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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our
extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille.
                -- John Hunt, British editor, scholar and art critic
                   Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak"
A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The
Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered.
                -- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901.
        A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial
package.
        The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master
reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set
of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface,
but not the slightest mention of anything financial.
        When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant.
"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually."
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Dear Emily:
        I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to
summarize.  What should I do?
                -- Editor

Dear Editor:
        Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post
that.  On USENET, this is known as a summary.  It lets people read all the
replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way.  Do the same when
summarizing a vote.
                -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Dear Sir,
        I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or
to the office,  We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public
places.  They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers
being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un-
employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry.
        Yours faithfully,
        Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P.
        Sevenoaks
                -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London
I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with
the best people in business administration.  I can assure you on the highest
authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year.
                -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall
                   publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior
                   editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new
                   science of data processing), c. 1957
...One thing is that, unlike any other Western democracy that I know of,
this country has operated since its beginnings with a basic distrust of
government.  We are constituted not for efficient operation of government,
but for minimizing the possibility of abuse of power.  It took the events
of the Roosevelt era -- a catastrophic economic collapse and a world war --
to introduce the strong central government that we now know.  But in most
parts of the country today, the reluctance to have government is still
strong.  I think, barring a series of catastrophic events, that we can
look to at least another decade during which many of the big problems
around this country will have to be addressed by institutions other than
federal government.
- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence,
  vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy directory of
  Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC.
[the statist opinions expressed herein are not those of the cookie editor -ed.]
The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of
the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that
it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright.  The easiest
response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil
Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan
asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign.  A contagious good cheer is the
hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned.
But this time, it isn't funny.  It's plain scary.
-- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in
   "Newsday", May 5, 1988
Emacs, n.:
        A slow-moving parody of a text editor.
An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff.
                -- Adlai Stevenson
"Calling EMACS an editor is like calling the Earth a hunk of dirt."

  -- Chris DiBona on Dirt (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
'Kitchen Sink' OS Announced

Coding has begun on a new operating system code named 'Kitchen Sink'. The new
OS will be based entirely on GNU Emacs. One programmer explained, "Since many
hackers spend a vast amount of their time in Emacs, why not just make it the
operating system?" When asked about the name, he responded, "Well, it has been
often said that Emacs has everything except a kitchen sink. Now it will."

One vi advocate said, "What the hell?!?! Those Emacs people are nuts. It seems
that even with a programming language, a web browser, and God only knows what
else built into their text editor, they're still not satisfied. Now they want
it to be an operating system. Hell, even Windows ain't that bloated!"
Microsoft Acquires Nothing

REDMOND, WA -- In an unprecedented move, Microsoft refrained from acquiring any
rival companies for a full week. "I can't believe it," one industry analyst
noted. "This is the first time in years that I haven't read any headlines about
Microsoft acquiring something."

The lack of Microsoft assimilation this week left a vacuum in computer industry
publications. "Microsoft acquisition stories make up 10% of our headlines," an
editor at Ziff-Slavis said. "We had to scramble to fill this void. We ran some
controversial Jessie Burst columns instead, hoping that we could recoup ad
revenue from people reading all the flames in the Talk Back forums. Jessie
Burst forums account for 15% of our total ad revenue."
Stallman's Latest Proclamation

Richard M. Stallman doesn't want you to say "Windows" anymore. He is now
advocating that people call this OS by its real name:
Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows. This proclamation comes on the heels of his
controversial stand that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. RMS explained in a
Usenet posting, "Calling Microsoft's OS 'Windows' is a grave inaccuracy. Xerox
and Apple both contributed significant ideas and innovations to this OS. Why
should Microsoft get all the credit?"

RMS also hinted that people shouldn't refer to Microsoft's web browser as IE.
"It should really be called Microsoft-Spyglass-Mosaic-Internet-Explorer. Again,
how much credit does Microsoft really deserve for this product? Much of the
base code was licensed from Spyglass."

Many industry pundits are less than thrilled about RMS' proclamation. The
editor of Windows Magazine exclaimed, "What?!?! Yeah, we'll rename our magazine
Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows Magazine. That just rolls off the tongue!" A
Ziff-Davis columnist noted, "Think of all the wasted space this would cause. If
we spelled out everything like this, we'd have headlines like, 'Microsoft
Releases Service Pack 5 for Microsoft-Xerox-Apple-Windows Neutered Technology
4.0' Clearly this is unacceptable."
Freaks In Linux Houses Shouldn't Throw FUD

By Mr. Stu Poor, technology pundit for the Arkansas "Roadkill
Roundup" newspaper. [Editor's Note: He's the local equivalent of Jesse
Berst].

As you all know, February 17th was the happy day that Microsoft officially
released Windows 2000. I went down to the local Paperclips computer store
and asked if they had any copies in stock.

One of the pimply-faced Linux longhairs explained that Paperclips didn't
carry Win2K because it is not intended for consumers. What FUD! I can't
believe the gall of those Linux Communists to spread such FUD (Fear,
Uncertainty, and Doubt) about Windows 2000, which is _the_ best, most
stable operating system ever produced in the history of mankind!
Brief History Of Linux (#5)
English Flame War

The idea behind Slashdot-style discussions is not new; it dates back to
London in 1699. A newspaper that regularly printed Letters To The Editor
sparked a heated debate over the question, "When would the 18th Century
actually begin, 1700 or 1701?" The controversy quickly became a matter of
pride; learned aristocrats argued for the correct date, 1701, while others
maintained that it was really 1700. Another sizable third of participants
asked, "Who cares?"

Ordinarily such a trivial matter would have died down, except that one
1700er, fed up with the snobbest 1701 rhetoric of the educated class,
tracked down one letter-writer and hurled a flaming log into his manor
house in spite. The resulting fire was quickly doused, but the practice
known as the "flame war" had been born. More flames were exchanged between
other 1700ers and 1701ers for several days, until the Monarch sent out
royal troops to end the flamage.
Brief History Of Linux (#21)
The GNU Project

Meet Richard M. Stallman, an MIT hacker who would found the GNU Project
and create Emacs, the operating-system-disguised-as-a-text-editor. RMS,
the first member of the Three Initials Club (joined by ESR and JWZ),
experienced such frustration with software wrapped in arcane license
agreements that he embarked on the GNU Project to produce free software.

His journey began when he noticed this fine print for a printer driver:

   You do not own this software. You own a license to use one copy of this
   software, a license that we can revoke at any time for any reason
   whatsoever without a refund. You may not copy, distribute, alter,
   disassemble, or hack the software. The source code is locked away in a
   vault in Cleveland. If you say anything negative about this software
   you will be in violation of this license and required to forfeit your
   soul and/or first born child to us.

The harsh wording of the license shocked RMS. The computer industry was in
it's infancy, which could only mean it was going to get much, much worse.
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.
<mdorman> I'm a gnus person myself.  It's an editor!  It's a floorwax!
          It's a dessert topping!
Never underestimate the power of somebody with source code, a text editor,
and the willingness to totally hose their system.
        -- Rob Landley <telomerase@yahoo.com>
Sex dumps core
(Sex is a Simple editor for X11)
        -- Seen on debian bugtracking
vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a
muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know
I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be
said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^
exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D
        -- Jesper Lauridsen <rorschak@daimi.aau.dk> from alt.religion.emacs
These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After
unzipping, these files can be viewed in any text editor, including
all versions of Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer
        -- From Micro$oft
Ha. I say let them try -- even vi+perl couldn't match the power of an
editor which is, after all, its own OS.  ;-)
        -- Johnie Ingram on debian-devel, about linking vim with libperl.so
Men's skin is different from women's skin.  It is usually bigger, and
it has more snakes tattooed on it.  Also, if you examine a woman's skin
very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events
such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the
woman's skin.  Thank you.]

... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"!  And what is even more
interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying!  This is a fact.  Your
skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the older veteran
cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and obtained offices
with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the window head first,
without so much as a pension plan, by younger hotshot cells moving up from
below.
                -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
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?
Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl?
             -- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org>
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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