book : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

Best Mistakes In Films In his "Filmgoer's Companion", Mr. Leslie Halliwell helpfully lists four of the cinema's greatest moments which you should get to see if at all possible. In "Carmen Jones", the camera tracks with Dorothy Dandridge down a street; and the entire film crew is reflected in the shop window. In "The Wrong Box", the roofs of Victorian London are emblazoned with television aerials. In "Decameron Nights", Louis Jourdain stands on the deck of his fourteenth century pirate ship; and a white lorry trundles down the hill in the background. In "Viking Queen", set in the times of Boadicea, a wrist watch is clearly visible on one of the leading characters. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
No two persons ever read the same book. -- Edmund Wilson
The covers of this book are too far apart. -- Book review by Ambrose Bierce.
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. -- John Steinbeck [Horse racing is a stable business ...]
The Worst Musical Trio There are few bad musicians who have a chance to give a recital at a famous concert hall while still learning the rudiments of their instrument. This happened about thirty years ago to the son of a Rumanian gentleman who was owed a personal favour by Georges Enesco, the celebrated violinist. Enesco agreed to give lessons to the son who was quite unhampered by great musical talent. Three years later the boy's father insisted that he give a public concert. "His aunt said that nobody plays the violin better than he does. A cousin heard him the other day and screamed with enthusiasm." Although Enesco feared the consequences, he arranged a recital at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. However, nobody bought a ticket since the soloist was unknown. "Then you must accompany him on the piano," said the boy's father, "and it will be a sell out." Reluctantly, Enesco agreed and it was. On the night an excited audience gathered. Before the concert began Enesco became nervous and asked for someone to turn his pages. In the audience was Alfred Cortot, the brilliant pianist, who volunteered and made his way to the stage. The soloist was of uniformly low standard and next morning the music critic of Le Figaro wrote: "There was a strange concert at the Salle Gaveau last night. The man whom we adore when he plays the violin played the piano. Another whom we adore when he plays the piano turned the pages. But the man who should have turned the pages played the violin." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. -- Edward Gibbon
"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what ___can you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about Down Under up for?
Year Name James Bond Book ---- -------------------------------- -------------- ---- 50's James Bond TV Series Barry Nelson 1962 Dr. No Sean Connery 1958 1963 From Russia With Love Sean Connery 1957 1964 Goldfinger Sean Connery 1959 1965 Thunderball Sean Connery 1961 1967* Casino Royale David Niven 1954 1967 You Only Live Twice Sean Connery 1964 1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service George Lazenby 1963 1971 Diamonds Are Forever Sean Connery 1956 1973 Live And Let Die Roger Moore 1955 1974 The Man With The Golden Gun Roger Moore 1965 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me Roger Moore 1962 (novelette) 1979 Moonraker Roger Moore 1955 1981 For Your Eyes Only Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) 1983 Octopussy Roger Moore 1965 1983* Never Say Never Again Sean Connery 1985 A View To A Kill Roger Moore 1960 (novelette) 1987 The Living Daylights Timothy Dalton 1965 (novelette) * -- Not a Broccoli production.
I'm not sure. Try calling the Internet's head office -- it's in the book.
Big book, big bore. -- Callimachus
I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, so I woke up from sheer boredom.
"I wonder", he said to himself, "what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and battles." -- Bastian B. Bux
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. -- Oscar Wilde
Many pages make a thick book, except for pocket Bibles which are on very very thin paper.
Many pages make a thick book.
The Least Perceptive Literary Critic The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to give a public reading of his latest poem. Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me." Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark the place and consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better turn." After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the lines," he said. "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation on those passages, and then read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event." Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem exactly as it was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of their edge. "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can be better." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Least Successful Collector Betsy Baker played a central role in the history of collecting. She was employed as a servant in the house of John Warburton (1682-1759) who had amassed a fine collection of 58 first edition plays, including most of the works of Shakespeare. One day Warburton returned home to find 55 of them charred beyond legibility. Betsy had either burned them or used them as pie bottoms. The remaining three folios are now in the British Museum. The only comparable literary figure was the maid who in 1835 burned the manuscript of the first volume of Thomas Carlyle's "The Hisory of the French Revolution", thinking it was wastepaper. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took thousands of words to say it. Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father. Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a major world power. I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me." Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words: * "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and will kill you. * "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. -- Dave Barry
Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.' -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style"
Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis- trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the "granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in question." [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.]
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers ... The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu'' collapsed in the morning before the release. News about the release had been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week. They had got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time. ``No computer can handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager, Erik Troan. ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.'' Luckily, repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening. ``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it together without major problems.'' The site has also installed a new throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same time, thus making a new crash less likely. ``The book is now in our Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.'' -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi> [comp.os.linux.announce]
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers ... The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President. The ISHW is being developed with massive govenment funding, since studies show that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before the first prototypes are ready. Asked whether he was worried about the foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president said, ``Finland? Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told anyone yet. They're great at building model airplanes as well. And _I can spell potato.'' House representatives are not mollified, however, wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska. Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock market for weeks. Several major publishing houses reached an all time low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius. The negotiations did not work out, tough. ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks, preferring to communicate via e-mail. ``He kept muttering something about jiffies and pegs,'' they say. ... -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi> [comp.os.linux.announce]
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars ``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of acknowledgements in the introduction. The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director of LDP, Inc. The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' ... -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi> [comp.os.linux.announce]
The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, star of "The Muppet Show." [3] [3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol"
Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it is itself the one hope for salvation. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988
X windows: You'd better sit down. Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. Why do it right when you can do it wrong? Live the nightmare. Our bugs run faster. When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. There ARE no rules. You'll wish we were kidding. Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. Dissatisfaction guaranteed. There's got to be a better way. The next best thing to keypunching. Leave the thrashing to us. We wrote the book on core dumps. Even your dog won't like it. More than enough rope. Garbage at your fingertips. Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. X windows.
A place for everything and everything in its place. -- Isabella Mary Beeton, "The Book of Household Management" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to memory management system services.]
Rotten wood cannot be carved. -- Confucius, "Analects", Book 5, Ch. 9
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.
To date, the firm conclusions of Project Blue Book are: 1. no unidentified flying object reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; 2. there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and 3. there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED are extraterrestrial vehicles. - the summary of Project Blue Book, an Air Force study of UFOs from 1950 to 1965, as quoted by James Randi in Flim-Flam!
The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. - Abraham Lincoln
... The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks attempts to expose sham paranormal studies; and (2) it is very well and plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple jeering. - Harry Eagar, reviewing "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael Talbot, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 200-201
...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman
As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. - Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman
We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major prohpet, nor Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual concerns, to say nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get Christians to agree among themselves about their relationship to God. But all will agree on a proposition that they possess profound spiritual resources. If, in addition, we can get them to accept the further proposition that whatever form the Deity may have in their own theology, the Deity is not only external, but internal and acts through them, and they themselves give proof or disproof of the Deity in what they do and think; if this further proposition can be accepted, then we come that much closer to a truly religious situation on earth. - Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options"
"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what can you believe?!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?" "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." -- Ambrose Bierce
In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, J. DePree, co-founder of the company with herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: 'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in whatever potential there is.'" -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason. -- Charles Curtis, "A Commonplace Book"
I was appalled by this story of the destruction of a member of a valued endangered species. It's all very well to celebrate the practicality of pigs by ennobling the porcine sibling who constructed his home out of bricks and mortar. But to wantonly destroy a wolf, even one with an excessive taste for porkers, is unconscionable in these ecologically critical times when both man and his domestic beasts continue to maraud the earth. Sylvia Kamerman, "Book Reviewing"
The hater of property and of government takes care to have his warranty deed recorded, and the book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title page. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831
The Least Successful Executions History has furnished us with two executioners worthy of attention. The first performed in Sydney in Australia. In 1803 three attempts were made to hang a Mr. Joseph Samuels. On the first two of these the rope snapped, while on the third Mr. Samuels just hung there peacefully until he and everyone else got bored. Since he had proved unsusceptible to capital punishment, he was reprieved. The most important British executioner was Mr. James Berry who tried three times in 1885 to hang Mr. John Lee at Exeter Jail, but on each occasion failed to get the trap door open. In recognition of this achievement, the Home Secretary commuted Lee's sentence to "life" imprisonment. He was released in 1917, emigrated to America and lived until 1933. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Least Successful Police Dogs America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida in 1978. He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or offend the criminal classes. His handling officer, Rick Grim, had to admit: "He just won't go up and bite them. I got sick and tired of doing that dog's work for him." The British contenders in this category, however, took things a stage further. "Laddie" and "Boy" were trained as detector dogs for drug raids. Their employment was terminated following a raid in the Midlands in 1967. While the investigating officer questioned two suspects, they patted and stroked the dogs who eventually fell asleep in front of the fire. When the officer moved to arrest the suspects, one dog growled at him while the other leapt up and bit his thigh. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Worst Prison Guards The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, near Lisbon in Portugal. During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were "covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back the next morning. "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the "legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
I've no regrets. I was sincere in everything I said. -- Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, annoucing his new book
Appendix: A portion of a book, for which nobody yet has discovered any use.
Fifth Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.
But like the Good Book says... There's BIGGER DEALS to come!
A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating resource centers along the roads. -- The Underground Grammarian
Did you know the University of Iowa closed down after someone stole the book?
I am a bookaholic. If you are a decent person, you will not sell me another book.
It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum competence will be quite enough. -- The Underground Grammarian
Five people -- an Englishman, Russian, American, Frenchman and Irishman were each asked to write a book on elephants. Some amount of time later they had all completed their respective books. The Englishman's book was entitled "The Elephant -- How to Collect Them", the Russian's "The Elephant -- Vol. I", the American's "The Elephant -- How to Make Money from Them", the Frenchman's "The Elephant -- Its Mating Habits" and the Irishman's "The Elephant and Irish Political History".
"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.' -- So I hit him." -- attributed to Ray Bradbury
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #14 What to do... if reality disappears? Hope this one doesn't happen to you. There isn't much that you can do about it. It will probably be quite unpleasant. if you meet an older version of yourself who has invented a time traveling machine, and has come from the future to meet you? Play this one by the book. Ask about the stock market and cash in. Don't forget to invent a time traveling machine and visit your younger self before you die, or you will create a paradox. If you expect this to be tricky, make sure to ask for the principles behind time travel, and possibly schematics. Never, NEVER, ask when you'll die, or if you'll marry your current SO.
In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to large numbers and prospered. One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. -- The Story of Babel
The Greatest Mathematical Error The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 28 July 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes' flight a booster engine would give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course corrections and after 100 days the craft would cirlce the unknown planet, scanning the mysterious cloud in which it is bathed. However, with an efficiency that is truly heartening, Mariner I plunged into the Atlantic Ocean only four minutes after takeoff. Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from the instructions fed into the computer. "It was human error", a launch spokesman said. This minus sign cost L4,280,000. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Man Who Almost Invented The Vacuum Cleaner The man officially credited with inventing the vacuum cleaner is Hubert Cecil Booth. However, he got the idea from a man who almost invented it. In 1901 Booth visited a London music-hall. On the bill was an American inventor with his wonder machine for removing dust from carpets. The machine comprised a box about one foot square with a bag on top. After watching the act -- which made everyone in the front six rows sneeze -- Booth went round to the inventor's dressing room. "It should suck not blow," said Booth, coming straight to the point. "Suck?", exclaimed the enraged inventor. "Your machine just moves the dust around the room," Booth informed him. "Suck? Suck? Sucking is not possible," was the inventor's reply and he stormed out. Booth proved that it was by the simple expedient of kneeling down, pursing his lips and sucking the back of an armchair. "I almost choked," he said afterwards. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
We dedicate this book to our fellow citizens who, for love of truth, take from their own wants by taxes and gifts, and now and then send forth one of themselves as dedicated servant, to forward the search into the mysteries and marvelous simplicities of this strange and beautiful Universe, Our home. -- "Gravitation", Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler
Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself the following questions: (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a food? (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living right doesn't really make you live longer, it just seems like longer.) That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, "What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord, Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so," Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. -- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem"
And as we stand on the edge of darkness Let our chant fill the void That others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC.
Here in my heart, I am Helen; I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el; I'm Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. I'm all of the glamorous ladies At whose beckoning history shook. But you are a man, and see only my pan, So I stay at home with a book. -- Dorothy Parker
If I could read your mind, love, What a tale your thoughts could tell, Just like a paperback novel, The kind the drugstore sells, When you reach the part where the heartaches come, The hero would be me, Heroes often fail, You won't read that book again, because the ending is just too hard to take. I walk away, like a movie star, Who gets burned in a three way script, Enter number two, A movie queen to play the scene Of bringing all the good things out in me, But for now, love, let's be real I never thought I could act this way, And I've got to say that I just don't get it, I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling is gone And I just can't get it back... -- Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"
In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. -- Egyptian Book of the Dead
The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George Wither. Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well". In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness. It usually lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel". High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with the higher emotions. She would me "Honey" call, She'd -- O she'd kiss me too. But now alas! She's left me Falero, lero, loo. Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize was her prudent choice of footwear. The fives did fit her shoe. In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by the Royalists during the English Civil War. When Sir John Denham, the Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and begged that his life be spared. When asked his reason, Sir John replied, "Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Worst American Poet Julia Moore, "the Sweet Singer of Michigan" (1847-1920) was so bad that Mark Twain said her first book gave him joy for 20 years. Her verse was mainly concerned with violent death -- the great fire of Chicago and the yellow fever epidemic proved natural subjects for her pen. Whether death was by drowning, by fits or by runaway sleigh, the formula was the same: Have you heard of the dreadful fate Of Mr. P.P. Bliss and wife? Of their death I will relate, And also others lost their life (in the) Ashbula Bridge disaster, Where so many people died. Even if you started out reasonably healthy in one of Julia's poems, the chances are that after a few stanzas you would be at the bottom of a river or struck by lightning. A critic of the day said she was "worse than a Gatling gun" and in one slim volume counted 21 killed and 9 wounded. Incredibly, some newspapers were critical of her work, even suggesting that the sweet singer was "semi-literate". Her reply was forthright: "The Editors that has spoken in this scandalous manner have went beyond reason." She added that "literary work is very difficult to do". -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Worst Lines of Verse For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line: "Come, muse, let us sing of rats." Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous laughter the instant they were read out. No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was inspired by the subject of war. "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away, And the grey roof reddened and rang; Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!" By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79): "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..." While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables: "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed, The crippled pea alone that cannot stand." George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote: "And I was ask'd and authorized to go To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co." William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse: "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak While in this world, are liable to leak." And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when describing a pond: "I've measured it from side to side; Tis three feet long and two feet wide." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good And when she was bad, she was very, very popular. -- Max Miller, "The Max Miller Blue Book"
Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)
Ever feel like life was a game and you had the wrong instruction book?
Failed Attempts To Break Records In September 1978 Mr. Terry Gripton, of Stafford, failed to break the world shouting record by two and a half decibels. "I am not surprised he failed," his wife said afterwards. "He's really a very quiet man and doesn't even shout at me." In August of the same year Mr. Paul Anthony failed to break the record for continuous organ playing by 387 hours. His attempt at the Golden Fish Fry Restaurant in Manchester ended after 36 hours 10 minutes, when he was accused of disturbing the peace. "People complained I was too noisy," he said. In January 1976 Mr. Barry McQueen failed to walk backwards across the Menai Bridge playing the bagpipes. "It was raining heavily and my drone got waterlogged," he said. A TV cameraman thwarted Mr. Bob Specas' attempt to topple 100,000 dominoes at the Manhattan Center, New York on 9 June 1978. 97,500 dominoes had been set up when he dropped his press badge and set them off. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Fastest Defeat In Chess The big name for us in the world of chess is Gibaud, a French chess master. In Paris during 1924 he was beaten after only four moves by a Monsieur Lazard. Happily for posterity, the moves are recorded and so chess enthusiasts may reconstruct this magnificent collapse in the comfort of their own homes. Lazard was black and Gibaud white: 1: P-Q4, Kt-KB3 2: Kt-Q2, P-K4 3: PxP, Kt-Kt5 4: P-K6, Kt-K6 White then resigns on realizing that a fifth move would involve either a Q-KR5 check or the loss of his queen. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. (3) I don't know. (4) Who cares? (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books).
"`The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat...'" - The Book, on one of the Vogon's social inadequacies.
"`In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were REAL men, women were REAL women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry creatures from Aplha Centauri.'" - The Book getting all nostalgic.
"There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?' `Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?'" - The Book.
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." - The Book just racapping what happened in the last book. "`I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis.'" - Zaphod being cool.
"The fronting for the eighty-yard long marble-topped bar had been made by stitching together nearly twenty thousand Antarean Mosaic Lizard skins, despite the fact that the twenty thousand lizards concerned had needed them to keep their insides in." - The Book decribing Milliways' politically incorrect decor.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." - Some wisdom from The Book.
BOOK Meanwhile, the starship has landed on the surface of Magrathea and Trillian is about to make one of the most important statements of her life. Its importance is not immediately recognised by her companions. TRILL. Hey, my white mice have escaped. ZAPHOD Nuts to your white mice.
BOOK ...Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.
BOOK There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexeplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. - Introduction to Fit the Seventh.
BOOK What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer. - Comforting advice for Ford and Arthur in this current situation, Fit the Eighth.
"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." - This line perhaps best sums up the whole book.
(aikamuotojen käyttö aikamatkustuksessa) "You can arrive (mayan arivan on-when) for any sitting you like without prior (late fore-when) reservation because you can book retrospectively, as it were when you return to your own time. (you can have on-book haventa forewhen presooning returningwenta retrohome.) "
From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
Referring to a book: I read part of it all the way through. -Samuel Goldwyn
"Windows for Dummies" is much more than a book title, it's a Microsoft way of life!
Windows 95 has been operating for 2 hours, 32 minutes. No errors reported. CALL GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS NOW!
When Computers Crash HOLLYWOOD -- The FOX TV Network has announced a new series of "reality shows" to be aired over the summer. The series, "When Computers Crash", will consist of five hour-long shows documenting the aftermath of serious computer crashes, failures, and other problems. This show comes on the heels of other FOX reality shows such as "World's Funniest Antitrust Trial Bloopers", "When Stupid TV Network Executives Create Bad Show Ideas", and "When Lame Fortune Files Poke Fun At FOX Reality Shows"... To coincide with the series, FOX will sponsor a publicity gimmick called "Crash & Win!" Contest participants will download a free Windows 9x/NT program that keeps track of the number of Blue Screens, Illegal Operations, or other fatal errors that force a reboot. When a crash occurs, the program will log it in an encrypted database, which will be periodically uploaded to the "FOX Crash & Win!" server. Prizes such as a "Deciphering Windows Error Messages for Dummies" book, a 1999 Ford "Gasguzzler" Sport Utility Vehicle, or a lifetime supply of stress relief medication will be awarded to participants based on the number of crashes they log.
Jargon Coiner (#7) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * O'REILLY O'WRITING: Going to a bookstore and copying down notes from an O'Reilly computer book that you can't afford. * DEEP WRITE MODE: Similar to "deep hack mode", but applies to people writing editorials or (very rarely) Slashdot comments. The author of this fortune file sometimes experiences "deep humor mode". * EDITORIAL WAR: Skirmishes between two or more parties carried out via strongly-worded editorials published to sites like Slashdot, Linux Today, etc. ESR and RMS are frequently engaged in this. * THREENYM: Referring to someone by the first letter of their three names. Used by some people (RMS and ESR), but not others (has anybody ever tried to refer to Linus Torvalds as "LBT"?).
Don't you see? This whole trial is a conspiracy concocted by Bill Gates. He knows that he stands to make even more billions if Microsoft is broken up into Baby Bills... just like Rockefeller did with Standard Oil, and stockholders did with Ma Bell. Bill Gates actually wants the DOJ to win. That's why he's been so arrogant in court; he wants Judge Jackson to throw the book at him! It will be a very lucrative book. The faked Windows video? His amnesia during the video deposition? It's all a ruse to fool Microsoft stockholders... and us. -- The ramblings of a resident Slashdot conspiracy nut in response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings Of Fact against Microsoft
What Did Santa Claus Bring You In 1999? (#1) LINUS TORVALDS: Santa didn't bring me anything, but Tim O'Reilly just gave me a large sum of money to publish my new book, "Linus Torvalds' Official Guide To Receiving Fame, Fortune, and Hot Babes By Producing Your Own Unix-Like Operating System In Only 10 Years". ORDINARY LINUX HACKER: I kept hinting to my friends and family that I wanted to build my own Beowulf Cluster. My grandmother got mixed up and gave me a copy of "Beowulf's Chocolate Cluster Cookbook". I like chocolate, but I would've preferred silicon. LINUX LONGHAIR: My friends sent me a two-year subscription to several Ziff-Davis publications, much to my dislike. I don't want to read Jesse Berst's rants against Linux, or John Dvorak's spiels about how great Windows 2000 is. Still, I suppose this isn't so bad. Ziff-Davis glossy paper makes an excellent lining for fireplaces.
What Did Santa Claus Bring You In 1999? (#2) WEBMASTER OF LINUXSUPERMEGAPORTAL.COM: One of my in-laws gifted me a CD-ROM containing the text of every "...For Dummies" book ever published. It's a shame IDG never published "Hiring A Hitman To Knock Off Your Inlaws... For Dummies", because that's something I'm itching to do. At any rate, I'm using the CD as a beer coaster. JESSE BERST: I got a coupon redeemable for the full copy of Windows 2000 when it comes out in February. Win2K is the most innovative, enterprise-ready, stable, feature-enriched, easy-to-use operating system on the market. I don't see how Linux can survive against Microsoft's far superior offering. I ask you: could you get fired for NOT choosing Windows 2000? You bet. LINUX CONVERT: I kept hinting for a SGI box, but instead my wife got me an old Packard Bell. Unfortunately, she bought it at CompUSSR, which doesn't take returns, so I'm stuck with it. I haven't been able to get Linux to boot on it, so this machine will probably become a $750 paperweight.
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#2) Don't throw out that old Red Hat Linux 3.0 CD. A group of entrepreneurs are hording vintage Linux items in the hopes that they will become hot collector's items in the coming decades. The venture, called "Money Grows On Binary Trees", hopes to amass a warehouse full of old Linux distributions, books, stuffed penguins, promotional material, and Linus Torvalds autographs. "Nobody thought pieces of cardstock featuring baseball players would be worth anything..." the founder of Binary Trees said. "That 'Linux For Dummies' book sitting in your trash could be the next Babe Ruth card." The company organized a Linux Collectibles Convention last week in Silicon Valley, drawing in a respectable crowd of 1,500 people and 20 exhibitors. The big attraction was a "Windows For Dummies" book actually signed by Linus Torvalds. "He signed it back at a small Linux conference in '95," the owner explained. "He didn't realize it was a Dummies book because I had placed an O'Reilly cover on it... Somebody at the convention offered me $10,000 for it, but that seemed awfully low. I hope to sell it on eBay next month with a reserve price containing a significant number of zeros."
Will Silicon Valley Become A Ghost Town? Back in the 80s, businessmen hoped that computers would usher in a paperless office. Now in the 00s, businessmen are hoping that paper will usher in a computerless office. "We've lost more productivity this last decade to shoddy software," explained Mr. Lou Dight, the author of the bestselling book, "The Dotless Revolution". "By getting rid of computers and their infernal crashes, bluescreens, and worst of all, Solitaire, the US gross domestic product will soar by 20% over the next decade. It's time to banish Microsoft crapware from our corporate offices." Lou Dight is the champion of a new trend in corporate America towards the return of pen-and-paper, solar calculators, old IBM typewriters, and even slide rules. If "dotcom" was the buzzword of the 90s, "dotless" is the buzzword of the 21st Century.
Brief History Of Linux (#7) The Rise of Geeks The late 19th Century saw the rise and fall of "geeks", wild carnival performers who bit the heads off live chickens. This vocal minority, outcast from mainstream society, clamored for respect, but failed. Their de facto spokesman, Tom Splatz, tried to expose America to their plight in his 312-page book, "Geeks". In the book Splatz documented the life of two Idahoan geeks with no social life as they made a meager living traveling the Pacific Northwest in circuses. While Splatz's masterpiece was a commercial failure, the book did set a world record for using the term "geek" a total of 6,143 times.
Brief History Of Linux (#22) RMS had a horrible, terrible dream set in 2020 in which all of society was held captive by copyright law. In particular, everyone's brain waves were monitored by the US Dept. of Copyrights. If your thoughts referenced a copyrighted idea, you had to pay a royalty. To make it worse, a handful of corporations held fully 99.9% of all intellectual property rights. Coincidentally, Bill Gates experienced a similar dream that same night. To him, however, it was not a horrible, terrible nightmare, but a wonderful utopian vision. The thought of lemmings... er, customers paying a royalty everytime they hummed a copyrighted song in their head or remembered a passage in a book was simply too marvelous for the budding monopolist. RMS, waking up from his nightmare, vowed to fight the oncoming Copyright Nightmare. The GNU Project was born. His plan called for a kernel, compiler, editor, and other tools. Unfortunately, RMS became bogged down with Emacs that the kernel, HURD, was shoved on the back burner. Built with LISP (Lots of Incomprehensible Statements with Parentheses), Emacs became bloated in a way no non-Microsoft program ever has. Indeed, for a short while RMS pretended that Emacs really was the GNU OS kernel.
NEW YORK -- Publishers from all across the country met this week at the first annual Book Publishers Assocation of America (BPAA) meeting. Many of the booths on the showroom floor were devoted to the single most important issue facing the publishing industry: fighting copyright violations. From "End Reader License Agreements" to age-decaying ink, the anti-copying market has exploded into a multi-million dollar enterprise. "How can authors and publishers hope to make ends meet when the country is rapidly filling with evil libraries that distribute our products for free to the general public?" asked the chairman of the BPAA during his keynote address. "That blasted Andrew Carnegie is spending all kinds of his own ill-gotten money to open libraries in cities nationwide. He calls it charity. I call it anti-competitive business practices hoping to bankrupt the entire publishing industry. We must fight these anti-profit, pro-copying librarians and put an end to this scourge!" -- from the February 4, 1895 edition of the New York Democrat-Republican
As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly useful and interesting, I just had to share it. Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" 1. I salivate at the sight of mittens. 2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse. 3. Some people never look at me. 4. Spinach makes me feel alone. 5. My sex life is A-okay. 6. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. 7. I like to kill mosquitoes. 8. Cousins are not to be trusted. 9. It makes me embarrassed to fall down. 10. I get nauseous from too much roller skating. 11. I think most people would cry to gain a point. 12. I cannot read or write. 13. I am bored by thoughts of death. 14. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me. 15. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker. 16. I am never startled by a fish. 17. My mother's uncle was a good man. 18. I don't like it when somebody is rotten. 19. People who break the law are wise guys. 20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend.
As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly useful and interesting, I just had to share it. Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" 1. I think beavers work too hard. 2. I use shoe polish to excess. 3. God is love. 4. I like mannish children. 5. I have always been diturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears. 6. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools. 7. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye. 8. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs. 9. I believe I smell as good as most people. 10. Frantic screams make me nervous. 11. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room full of mice. 12. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis. 13. A wide necktie is a sign of disease. 14. As a child I was deprived of licorice. 15. I would never shake hands with a gardener. 16. My eyes are always cold. 17. Cousins are not to be trusted. 18. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. 19. I am never startled by a fish. 20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend.
For people who like that kind of book, that is the kind of book they will like.
He only knew his iron spine held up the sky -- he didn't realize his brain had fallen to the ground. -- The Book of Serenity
Largest Number of Driving Test Failures By April 1970 Mrs. Miriam Hargrave had failed her test thirty-nine times. In the eight preceding years she had received two hundred and twelve driving lessons at a cost of L300. She set the new record while driving triumphantly through a set of red traffic lights in Wakefield, Yorkshire. Disappointingly, she passed at the fortieth attempt (3 August 1970) but eight years later she showed some of her old magic when she was reported as saying that she still didn't like doing right-hand turns. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Least Successful Defrosting Device The all-time record here is held by Mr. Peter Rowlands of Lancaster whose lips became frozen to his lock in 1979 while blowing warm air on it. "I got down on my knees to breathe into the lock. Somehow my lips got stuck fast." While he was in the posture, an old lady passed an inquired if he was all right. "Alra? Igmmlptk", he replied at which point she ran away. "I tried to tell her what had happened, but it came out sort of... muffled," explained Mr. Rowlands, a pottery designer. He was trapped for twenty minutes ("I felt a bit foolish") until constant hot breathing brought freedom. He was subsequently nicknamed "Hot Lips". -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
"I would suggest you to read through the following book and files: * Kernighan & Pike, "The Practice of Programming" * Documentation/CodingStyle * drivers/net/aironet4500_proc.c and consider, erm, discrepancies. On the second thought, reading K&R might also be useful. IOW, no offense, but your C is bad beyond belief." - Al Viro
<WeirdArms> erikm: bugger alan cox on a chip, I want alan cox in a book ;) - Adam Wiggins on #kernelnewbies
Todays reading is from RFC990 in the book of Reynolds & Postel, page number 6 And the IETF spake thusly [...] - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters. -- Nora Ephron, "Heartburn"
"Bruce McKinney, author of of Hardcore Visual Basic, has announced that he's fed up with VB and won't be writing a 3rd edition of his book. The best quote is at the end: 'I don't need a language designed by a focus group'."
I stopped a long time ago to try to find anything in the bug list of dpkg. We should run for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. -- Stephane Bortzmeyer
Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)." -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973
[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity: (1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold a press conference where you announce that they have a street value of $850 million. These raids never fail, because ALL high schools, including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana cigarettes in the lockers. As far as anyone can tell, the locker factory puts them there. (2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a piece of human sleaze. This also never fails, because you always get a conviction. A juror at a pornography trial is not about to state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a fire extinguisher. He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong impression. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is liked getting kicked out of the Book-of-the-Month Club. -- Melvin Belli on the occcasion of his getting kicked out of the American Bar Association
The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal pay enforcement officer. The advertisement offered different salary scales for men and women. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Worst Jury A murder trial at Manitoba in February 1978 was well advanced, when one juror revealed that he was completely deaf and did not have the remotest clue what was happening. The judge, Mr. Justice Solomon, asked him if he had heard any evidence at all and, when there was no reply, dismissed him. The excitement which this caused was only equalled when a second juror revealed that he spoke not a word of English. A fluent French speaker, he exhibited great surprised when told, after two days, that he was hearing a murder trial. The trial was abandoned when a third juror said that he suffered from both conditions, being simultaneously unversed in the English language and nearly as deaf as the first juror. The judge ordered a retrial. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Everything in this book may be wrong. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book. -- B. Franklin
Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten"
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_. Instead, Great Britain and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_. They drive on the wrong side of the road, too. -- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book)
> Is there any hope for me? Am I just thick? Does anyone remember the > Rubiks Cube, it was easier! I found that the Rubiks cube and Linux are alike. Looks real confusing until you read the right book. :-) -- seen on c.o.l.misc, about the "Linux Learning Curve"
Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked. -- Larry Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye"
Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.
The annual meeting of the "You Have To Listen To Experience" Club is now in session. Our Achievement Awards this year are in the fields of publishing, advertising and industry. For best consistent contribution in the field of publishing our award goes to editor, R.L.K., [...] for his unrivalled alle- giance without variation to the statement: "Personally I'd love to do it, we'd ALL love to do it. But we're not going to do it. It's not the kind of book our house knows how to handle." Our superior performance award in the field of advertising goes to media executive, E.L.M., [...] for the continu- ally creative use of the old favorite: "I think what you've got here could be very exciting. Why not give it one more try based on the approach I've out- lined and see if you can come up with something fresh." Our final award for courageous holding action in the field of industry goes to supervisor, R.S., [...] for her unyielding grip on "I don't care if they fire me, I've been arguing for a new approach for YEARS but are we SURE that this is the right time--" I would like to conclude this meeting with a verse written specially for our prospectus by our founding president fifty years ago -- and now, as then, fully expressive of the emotion most close to all our hearts -- Treat freshness as a youthful quirk, And dare not stray to ideas new, For if t'were tried they might e'en work And for a living what woulds't we do?
The possession of a book becomes a substitute for reading it. -- Anthony Burgess
The Worst Car Hire Service When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles. To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and he now has 26 thriving branches all over America. "People like driving round in the worst cars available," he said. Of course they do. "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'. If they bring a car back late we overlook it. If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle we might overlook that too." "Where's the ashtray?" asked on Los Angeles wife, as she settled into the ripped interior. "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the ash tray." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
It's documented in The Book, somewhere... -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for something, after all... :-) -- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Suppose you're working on an optimizer to render \X unnecessary (or rather, redundant, which isn't the same thing in my book). -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
If Love Were Oil, I'd Be About A Quart Low -- Book title by Lewis Grizzard
Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I have to draw "Cubby" for an art scholarship. -- I have to sit up with a sick ant. -- I'm trying to be less popular. -- My bathroom tiles need grouting. -- I'm waiting to see if I'm already a winner. -- My subconscious says no. -- I just picked up a book called "Glue in Many Lands" and I can't seem to put it down. -- My favorite commercial is on TV. -- I have to study for my blood test. -- I've been traded to Cincinnati. -- I'm having my baby shoes bronzed. -- I have to go to court for kitty littering.
ONE: I will donate my entire "BABY HUEY" comic book collection to the downtown PLASMA CENTER ... TWO: I won't START a BAND called "KHADAFY & THE HIT SQUAD" ... THREE: I won't ever TUMBLE DRY my FOX TERRIER again!!
The Vet Who Surprised A Cow In the course of his duties in August 1977, a Dutch veterinary surgeon was required to treat an ailing cow. To investigate its internal gases he inserted a tube into that end of the animal not capable of facial expression and struck a match. The jet of flame set fire first to some bales of hay and then to the whole farm causing damage estimate at L45,000. The vet was later fined L140 for starting a fire in a manner surprising to the magistrates. The cow escaped with shock. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"