation of the high.
Princes and lords consider themselves "orphaned", "widowed" and "worthless".
Do they not depend on being humble?

Too much success is not an advantage.
Do not tinkle like jade
Or clatter like stone chimes.
Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The ten thousand things are born of being.
Being is born of not being.
The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.

The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.

Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless,"
But this is how kings and lords describe themselves.

For one gains by losing
And loses by gaining.

What others teach, I also teach; that is:
"A violent man will die a violent death!"
This will be the essence of my teaching.
Between birth and death,
Three in ten are followers of life,
Three in ten are followers of death,
And men just passing from birth to death also number three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they live their lives on the gross level.

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.
All things arise from Tao.
They are nourished by Virtue.
They are formed from matter.
They are shaped by environment.
Thus the ten thousand things all respect Tao and honor Virtue.
Respect of Tao and honor of Virtue are not demanded,
But they are in the nature of things.

Therefore all things arise from Tao.
By Virtue they are nourished,
Developed, cared for,
Sheltered, comforted,
Grown, and protected.
Creating without claiming,
Doing without taking credit,
Guiding without interfering,
This is Primal Virtue.
Tao is source of the ten thousand things.
It is the treasure of the good man, and the refuge of the bad.
Sweet words can buy honor;
Good deeds can gain respect.
If a man is bad, do not abandon him.
Therefore on the day the emperor is crowned,
Or the three officers of state installed,
Do not send a gift of jade and a team of four horses,
But remain still and offer the Tao.
Why does everyone like the Tao so much at first?
Isn't it because you find what you seek and are forgiven when you sin?
Therefore this is the greatest treasure of the universe.
Peace is easily maintained;
Trouble is easily overcome before it starts.
The brittle is easily shattered;
The small is easily scattered.

Deal with it before it happens.
Set things in order before there is confusion.

A tree as great as a man's embrace springs up from a small shoot;
A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet.

He who acts defeats his own purpose;
He who grasps loses.
The sage does not act, and so is not defeated.
He does not grasp and therefore does not lose.

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
So give as much care to the end as to the beginning;
Then there will be no failure.

Therefore the sage seeks freedom from desire.
He does not collect precious things.
He learns not to hold on to ideas.
He brings men back to what they have lost.
He help the ten thousand things find their own nature,
But refrains from action.
A small country has fewer people.
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster than man, they are not needed.
The people take death seriously and do not travel far.
Though they have boats and carriages, no one uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them.
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing.
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple, their homes secure;
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.
Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth
to a child.  She must be found and stopped.
                -- Sam Levenson
<zarkov> "NT 5.0.  All the bugs and ten times the code size!"
<james> but, then I used an Atari, I was more likely to win the lottery in
        ten countries simultaneously than get accelerated X
Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907:
        "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour
unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a
drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he can."
Brahma said: Well, after hearing ten thousand explanations, a fool is no
wiser.  But an intelligent man needs only two thousand five hundred.
                -- The Mahabharata
Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would.
The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.
                -- Augustine
There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of
discovering them over and over and over.
                -- David Nichols
"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is no
wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five hundred."
                -- The Mahabharata.
You can get *anywhere* in ten minutes if you drive fast enough.
[In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I
thought of it.  (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less
abusive.')
        -- Matt Welsh
MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development.
        -- dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca
Genius is ten percent inspiration and fifty percent capital gains.
The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
add ten percent.
The only promotion rules I can think of are that a sense of shame is to
be avoided at all costs and there is never any reason for a hustler to
be less cunning than more virtuous men.  Oh yes ... whenever you think
you've got something really great, add ten per cent more.
                -- Bill Veeck
Will you loan me $20.00 and only give me ten of it?
That way, you will owe me ten, and I'll owe you ten, and we'll be even!
XVI:
        In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one
        aircraft.  This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and
        Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be
        made available to the Marines for the extra day.
XVII:
        Software is like entropy.  It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing,
        and obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics, i.e., it always increases.
XVIII:
        It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability.  It is not uncommon
        to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of
        ten degradation accomplished.
XIX:
        Although most products will soon be too costly to purchase, there will
        be a thriving market in the sale of books on how to fix them.
XX:
        In any given year, Congress will appropriate the amount of funding
        approved the prior year plus three-fourths of whatever change the
        administration requests -- minus 4-percent tax.
                -- Norman Augustine
YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF PAPER SHUFFLING!

Mr. Smith of Muddle, Mass. says:  "Before I took this course I used to be
a lowly bit twiddler.  Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel really
important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."

Mr. Watkins had this to say:  "Ten short days ago all I could look forward
to was a dead-end job as a engineer.  Now I have a promising future and
make really big Zorkmids."

MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when
you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter.

                SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY!
I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten foot salad forks!!
Fortune's Exercising Truths:

1:  Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic.  You don't.
2.  Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart.  So do heart attacks.
3.  Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life.
4.  Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing.
5.  No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done
    quietly at your desk at work.  People will suspect manic tendencies as
    you twitter around in your chair.
6.  Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers.
7.  Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around
    for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard
    racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity.
8.  Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups,
    followed by one throw-up.
9.  Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided.
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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