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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

        A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big top
when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to him.  "Are
you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly.  "I'd like to join your
circus; I have what I think is a pretty good act."
        The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man hurried over to
the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very tip-top of the big top.
Drawing a deep breath, he hurled himself off into the air and began flapping
his arms furiously.  Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little
man began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other obstacles,
performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended in a long power dive
from the top of the tent, pulling up into a gentle feet-first landing beside
the foreman, who had been nonchalantly watching the whole time.
        "Well," puffed the little man.  "What do you think?"
        "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully.  "Bird
imitations?"
A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of
marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.
        A hard-luck actor who appeared in one coloossal disaster after another
finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact.  Someone pointed out that it's
the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week.
        A musical reviewer admitted he always praised the first show of a
new theatrical season.  "Who am I to stone the first cast?"
Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot
that shot down the Korean jet?  At one point he definitely states:

        "Natasha!  First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel."

                -- ihuxw!tommyo
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
                -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who"
Like ya know?  Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the
creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their
essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving
the earth, like because the first thing in saving this world, is getting
rid of stupid and square attitudes and having fun.
                -- Senior Year Quote
My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my
amplifier out the dormitory window.  We did not act in haste. First we
checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the
belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed
up to my bedroom door.  Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO!  The
WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it
all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a
small but appreciative crowd had gathered.  I would like to be able to say
that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away
from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper
and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like.  It sounded
OK.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it."
                -- Dave Barry
The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
                -- Dorothy Parker
The Great Movie Posters:

HOODLUMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD ON A RAY-GUN RAMPAGE!
                -- Teenagers from Outher Space (1959)

Which will be Her Mate... MAN OR BEAST?
Meet Velda -- the Kind of Woman -- Man or Gorilla would kill... to Keep.
                -- Untamed Mistress (1960)

NOW AN ALL-MIGHTY ALL-NEW MOTION PICTURE BRINGS THEM TOGETHER FOR THE
FIRST TIME...  HISTORY'S MOST GIGANTIC MONSTERS IN COMBAT ATOP MOUNT FUJI!
                -- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963)
The Great Movie Posters:

POWERFUL! SHOCKING! RAW! ROUGH! CHALLENGING! SEE A LITTLE GIRL MOLESTED!
                -- Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1963)

She Sins in Mobile --
Marries in Houston --
Loses Her Baby in Dallas --
Leaves Her Husband in Tuscon --
MEETS HARRU IN SAN DIEGO!...
FIRST -- HARLOW!
THEN -- MONROE!
NOW -- McCLANAHAN!!!
                -- The Rotten Apple (1963), Rue McClanahan

*NOT FOR SISSIES! DON'T COME IF YOU'RE CHICKEN!
A Horrifying Movie of Wierd Beauties and Shocking Monsters...
1001 WIERDEST SCENES EVER!!  MOST SHOCKING THRILLER OF THE CENTURY!
                -- Teenage Psycho meets Bloody Mary (1964)  (Alternate Title:
                   The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and
                   Became Mixed Up Zombies)
There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need
the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the
world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the
long winter evenings.
                -- Quentin Crisp
Who's on first?
For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a cat.
"I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than
first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then
I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')"
(By Olaf Kirch)
The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a
dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first.
(Arno Schaefer's .sig)
first Saturday after first full moon in Winter
What office are you in? Oh, that one.  Did you know that your building was built over the universities first nuclear research site? And wow, are'nt you the lucky one, your office is right over where the core is buried!
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living.  The world owes you
nothing.  It was here first.
                -- Mark Twain
In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made
school boards.
                -- Mark Twain
Lay on, MacDuff, and curs'd be him who first cries, "Hold, enough!".
                -- Shakespeare
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
                -- Shakespeare
Stop!  There was first a game of blindman's buff.  Of course there was.
And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes
in his boots.  My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and
Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.  The
way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage
on the credulity of human nature.
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first
half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and
pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who
hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice
for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time
during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it
but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
                -- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted
sullenly and, buffing her already impeccable nails -- not for the first
time since the journey begain -- pondered snidely if this would dissolve
into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent
with Basil.
                -- Winning sentence, 1983 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
The countdown had stalled at 'T' minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first
female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick,
rubbery lips unmistakably -- the first of many such advances during what
would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my
career.
                -- Winning sentence, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
                -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Henry VI", Part IV
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
                -- Blaise Pascal
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"
The ripest fruit falls first.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II"
This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a
little ironic since we may not have one.
                -- Arthur Clarke
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt
of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race.  He
brought death into the world.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
        You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
                -- Sherlock Holmes
Zounds!  I was never so bethumped with words
since I first called my brother's father dad.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Kind John"
"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying.  The
absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me
Deadpan Allie and lie.
                -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers"
A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling
the president one of the latest talking computers.
Salesman:        "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question
                and it'll give the correct answer.  Computer, what is the
                speed of light?"
Computer:        186,282 miles per second.
Salesman:        "Who was the first president of the United States?"
Computer:        George Washington.
President:        "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question.
                Where is my father?"
Computer:        Your father is fishing in Georgia.
President:        "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty
                years ago!"
Computer:        Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just
                landed a twelve pound bass.
A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of
being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of
incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague
assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents
and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of
dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of
annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was
unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place.
                -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine
At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on
the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is
quite untrue in practice.  Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather
than blinkers it.
                -- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"
At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
                -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985
Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science.
                -- Randy Goebel
        *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? ***
Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical
terms that nobody understands?  Do you want to strike fear and loathing into
the hearts of DP managers everywhere?  If so, then let the Famous Programmers'
School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming.

        *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? ***
Programming is not for everyone.  But, if you have the desire to learn, we can
help you get started.  All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and
enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month.

        *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST ***
To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to
try this simple test:
        (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters
                of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF).
        (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill?
        (3) What is the state capital of Idaho?
If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked
them, you may have a future as a computer programmer.
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.]
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
How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton?
                -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey
I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and
implement a PL/1 compiler.
                -- T. Cheatham
I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20
years ago.  When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors
would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they
all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!"

Years later, I went back to the same hotel.  I noticed the room keys had
been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors.

There was a computer in every doorknob.
        -- Danny Hillis
IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first
against the wall when the revolution comes...
                -- with regrets to D. Adams
If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer.  It has
a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
What's the first question that the computer community asks?

"Is it PC compatible?"
        It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself
working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates.  One slow day, he
found that he had time to chat with the new entrants.  To the first one
he asked, "What's your IQ?"  The new arrival replied, "190".  They
discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours.  When the second
new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's
IQ.  The answer this time came "120".  To which Einstein replied, "Tell
me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half
an hour or so.  To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the
question, "What's your IQ?".  Upon receiving the answer "70",
Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
        It is a period of system war.  User programs, striking from a hidden
directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire.
During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the
Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with
enough power to destroy an entire file structure.  Pursued by the Empire's
sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script,
custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore
freedom and games to the network...
                -- DECWARS
        It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built,
everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment
was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has
cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing.
        There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never
really needed in the first place.
        I expect every installation has its own pet software which is
analogous to the above.
                -- K.E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa
`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]
Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz.
can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look
identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The
ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the
ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the
side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan.
Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance.
        Now she speaks rapidly.  "Do you know *why* you want to program?"
        He shakes his head.  He hasn't the faintest idea.
        "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly.  
"The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman.  "You take a program,
born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution.  You nurture the
program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever
stronger.  Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here,
a keystroke changed there."  She sweeps her arm in a wide arc.  "And other
times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very
*essence*, then beginning anew.  But always building, creating, filling the
program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances.  Watching
the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can
stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect.  This is the programmer's finest
hour!"  Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march.
"This ... this is your canvas! your clay!  Go forth and create a masterwork!"
Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two
complementary directions:  to reduce the number of software errors through
rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining
errors by providing for recovery from them.  An interesting footnote to this
design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the
result of two program errors:  the first, in the program that started the
problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the
system.
                -- A.L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage
                   Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and
                   Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4.
        Price Wang's programmer was coding software.  His fingers danced upon
the keyboard.  The program compiled without an error message, and the program
ran like a gentle wind.
        Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!"
        "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I
follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique.  When I first began to program I
would see before me the whole program in one mass.  After three years I no
longer saw this mass.  Instead, I used subroutines.  But now I see nothing.
My whole being exists in a formless void.  My senses are idle.  My spirit,
free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct.  In short, my program
writes itself.  True, sometimes there are difficult problems.  I see them
coming, I slow down, I watch silently.  Then I change a single line of code
and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke.  I then compile the
program.  I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being.  I close my
eyes for a moment and then log off."
        Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!"
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:

DC        Divide and Conquer
DMPK        Destroy Memory Protect Key
DO        Divide and Overflow
EMPC        Emulate Pocket Calculator
EPI        Execute Programmer Immediately
EROS        Erase Read Only Storage
EXCE        Execute Customer Engineer
HCF        Halt and Catch Fire
IBP        Insert Bug and Proceed
INSQSW        Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out])
PBC        Print and Break Chain
PDSK        Punch Disk
Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were
driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out.  They screamed down the
mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by
luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged
rocks.  They all got out of the car:
        The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it."
        The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it
into town and have a specialist look at it."
        The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back
in and see if it does it again."
        Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime.
        The first student to try to do this was a math student.  "Hmmm...
Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all
the odd integers are prime."
        The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not
sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by
experiment."  He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is
prime, 9 is...  uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13
is prime...  Well, it seems that you're right."
        The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded,
"Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either.  Let's
see...  1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is...
well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime...  Well, it
does seem right."
        Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says
"Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long!
I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it."  He goes over to
his terminal and runs his program.  Reading the output on the screen he says,
"1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..."
        Stop!  Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first
these questions three, ere the other side he see!

        "What is your name?"
        "Sir Brian of Bell."
        "What is your quest?"
        "I seek the Holy Grail."
        "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments
to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?"
        "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!"
The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard
loom weaves flowers and leaves.
                -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer
The first time, it's a KLUDGE!
The second, a trick.
Later, it's a well-established technique!
                -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics
The first version always gets thrown away.
The Tao is like a glob pattern:
used but never used up.
It is like the extern void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

It is masked but always present.
I don't know who built to it.
It came before the first kernel.
This is the first numerical problem I ever did.  It demonstrates the
power of computers:

Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods.  Instruct
the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a
minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content.  The
results are that one should eat each day:

        1/2 chicken
        1 egg
        1 glass of skim milk
        27 heads of lettuce.
                -- Rev. Adrian Melott
Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage.
Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was
performing her normal housekeeping routines.  She was interrupted by
British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General
Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in
her home.  Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided
a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center.  Upon
entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention,
and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their
search was fruitless.  They had to return empty handed.  Word of the
incident propagated rapidly through the region.  This historic event
became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers.
Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys.  I have many
friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to
throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him,
slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound.
                -- Jon Bentley
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
Wings of OS/400:
The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes
that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if
they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need,
though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour,
unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and
membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your
accounting department can call it overhead.
X windows:
        Something you can be ashamed of.
        30% more entropy than the leading window system.
        The first fully modular software disaster.
        Rome was destroyed in a day.
        Warn your friends about it.
        Climbing to new depths.  Sinking to new heights.
        An accident that couldn't wait to happen.
        Don't wait for the movie.
        Never use it after a big meal.
        Need we say less?
        Plumbing the depths of human incompetence.
        It'll make your day.
        Don't get frustrated without it.
        Power tools for power losers.
        A software disaster of Biblical proportions.
        Never had it.  Never will.
        The software with no visible means of support.
        More than just a generation behind.

Hindenburg.  Titanic.  Edsel.
        X windows.
A clever prophet makes sure of the event first.
If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
                -- W.E. Hickson
If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average.
                -- Leonard Levinson
Mistrust first impulses; they are always right.
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
Whom the mad would destroy, first they make Gods.
                -- Bernard Levin
You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first.
Things are not as simple as they seems at first.
- Edward Thorp
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
-- Blaise Pascal
Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two
complementary directions:  to reduce the number of software errors through
rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the
remaining errors by providing for recovery from them.  An interesting footnote
to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be
the result of two program errors:  the first, in the program that started the
problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the
system.  -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating
Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal,
Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400
I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder.  It's a
very powerful emotion.  All children feel it.  In a first grade classroom
everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or
at least acknowledges it.  Something happens between first and twelfth grade,
and it's not just puberty.  Not only do the schools and the media not teach
much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense
of wonder.  Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling.  Poor
popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.
- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible
and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience.  But there is a kind
of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the
good.  And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community
ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the
media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful.  Every newspaper
in America has a daily astrology column.  How many have even a weekly
astronomy column?  And I believe it is also the fault of the educational
system.  We do not teach how to think.  This is a very serious failure that
may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human
future.
- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it
leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere
effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts.  If it could,
science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is
every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow.
To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled,
not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give
ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity....
- H. L. Mencken, 1930
"Our journey toward the stars has progressed swiftly.

In 1926 Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket,
achieving an altitude of 41 feet.  In 1962 John Glenn orbited the earth.

In 1969, only 66 years after Orville Wright flew two feet off the ground
for 12 seconds, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and I rocketed to the moon
in Apollo 11."
-- Michael Collins
   Former astronaut and past Director of the National Air and Space Museum
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity.  We are all formed
of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly --
that is the first law of nature.
- Voltaire
I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that
decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to
medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us --
a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole
normal evolution of society.
- Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University, 1896
"How to make a million dollars:  First, get a million dollars."
-- Steve Martin
The history of the rise of Christianity has everything to do with politics,
culture, and human frailties and nothing to do with supernatural manipulation
of events.  Had divine intervention been the guiding force, surely two
millennia after the birth of Jesus he would not have a world where there
are more Muslims than Catholics, more Hindus than Protestants, and more
nontheists than Catholics and Protestants combined.
-- John K. Naland, "The First Easter", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2
I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy
that they didn't rehearse at all.  And so the first time when I found that out,
I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and
the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece
_Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed.  The Dutch people were ashamed
and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to
rehearse.  And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and
again, they hadn't rehearsed.  So they were no more prepared the second time
than they had been the first.  I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel
the performance; they then said over the radio that i had insisted on their
cancelling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen."  
Can you believe it?
-- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89
If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average.
"The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
appreciates how difficult it was."
-- Walt West
The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to
the left.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC.
"Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!"
   "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!"
-- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger
What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee.
"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people
there are hungry for information about the West.  He was asked about many
things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in
the Soviet Union.  The first question he was asked was if we had exploding
television sets.  You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color
television sets, and many are exploding.  They assumed we must be having
problems with them too.  The other question he was asked often was why the
CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a
few years ago; their propaganda is very effective.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100
Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces.  "When
I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the
product.  Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu.
It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family
problem that he doesn't know how to resolve.  The example I like to use is a
guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son
is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.'
What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know
how to raise bail."
-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's
   Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the
last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security
or insecurity of locks.  Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus-
sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a
premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest.  This is a fal-
lacy.  Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more
than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery.  Rogues knew
a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them-
selves, as they have lately done.  If a lock -- let it have been made in what-
ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto
been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know
this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to
apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to
give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance.  It cannot be too ear-
nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better
for all parties."
-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks,
   published around 1850
First as to speech.  That privilege rests upon the premise that
there is no proposition so uniformly acknowledged that it may not be
lawfully challenged, questioned, and debated.  It need not rest upon
the further premise that there are no propositions that are not
open to doubt; it is enough, even if there are, that in the end it is
worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.  Hence it
has been again and again unconditionally proclaimed that there are
no limits to the privilege so far as words seek to affect only the hearers'
beliefs and not their conduct.  The trouble is that conduct is almost
always based upon some belief, and that to change the hearer's belief
will generally to some extent change his conduct, and may even evoke
conduct that the law forbids.

[cf. Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1952;
The Art and Craft of Judging: The Decisions of Judge Learned Hand,
edited and annotated by Hershel Shanks, The MacMillian Company, 1968.]
"You can't get very far in this world without your dossier being there first."
-- Arthur Miller
"Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret
police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are
thousands of underground publications, a legal independent
Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only
independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is
an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor.  There is
literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its
present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of
its "glasnost."  This difference has been maintained at great
cost by the Poles since 1944.
-- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
   gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
   to Poland
"It's no sweat, Henry.  Russ made it back to Bugtown before he died.  So he'll
regenerate in a couple of days.  It's just awful sloppy of him to get killed in
the first place.  Humph!"
-- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics
David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my
  judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page.
George Will:  I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages.
  The comics are making no truth claim.
Brinkley:  Where would you put it?
Will:  I wouldn't put it in the newspaper.  I think it's transparent rubbish.
  It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the
  sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe.  We are
  not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care.  The star's alignment
  at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish.  It is not funny to
  have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons.
Sam Donaldson:  This isn't something new.  Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn
  in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars
  said it was a propitious time.
Will:  They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities.  They could apply to
  anyone and anything.
Brinkley:  When is the exact moment [of birth]?  I don't think the nurse is
  standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad.
Donaldson:  If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie
  thing.  People want to know.
-- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988,
   excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan
[Astrology is] 100 percent hokum, Ted.  As a matter of fact, the first edition
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, written in 1771 -- 1771! -- said that this
belief system is a subject long ago ridiculed and reviled.  We're dealing with
beliefs that go back to the ancient Babylonians.  There's nothing there....
It sounds a lot like science, it sounds like astronomy.  It's got technical
terms.  It's got jargon.  It confuses the public....The astrologer is quite
glib, confuses the public, uses terms which come from science, come from
metaphysics, come from a host of fields, but they really mean nothing.  The
fact is that astrological beliefs go back at least 2,500 years.  Now that
should be a sufficiently long time for astrologers to prove their case.  They
have not proved their case....It's just simply gibberish.  The fact is, there's
no theory for it, there are no observational data for it.  It's been tested
and tested over the centuries.  Nobody's ever found any validity to it at
all.  It is not even close to a science.  A science has to be repeatable, it
has to have a logical foundation, and it has to be potentially vulnerable --
you test it.  And in that astrology is reqlly quite something else.
-- Astronomer Richard Berendzen, President, American University, on ABC
    News "Nightline," May 3, 1988
                        HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 7
proof by forward reference:
        Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author,
        which is often not as forthcoming as at first.

proof by semantic shift:
        Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed
        for the statement of the result.

proof by appeal to intuition:
        Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here.
"Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes
scientific.  Moral:  science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is
forbidden.  Science is the *first* sin, the *original* sin.  *This alone is
morality.* ``Thou shalt not know'' -- the rest follows."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through
three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and
Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.
"For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can
we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by
the question 'Where shall we have lunch?'"
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
        "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not
matter.  'I' do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality
and remembers words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his
fellows esteem him.  He looks upon the great transformations of the
world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon
reality for the first time.  Their names come to his lips and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming."
-- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
                -- Senator Soaper
Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United
States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a day.

        [and getting better!  Soon it'll be down to a penny a day!]
First rule of public speaking.
        First, tell 'em what you're goin' to tell 'em;
        then tell 'em;
        then tell 'em what you've tole 'em.
For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years.
This gives me great hope for the human race.
                -- Harlan Ellison
George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
                -- Ashley Cooper
Grub first, then ethics.
                -- Bertolt Brecht
He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself.
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as
the greatest of dangers to be feared.  To preserve our independence, we must
not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.  If we run into such debts, we
must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts,
in our labor and in our amusements.  If we can prevent the government from
wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they
will be happy.
                -- Thomas Jefferson
I trust the first lion he meets will do his duty.
                -- J.P. Morgan on Teddy Roosevelt's safari
If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they
will take sandwiches.
                -- Lord Boyd-orr

Eats first, morals after.
                -- Bertolt Brecht, "The Threepenny Opera"
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
resort of the scoundrel.  With all due respect to an enlightened but
inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because
I wasn't a Communist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Jew.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.  Then they came for the
Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.  Then they came
for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up.
                -- Pastor Martin Niemoller
In war, truth is the first casualty.
                -- U Thant
It's getting uncommonly easy to kill people in large numbers, and the first
thing a principle does -- if it really is a principle -- is to kill somebody.
                -- Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night"
Join in the new game that's sweeping the country.  It's called "Bureaucracy".
Everybody stands in a circle.  The first person to do anything loses.
Only two kinds of witnesses exist.  The first live in a neighborhood where
a crime has been committed and in no circumstances have ever seen anything
or even heard a shot.  The second category are the neighbors of anyone who
happens to be accused of the crime.  These have always looked out of their
windows when the shot was fired, and have noticed the accused person standing
peacefully on his balcony a few yards away.
                -- Sicilian police officer
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
                -- S. Johnson, "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by J. Boswell

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
resort of the scoundrel.  With all due respect to an enlightened but
inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
                -- Ambrose Bierce

When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel,
he ignored the enormous possibilities of the word reform.
                -- Sen. Roscoe Conkling

Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
                -- Boies Penrose
People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world
citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.
                -- Norman Cousins
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
                -- Abbie Hoffman
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"
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the
system from within.  I'm coming now I'm coming to reward them.  First
we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens.  I'm guided by this birthmark on
my skin.  I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons.  First we take Manhattan,
then we take Berlin.

I'd really like to live beside you, baby.  I love your body and your spirit
and your clothes.  But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you I told you I told you I was one of those.
        -- Leonard Cohen, "First We Take Manhattan"
What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to
win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent?
In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded
that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the
simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life.  First, a
base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done.  Second,
a period of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human
activities must exist.  Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses
the national attention upon the direction to proceed.  Finally, an articulate
and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with
words and action the great thing to be accomplished.  The motivation of young
Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of
conditions. ...  The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John
Kennedys appear.  We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they,
and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward.
                -- Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt
When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes,
it means that they want you to change first.
You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The
short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", which
means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears tax-preparation
expert to distinguish between their first and last names.  Here's the
complete text:

"(1) How much did you make?  (AMOUNT)
(2) How much did we here at the government take out?  (AMOUNT)
(3) Hey!  Sounds like we took too much!  So we're going to
     send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF
     THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME)
     household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way
     you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST
     NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"

The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your
money.  So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long form.
                -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that
the end justifies the means.
                -- Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), French novelist,
                   political writer. "Why Freedom?" The last essays of
                   George Bernanos (1955)
Advertising Rule:
        In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the
        reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly,
        that it is curable.
Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
        Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible
        corner of the workshop.

Corollary:
        On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike
        your toes.
Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
        (1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
        (2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
        (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
            first two laws.
Bagdikian's Observation:
        Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper
        is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele.
Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry:
        A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by
        governors.
Bilbo's First Law:
        You cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels.
birth, n:
        The first and direst of all disasters.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
        When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
        easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger
        have handled this?"
cerebral atrophy, n:
        The phenomena which occurs as brain cells become weak and sick, and
impair the brain's performance.  An abundance of these "bad" cells can cause
symptoms related to senility, apathy, depression, and overall poor academic
performance.  A certain small number of brain cells will deteriorate due to
everday activity, but large amounts are weakened by intense mental effort
and the assimilation of difficult concepts.  Many college students become
victims of this dread disorder due to poor habits such as overstudying.

cerebral darwinism, n:
        The theory that the effects of cerebral atrophy can be reversed
through the purging action of heavy alcohol consumption.  Large amounts of
alcohol cause many brain cells to perish due to oxygen deprivation.  Through
the process of natural selection, the weak and sick brain cells will die
first, leaving only the healthy cells.  This wonderful process leaves the
imbiber with a healthier, more vibrant brain, and increases mental capacity.
Thus, the devastating effects of cerebral atrophy are reversed, and academic
performance actually increases beyond previous levels.
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
        When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
Committee Rules:
        (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
        (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this
            stamps you as being wise.
        (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the
            others.
        (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
        (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you
            popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
Consent decree:
        A document in which a hapless company consents never to commit
        in the future whatever heinous violations of Federal law it
        never admitted to in the first place.
Crenna's Law of Political Accountability:
        If you are the first to know about something bad, you are going to be
        held responsible for acting on it, regardless of your formal duties.
Deja vu:
        French., already seen; unoriginal; trite.
        Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced
        something actually being encountered for the first time.
        Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced
        something actually being encountered for the first time.
Dibble's First Law of Sociology:
        Some do, some don't.
Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
        The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
        of your eyes.
Finagle's First Law:
        If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Finagle's First Law:
        To study a subject best, understand it thoroughly before you start.

Finagle's Second Law:
        Always keep a record of data -- it indicates you've been working.

Finagle's Fourth Law:
        Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes
        it worse.

Finagle's Fifth Law:
        Always draw your curves, then plot your readings.

Finagle's Sixth Law:
        Don't believe in miracles -- rely on them.
Finagle's Third Law:
        In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
        beyond all need of checking, is the mistake

Corollaries:
        (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
        (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
            don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
First Law of Bicycling:
        No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.
First law of debate:
        Never argue with a fool.  People might not know the difference.
First Law of Procrastination:
        Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
        for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who
        imposed the deadline).

Fifth Law of Procrastination:
        Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
        there is nothing important to do.
First Law of Socio-Genetics:
        Celibacy is not hereditary.
First Rule of History:
        History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other.
Five rules for eternal misery:
        (1) Always try to exhort others to look upon you favorably.
        (2) Make lots of assumptions about situations and be sure to
            treat these assumptions as though they are reality.
        (3) Then treat each new situation as though it's a crisis.
        (4) Live in the past and future only (become obsessed with
            how much better things might have been or how much worse
            things might become).
        (5) Occasionally stomp on yourself for being so stupid as to
            follow the first four rules.
Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
        Push something hard enough and it will fall over.
Fun Facts, #14:
        In table tennis, whoever gets 21 points first wins.  That's how
        it once was in baseball -- whoever got 21 runs first won.
Gordon's first law:
        If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.
hacker, n.:
        Originally, any person with a knack for coercing stubborn inanimate
        things; hence, a person with a happy knack, later contracted by the
        mythical philosopher Frisbee Frobenius to the common usage, 'hack'.
        In olden times, upon completion of some particularly atrocious body
        of coding that happened to work well, culpable programmers would gather
        in a small circle around a first edition of Knuth's Best Volume I by
        candlelight, and proceed to get very drunk while sporadically rending
        the following ditty:

                Hacker's Fight Song

                He's a Hack!  He's a Hack!
                He's a guy with the happy knack!
                Never bungles, never shirks,
                Always gets his stuff to work!

All take a drink (important!)
half-done, n.:
        This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy,
        light green, yet full of garlic flavor.  The difference between this
        and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the
        difference between life and death.

        You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there
        in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport,
        fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall,
        transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on
        Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk
        about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop.  Say to the
        man, "Let me have a nice half-done."  Worth the trouble, wasn't it?
                -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
Hartley's First Law:
        You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
        on his back, you've got something.
Heller's Law:
        The first myth of management is that it exists.

Johnson's Corollary:
        Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the
        organization.
Hempstone's Question:
        If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?
Johnson's First Law:
        When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
        most inconvenient possible time.
Jones' First Law:
        Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of
        endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an
        obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the
        importance of their original contribution.
Kaufman's First Law of Party Physics:
        Population density is inversely proportional
        to the square of the distance from the keg.
Kent's Heuristic:
        Look for it first where you'd most like to find it.
Kinkler's First Law:
        Responsibility always exceeds authority.

Kinkler's Second Law:
        All the easy problems have been solved.
Kliban's First Law of Dining:
        Never eat anything bigger than your head.
Lackland's Laws:
        (1) Never be first.
        (2) Never be last.
        (3) Never volunteer for anything
Lewis's Law of Travel:
        The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone,
        ever.
Madison's Inquiry:
        If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?
Mason's First Law of Synergism:
        The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
McEwan's Rule of Relative Importance:
        When traveling with a herd of elephants, don't be the first to
        lie down and rest.
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.
Pardo's First Postulate:
        Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.

Arnold's Addendum:
        Everything else causes cancer in rats.
prototype, n.:
        First stage in the life cycle of a computer product, followed by
        pre-alpha, alpha, beta, release version, corrected release version,
        upgrade, corrected upgrade, etc.  Unlike its successors, the
        prototype is not expected to work.
Scott's First Law:
        No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.

Scott's Second Law:
        When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found
        to have been wrong in the first place.
Corollary:
        After the correction has been found in error, it will be
        impossible to fit the original quantity back into the
        equation.
Second Law of Final Exams:
        In your toughest final -- for the first time all year -- the most
        distractingly attractive student in the class will sit next to you.
The First Rule of Program Optimization:
        Don't do it.

The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
        Don't do it yet.
                -- Michael Jackson
Viking, n.:
        1. Daring Scandinavian seafarers, explorers, adventurers,
        entrepreneurs world-famous for their aggressive, nautical import
        business, highly leveraged takeovers and blue eyes.
        2. Bloodthirsty sea pirates who ravaged northern Europe beginning
        in the 9th century.

Hagar's note: The first definition is much preferred; the second is used
only by malcontents, the envious, and disgruntled owners of waterfront
property.
Weinberg's First Law:
        Progress is only made on alternate Fridays.
Weinberg's Second Law:
        If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
        then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
        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.
Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
Best Beer: A panel of tasters assembled by the Consumer's Union in 1969
judged Coors and Miller's High Life to be among the very best. Those who
doubt that beer is a serious subject might ponder its effect on American
history. For example, New England's first colonists decided to drop anchor
at Plymouth Rock instead of continuing on to Virginia because, as one of
them put it, "We could not now take time for further consideration, our
victuals being spent and especially our beer."
        -- Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst & Most Unusual
Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English.  Many
people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from.  The first syllable
comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg".  I don't know where
the "nog" comes from.

To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in
season, eggs...
I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day.
I haven't had time for tobacco since.
                -- Arturo Toscanini
Q:        How do you play religious roulette?
A:        You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets
        struck by lightning first.
Q:        How many journalists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:        Three.  One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
        light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot
        to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for
        reporting that Electric Company hired a light bulb-assassin to break
        the bulb in the first place.
Q:        How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:        Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the
party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith
agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed
from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed
upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of
the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating
at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of
the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the
second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the
parties.
        The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be
limited to, the following.  The party of the first part shall, with or without
elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other
means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party
of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered
non-negotiable.  Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part
becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall
have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner
consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes.
Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part
shall have the option of beginning installation.  Aforesaid installation shall
occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in
step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation
should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable.
The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the
first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to
produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership.
Q:        Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and
        New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps?
A:        God gave New Jersey first choice.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first
thought of.
                -- Burt Bacharach
Experience is the worst teacher.  It always gives the test first and
the instruction afterward.
He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion
on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general
education and culture.
                -- Julia Norton McCorkle
Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks at college sailing his frisbee.
                -- Snoopy
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed
ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
                -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
                What I Did During My Fall Semester
On the first day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.

On the second day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.

On the third day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
I found a thesis topic:
        How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover.
                -- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday"
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge.
                -- Erwin Knoll
Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking up.
                -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
        A German, a Pole and a Czech left camp for a hike through the woods.
After being reported missing a day or two later, rangers found two bears,
one a male, one a female, looking suspiciously overstuffed.  They killed
the female, autopsied her, and sure enough, found the German and the Pole.
        "What do you think?" said the the first ranger.
        "The Czech is in the male," replied the second.
Moishe Margolies, who weighed all of 105 pounds and stood an even five feet
in his socks, was taking his first airplane trip. He took a seat next to a
hulking bruiser of a man who happened to be the heavyweight champion of
the world.  Little Moishe was uneasy enough before he even entered the plane,
but now the roar of the engines and the great height absolutely terrified him.
So frightened did he become that his stomach turned over and he threw up all
over the muscular giant siting beside him.  Fortunately, at least for Moishe,
the man was sound asleep.  But now the little man had another problem.  How in
the world would he ever explain the situation to the burly brute when he
awakened?  The sudden voice of the stewardess on the plane's intercom, finally
woke the bruiser, and Moishe, his heart in his mouth, rose to the occasion.
        "Feeling better now?" he asked solicitously.
        The world's most avid baseball fan (an Aggie) had arrived at the
stadium for the first game of the World Series only to realize he had left
his ticket at home.  Not wanting to miss any of the first inning, he went
to the ticket booth and got in a long line for another seat.  After an hour's
wait he was just a few feet from the booth when a voice called out, "Hey,
Dave!"  The Aggie looked up, stepped out of line and tried to find the owner
of the voice -- with no success.   Then he realized he had lost his place in
line and had to wait all over again.  When the fan finally bought his ticket,
he was thirsty, so he went to buy a drink.  The line at the concession stand
was long, too, but since the game hadn't started he decided to wait.  Just as
he got to the window, a voice called out, "Hey, Dave!"  Again the Aggie tried
to find the voice -- but no luck.  He was very upset as he got back in line
for his drink.  Finally the fan went to his seat, eager for the game to begin.
As he waited for the pitch, he heard the voice calling, "Hey Dave!" once more.
Furious, he stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs,  "My name isn't Dave!"
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."
When I first arrived in this country I had only fifteen cents in my pocket
and a willingness to compromise.
                -- Weber cartoon caption
You know you're in a small town when...
        You don't use turn signals because everybody knows where you're going.
        You're born on June 13 and your family receives gifts from the local
                merchants because you're the first baby of the year.
        Everyone knows whose credit is good, and whose wife isn't.
        You speak to each dog you pass, by name... and he wags his tail.
        You dial the wrong number, and talk for 15 minutes anyway.
        You write a check on the wrong bank and it covers you anyway.
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...
A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
blowing first.
Actually, the probability is 100% that the elevator will be going in the
right direction.  Proof by induction:

N=1.        Trivially true, since both you and the elevator only have one
        floor to go to.

Assume true for N, prove for N+1:
        If you are on any of the first N floors, then it is true by the
        induction hypothesis.  If you are on the N+1st floor, then both you
        and the elevator have only one choice, namely down.  Therefore,
        it is true for all N+1 floors.
QED.
After this was written there appeared a remarkable posthumous memoir that
throws some doubt on Millikan's leading role in these experiments.  Harvey
Fletcher (1884-1981), who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago,
at Millikan's suggestion worked on the measurement of electronic charge for
his doctoral thesis, and co-authored some of the early papers on this subject
with Millikan.  Fletcher left a manuscript with a friend with instructions
that it be published after his death; the manuscript was published in
Physics Today, June 1982, page 43.  In it, Fletcher claims that he was the
first to do the experiment with oil drops, was the first to measure charges on
single droplets, and may have been the first to suggest the use of oil.
According to Fletcher, he had expected to be co-authored with Millikan on
the crucial first article announcing the measurement of the electronic
charge, but was talked out of this by Millikan.
                -- Steven Weinberg, "The Discovery of Subatomic Particles"

Robert Millikan is generally credited with making the first really
precise measurement of the charge on an electron and was awarded the
Nobel Prize in 1923.
Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers,
etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these
things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in.
Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a
kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock.  This
proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also
damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in
incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office.
                -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
        An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean.  He knows
he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great
restraint.
        As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment
after embellishment occur to him.  These get stored away to be used "next
time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect,
with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems,
is ready to build a second system.
        This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs.
When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will
confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems,
and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that
are particular and not generalizable.
        The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using
all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first
one.  The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile."
                -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
As you will see, I told them, in no uncertain terms, to see Figure one.
                -- Dave "First Strike" Pare
Besides the device, the box should contain:
        * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
        * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
                club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.

YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable.

IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse
and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get
all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major
transmission overhaul?  Because nobody cares, that's why."

WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
                -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
Congratulations!  You have purchased an extremely fine device that would
give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you
undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver.
Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL
CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE.  YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T
YOU?  YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH
THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH
SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS
CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT?  AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING
TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT???  WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE
DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
                -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #6
What to do...
    if a starship, equipped with an FTL hyperdrive lands in your backyard?
        First of all, do not run after your camera.  You will not have any
        film, and, given the state of computer animation, noone will believe
        you anyway.  Be polite.  Remember, if they have an FTL hyperdrive,
        they can probably vaporize you, should they find you to be rude.
        Direct them to the White House lawn, which is where they probably
        wanted to land, anyway.  A good road map should help.

    if you wake up in the middle of the night, and discover that your
    closet contains an alternate dimension?
        Don't walk in.  You almost certainly will not be able to get back,
        and alternate dimensions are almost never any fun.  Remain calm
        and go back to bed.  Close the door first, so that the cat does not
        wander off.  Check your closet in the morning.  If it still contains
        an alternate dimension, nail it shut.
Hi! How are things going?
        (just fine, thank you...)
Great! Say, could I bother you for a question?
        (you just asked one...)
Well, how about one more?
        (one more than the first one?)
Yes.
        (you already asked that...)
[at this point, Alphonso gets smart...        ]
May I ask two questions, sir?
        (no.)
May I ask ONE then?
        (nope...)
Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question?
        (yes, you may.)
Sir, how may I ask you a question?
        (you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for
         the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that
         number plus two, one for the current question, and one for the
         next one)
Sir, may I ask nine questions?
        (go right ahead...)
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
universe."
                -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
In the course of reading Hadamard's "The Psychology of Invention in the
Mathematical Field", I have come across evidence supporting a fact
which we coffee achievers have long appreciated:  no really creative,
intelligent thought is possible without a good cup of coffee.  On page
14, Hadamard is discussing Poincare's theory of fuchsian groups and
fuchsian functions, which he describes as "... one of his greatest
discoveries, the first which consecrated his glory ..."  Hadamard refers
to Poincare having had a "... sleepless night which initiated all that
memorable work ..." and gives the following, very revealing quote:

        "One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and
        could not sleep.  Ideas rose in crowds;  I felt them collide
        until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable
        combination."

Too bad drinking black coffee was contrary to his custom.  Maybe he
could really have amounted to something as a coffee achiever.
Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the
Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in
their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the
moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a
dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect.
And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it
was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put
them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit,
and everything was just fine ...
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and
decides to do something about it.  He calls up his best friend, who is a
mathematical genius.  "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some
way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track?  We could
make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life."  The mathematician thinks
this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself.
        A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any
success.  The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes,
actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but
there a number of details to be figured out.
        After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house,
looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have
some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right
track."
        At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by
pounding on his door at three in the morning.  He has dark circles under his
eyes.  His hair hasn't been combed for many days.  He appears to be wearing
the same clothes as the last time.  He has several pencils sticking out from
behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face.  "WE CAN DO
IT!  WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!!
And it's so EASY!  First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple
harmonic motion..."
Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject
-- the actual enemy is the unknown.
                -- Thomas Mann
Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard.  It is fatal in
concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m.  Humans exposed to the
oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes.  Symptoms resemble very
much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.).  In higher
concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it
takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place.  The reason
for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of
oxygen in 20% concentration.  It apparently contributes to a complex
process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is
always fatal.

However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the
fact it is habit forming.  The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is
sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent.  After that, any
considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with
symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning.

Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard.  All of the fires that were reported in
the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be
due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings
in question.

Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and
tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is
too late.
                -- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956
Review Questions

(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
    and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
    he exceeds the speed of light?  How long will it be before the
    Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?

(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
    twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
    every bone in his body?  How long will it be before they cut off
    his insurance?  Where does he get a new car every week?

(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
    the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
    pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
    Tut's?  When will it fall on him?  Will he notice?
The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed
to do the work of a man.  The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'.
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the
first against the wall when the revolution comes', with a footnote to effect
that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking
over the post of robotics correspondent.
        Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that
had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in
the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the
wall when the revolution came'.
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind
of thing.  Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation
of these atoms is talking moonshine.
                -- Ernest Rutherford, after he had split the atom for
                   the first time
The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed.
                -- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia
The Wright Bothers weren't the first to fly.  They were just the first
not to crash.
"There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers.
While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain."
                -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800
There is a building with four floors.  On the first floor, there
is a convention of architects.  On the second floor, there is a
vinyl manufacturing plant.  On the third floor there is a fast food
stand, and on the fourth floor there is a library.

Q:        What would happen if a librarian traveled down in a small
        elevator with one other person from each floor?
A:        The elevator would be full.
Two men are in a hot-air balloon.  Soon, they find themselves lost in a
canyon somewhere.  One of the three men says, "I've got an idea.  We can
call for help in this canyon and the echo will carry our voices to the
end of the canyon.  Someone's bound to hear us by then!"
        So he leans over the basket and screams out, "Helllloooooo!  Where
are we?"  (They hear the echo several times).
        Fifteen minutes later, they hear this echoing voice: "Helllloooooo!
You're lost!"
        The shouter comments, "That must have been a mathematician."
        Puzzled, his friend asks, "Why do you say that?"
        "For three reasons.  First, he took a long time to answer, second,
he was absolutely correct, and, third, his answer was absolutely useless."
        While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to
his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?"
        "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant.  "What do you
mean?"
        The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of
`Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just
a moment ago.  It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and
salt was rare and expensive.  A miller received from a wizard a wonderful
machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long.  At first the miller
thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages
had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding
more salt.  The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his
acres.  At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and
be rid of it.  But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine
were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's
why the sea is salt."
        "I don't get you," said the assistant.
                -- Guy Endore, "Men of Iron"
Why don't you fix your little problem... and light this candle?
                -- Alan Shepherd, the first man into space, Gemini program
You can not get anything worthwhile done without raising a sweat.
                -- The First Law Of Thermodynamics

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

You can not win the game, and you are not allowed to stop playing.
                -- The Third Law Of Thermodynamics
If at first you fricasee, fry, fry again.
It was a brave man that ate the first oyster.
The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through
three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and
Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases.  For
instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?"
the second by "Why do we eat?" and the third by "Where shall we have lunch?".
                -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
        To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely
wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing.
        The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that
food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in
promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction.  For the first time, an
eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and
Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a
pint of ice cream nearby.
                -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"
When a person goes on a diet, the first thing he loses is his temper.
        "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,
"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
        "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh.  "What do you say, Piglet?"
        "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
        Pooh nodded thoughtfully.  "It's the same thing," he said.
You first parents of the human race... who ruined yourself for an apple,
what might you have done for a truffled turkey?
                -- Brillat-savarin, "Physiologie du Gout"
                        Against Idleness and Mischief

How doth the little busy bee                How skillfully she builds her cell!
Improve each shining hour,                How neat she spreads the wax!
And gather honey all the day                And labours hard to store it well
From every opening flower!                With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labour or of skill                In books, or work, or healthful play,
I would be busy too;                        Let my first years be passed,
For Satan finds some mischief still        That I may give for every day
For idle hands to do.                        Some good account at last.
                -- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
All the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being _N bytes.  At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
                -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
"That eye is like this eye"
Said the first eye,
"But in low place,
Not in high place."
And so it was, later,
As the miller told his tale,
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale.
                -- Procol Harum
Gibson's Springtime Song (to the tune of "Deck the Halls"):

'Tis the season to chase mousies (Fa la la la la, la la la la)
Snatch them from their little housies (...)
First we chase them 'round the field (...)
Then we have them for a meal (...)

Toss them here and catch them there (...)
See them flying through the air (...)
Watch them fly and hear them squeal (...)
Falling mice have great appeal (...)

See the hunter stretched before us (...)
He's chased the mice in field and forest (...)
Watch him clean his long white whiskers (...)
Of the blood of little critters (...)
God rest ye CS students now,                The bearings on the drum are gone,
Let nothing you dismay.                        The disk is wobbling, too.
The VAX is down and won't be up,        We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol
Until the first of May.                        Can't tell false from true.
The program that was due this morn,        And now we find that we can't get
Won't be postponed, they say.                At Berkeley's 4.2.
(chorus)                                (chorus)

We've just received a call from DEC,        And now some cheery news for you,
They'll send without delay                The network's also dead,
A monitor called RSuX                        We'll have to print your files on
It takes nine hundred K.                The line printer instead.
The staff committed suicide,                The turnaround time's nineteen weeks.
We'll bury them today.                        And only cards are read.
(chorus)                                (chorus)

And now we'd like to say to you                CHORUS:        Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
Before we go away,                                Comfort and joy,
We hope the news we've brought to you                Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
Won't ruin your whole day.
You've got another program due, tomorrow, by the way.
(chorus)
                -- to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Here I sit, broken-hearted,
All logged in, but work unstarted.
First net.this and net.that,
And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.

The boss comes by, and I play the game,
Then I turn back to net.flame.
Is there a cure (I need your views),
For someone trapped in net.news?

I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies,
green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady,
the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter,
to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted.

Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her,
in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle;
there they open first in spring and there they linger latest.

By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter,
fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!

And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer
go down deep again along the forest-water,
no while the year is old.  Nor shall I be passing
Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time,
not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter
dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind starts and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.
Ladybug, ladybug,
Look to your stern!
Your house is on fire,
Your children will burn!
So jump ye and sing, for
The very first time
The four lines above
Have been put into rhyme.
                -- Walt Kelly
Latin is a language,
As dead as can be.
First it killed the Romans,
And now it's killing me.
"My name is Sue!  How do you do?!  Now you gonna die!"
Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes,
And he went down, but to my surprise,
Come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
So I busted a chair right across his teeth,
And we crashed through the walls and into the streets,
Kickin' and a-gougin' in the mud and the blood and beer.
Now I tell you, I've fought tougher men,
But I really can't remember when:
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile.
But I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss,
And he went for his gun, but I pulled mine first,
And he sat there lookin' at me, and I saw him smile.
He said: "Son, this world is rough,
And if a man's gonna make it he's gotta be tough,
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I give you that name and I said goodbye,
And I knew you'd have to get tough or die,
And it's that name that's helped to make you strong!
                -- Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"
"No program is perfect,"
They said with a shrug.
"The customer's happy--
What's one little bug?"

But he was determined,                        Then change two, then three more,
The others went home.                        As year followed year.
He dug out the flow chart                And strangers would comment,
Deserted, alone.                        "Is that guy still here?"

Night passed into morning.                He died at the console
The room was cluttered                        Of hunger and thirst
With core dumps, source listings.        Next day he was buried
"I'm close," he muttered.                Face down, nine edge first.

Chain smoking, cold coffee,                And his wife through her tears
Logic, deduction.                        Accepted his fate.
"I've got it!" he cried,                Said "He's not really gone,
"Just change one instruction."                He's just working late."
                -- The Perfect Programmer
Put another password in,
Bomb it out, then try again.
Try to get past logging in,
We're hacking, hacking, hacking.

Try his first wife's maiden name,
This is more than just a game.
It's real fun, but just the same,
It's hacking, hacking, hacking.
                -- To the tune of "Music, Music, Music?"
The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age,
But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything.
I know I keep you amused,
But I feel I'm being used.
Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face.

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

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

You made a first-class fool out of me,
But I'm as blind as a fool can be.
You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without.
                -- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May"
The 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"
Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.
                -- Tolkien
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"
When a lion meets another with a louder roar,
the first lion thinks the last a bore.
                -- G.B. Shaw
When someone makes a move                We'll send them all we've got,
Of which we don't approve,                John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Who is it that always intervenes?        Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,                        To the shores of Tripoli,
They have their place, I guess,                But not to Mississippoli,
But first, send the Marines!                What do we do?  We send the Marines!

For might makes right,                        Members of the corps
And till they've seen the light,        All hate the thought of war:
They've got to be protected,                They'd rather kill them off by
                                                peaceful means.
All their rights respected,                Stop calling it aggression--
Till somebody we like can be elected.        We hate that expression!
                                        We only want the world to know
                                        That we support the status quo;
                                        They love us everywhere we go,
                                        So when in doubt, send the Marines!
                -- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines"
When you and I are far apart
Can sorrow break your tender heart?
I love you darling, yes I do;
Sleep is so sweet when I dream of you;
All you are is a blossoming rose.
Night is here so I must close.
With care read the first word of each line.
You will find a question of mine.
                -- Yours hopefully, The VAX.
When you're a Yup
You're a Yup all the way
From your first slice of Brie
To your last Cabernet.

When you're a Yup
You're not just a dreamer
You're making things happen
You're driving a Beamer.
Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first.
You will pioneer the first Martian colony.
Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates,
is my choice for team captain.  Cincinnatti was beating us 3-1, and I led
off the bottom of the eighth with a walk.  The next hitter banged a hard
single to right field.  Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and
kept going, sliding safely into third base.
        With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at
bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first.
Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy
took off for second and made it.  Now we had runners at second and third.
        I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy
start to take a lead.  All of a sudden, here he comes.  He makes a great slide
into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?"  He looks up, and
shouts, "Back to second if I can make it."
                -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
Don't let go of what you've got hold of, until you have hold of something else.
                -- First Rule of Wing Walking
I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments.
The front page has nothing but man's failures.
                -- Chief Justice Earl Warren
Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man
picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and
whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire.

What inner force drove this first athlete?  Your guess is as good as
mine.  Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
                -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
My first baseman is George "Catfish" Metkovich from our 1952 Pittsburgh
Pirates team, which lost 112 games.  After a terrible series against the
New York Giants, in which our center fielder made three throwing errors
and let two balls get through his legs, manager Billy Meyer pleaded, "Can
somebody think of something to help us win a game?"
        "I'd like to make a suggestion," Metkovich said.  "On any ball hit
to center field, let's just let it roll to see if it might go foul."
                -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
Pedro Guerrero was playing third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1984
when he made the comment that earns him a place in my Hall of Fame.  Second
baseman Steve Sax was having trouble making his throws.  Other players were
diving, screaming, signaling for a fair catch.  At the same time, Guerrero,
at third, was making a few plays that weren't exactly soothing to manager
Tom Lasorda's stomach.  Lasorda decided it was time for one of his famous
motivational meetings and zeroed in on Guerrero: "How can you play third
base like that?  You've gotta be thinking about something besides baseball.
What is it?"
        "I'm only thinking about two things," Guerrero said.  "First, `I
hope they don't hit the ball to me.'"  The players snickered, and even
Lasorda had to fight off a laugh.  "Second, `I hope they don't hit the ball
to Sax.'"
                -- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water.  Eager to show off
this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next
hunting trip.  Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell,
the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned
it to his master.
        "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
        "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim."
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
call it the target.
Each kiss is as the first.
                -- Miramanee, Kirk's wife, "The Paradise Syndrome",
                   stardate 4842.6
First study the enemy.  Seek weakness.
                -- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2
"`How do you feel?' he asked him.
`Like a military academy,' said Arthur, `bits of me keep
passing out.'" ....
`We're safe,' he said.
`Oh good,' said Arthur.
`We're in a small galley cabin,' said Ford, `in one of the
spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.'
`Ah,' said Arthur, `this is obviously some strange usage of
the word "safe" that I wasn't previously aware of.'

- Arthur after his first ever teleport ride.
"`You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace.
It's unpleasently like being drunk.'
`What's so unpleasent about being drunk?'
`You ask a glass of water.'"

- Arthur getting ready for his first jump into hyperspace.
"`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.
"The story goes that I first had the idea for THHGTTG while
lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck (or `Spain' as the BBC
TV publicity department authorititively has it, probably
because it's easier to spell)." - Foreward by DNA.

FORD         Six pints of bitter. And quickly please, the
world's about to
        end.
BARMAN        Oh yes, sir? Nice weather for it.
"`Eddies,' said Ford, `in the space-time continuum.'
`Ah,' nodded Arthur, `is he? Is he?'"

- Arthur failing in his first lesson of galactic physics
in four years.
"`That young girl is one of the least benightedly
unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound
lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.'"

- Marvin's first ever compliment about anybody.
First, a few words about tools.

Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the
laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure
yourself.  Today, people tend to take tools for granted.  If you're ever
walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly
smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted.  If I were you,
I'd walk right up and smack them in the face.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
High Priest:        Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven:
Bro. Maynard:        And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high
        saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it
        smash our enemies to tiny bits."  And the Lord did grin, and the
        people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and
        breakfast cereals, and lima bean-
High Priest:        Skip a bit, brother.
Bro. Maynard:        And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take
        out the holy pin.  Then shalt thou count to three.  No more, no less.
        *Three* shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the
        counting shall be three.  *Four* shalt thou not count, and neither
        count thou two, excepting that thou then goest on to three.  Five is
        RIGHT OUT.  Once the number three, being the third number be reached,
        then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade towards thy foe, who, being
        naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.  Amen.
All:        Amen.
                -- Monty Python, "The Holy Hand Grenade"
I have a friend whose a billionaire.  He invented Cliff's notes.  When
I asked him how he got such a great idea he said, "Well first I...
I just... to make a long story short..."
                -- Steven Wright
I look at life as being cruise director on the Titanic.  I may not get
there, but I'm going first class.
                -- Art Buchwald
I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too
much damage if it catches fire or explodes.  First you decide which
direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy.  After much
trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face
is up.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
        My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa.  Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa.  Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule:  Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00.  Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30.  Now Africa is full of big game.  The first day I shot two bucks.  That
was the biggest game we had.  Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
        The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions.  And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water.  They
weren't looking for a water hole.  They were looking for an alck hole.
        One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know.  Then we tried to remove the tusks.  That's a tough
word to say, tusks.  As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out.  But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,
but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
        We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
                -- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]
Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to
spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to
indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest
person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you
are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other
passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they
have plenty of food and water.
                -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
You're a good example of why some animals eat their young.
                -- Jim Samuels to a heckler

Ah, yes.  I remember my first beer.
                -- Steve Martin to a heckler

When your IQ rises to 28, sell.
                -- Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler
  The first condition of immortality is death. -Stanislaw Lec
Yes... I feel your pain... but as a former first poster (I scored mine a
couple months ago) I know what you went through. Here's where you screwed
up though... YOU DIDN'T PULL THE TRIGGER. You didn't carpe diem.

Yep... When I saw that nice clean article with no posts I didn't hesitate,
yes the adrenaline was surging... my palms were wet, heart pounding. I was
standing at the peak of greatness... I knew I had but one thing to do,
there was no turning back now... I rapidly typed in a one word post.. then
with no hesitation I navigated my mouse over the submit button... and
WHAM.. seconds later I was looking at my feeble post with a #1 attached to
the header. At that mmoment I knew a feeling that only few will ever
know... I was at one with Slashdot... Zen masters and Kings will relate
I'm sure. That one sweet moment when the ying and the yang converge...
bliss... eternal bliss... ahhh!

Then I smoked a cigarette and went to bed.

   -- Anonymous Coward, in response to a "First Post!" that clearly wasn't.
I'll never forget the first time I ran Windows, but I'm trying...
If at first you don't succeed, you must be using Windows.
If at first you don't succeed, work for Microsoft.
The nice thing about Windows is - It does not just crash, it displays a
dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first.
If at first you don't succeed, get a job with Microsoft.

   -- Gareth Barnard
People use dummies for crash-tests. Windows is so difficult they had to
educate the dummies first -- by giving them "Windows for Dummies" books!

   -- Ewout Stam
Windows: The first user interface where you click Start to turn it off.

   -- From a Slashdot.org post
Mad Programmer Commits Suicide

KENNETT, MO -- For two years Doug Carter toiled away in his basement computer
lab working on his own 'Dougnix' operating system. Apparently he was sick of
Windows 95 so he decided to create his own OS, based loosely on Unix. He had
developed his own 'DougUI' window manager, Doug++ compiler, DougFS filesystem,
and other integrated tools.

All was going well until last week when he hooked his computer up to the
Internet for the first time. It was then that he stumbled on to www.linux.org.
Reports are sketchy about what happened next. We do know he committed suicide
days after, leaving behind a rambling suicide note. Part of the note says:

"I've wasted the past two years of my life... Wasted... Gone... Forever...
Never return to. [illegible] Why did I bother creating my own OS... when Linux
is exactly what I needed!?!?!?! If I had only known about Linux! Why someone
didn't tell me? [illegible] Wasted! Aggghhh!" [The rest of the note is filled
with incomprehensible assembly language ramblings.]
Open Source Beer Revolution

Yesterday, Red Hat introduced an 'open source' beer called Red Brew. The
recipes for making the beer are available for free over the Net, and
microbrewery kits are available at low cost from Red Hat. Says a Red Hat
spokesman, "With the proliferation of free (open source) software, it was only
a matter of time before open source beer became reality. After all, the only
thing hackers like more than free software is free beer!"

Following the Red Hat annoucement, other companies are racing to launch their
own beer 'distribution'. Caldera is developing an OpenBrew beer. Meanwhile,
Patrick Volkerding is working on a SlackBeer distribution, and DebianBrew is
expected soon.

Traditional breweries and beer distributors are not thrilled about open source
beer. "This is ludicrous! People want beer that comes from time-tested, secret
recipes -- not beer from recipes invented overnight! Open source is a fad," a
spokesman for Buddwizzer Beer, Inc. said. In addition, other beverage
distributors are nervous. "First open source beer, and soon open source soft
drinks! Before we know it, we'll have RedCoke and SlackPepsi! This open source
plague must be stopped before it eats into our bottom line! Don't quote me on
that last sentence," the CEO of Croak-a-Cola said.
ARE YOU ADDICTED TO SLASHDOT?
Take this short test to find out if you are a Dothead.

1. Do you submit articles to Slashdot and then reload the main page every 3.2
    seconds to see if your article has been published yet?
2. Have you made more than one "first comment!" post within the past week?
3. Have you ever participated in a Gnome vs. KDE or a Linux vs. FreeBSD
    flamewar on Slashdot?
4. Do you write jokes about Slashdot?
5. Do you wake up at night, go to the bathroom, and fire up your web browser
    to get your Slashdot fix on the way back?
6. Do you dump your date at the curb so you can hurry home to visit Slashdot?
7. Do you think of Slashdot when you order a taco at a restaurant?
8. Are you a charter member of the Rob Malda Fan Club?
9. Did you lease a T3 line so you could download Slashdot faster?
10. Is Slashdot your only brower's bookmark?
11. Do you get a buzz when your browser finally connects to Slashdot?
12. Do you panic when your browser says "Unable to connect to slashdot.org"?
13. Have you even made a New Year's Resolution to cut back on Slashdot
    access... only to visit it at 12:01?
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."
Tux Penguin Boxing Match

LAS VEGAS, NV -- The unofficial Linux mascot Tux the Penguin will face his arch
rival the BSD Daemon in a boxing match this Saturday night. The match is part
of the International Computer Mascot Boxing Federation's First Annual World
Championship Series. The winner will advance to face one of the Intel "Bunny
People".

Boxing pundits favor Tux as the winner. Last week Tux won his first match in
the Championship Series against Wilbur the Gimp. "The Gimp didn't have a
chance," one spectator said. "With Tux's ability to run at top speeds of over
100mph, I don't see how he could possibly lose." The BSD Daemon, however, is
certainly a formidible opponent. While boxing rules prohibit the Daemon from
using his patented pitchfork, his pointy horns are permitted in the ring.

Some observers think the whole Computer Mascot Boxing Federation is a fake.
"WWF is all scripted," one sports writer pointed out. "And so is this. You
actually think that a penguin is capable of boxing? The idea of a penguin
fighting a demon is patently absurd. This whole Championship Series has no
doubt been scripted. It's probably nothing more than two little kids in
penguin and demon suits duking it out in a boxing ring. What a waste of time."
Microsoft Open Source Solitaire

REDMOND, WA -- In a first attempt at "embrace-and-extend" of open source
software, Microsoft will release its popular Solitaire and FreeCell games as
open source under the MILA (Microsoft Innovative License Agreement).
According to a Microsoft press release, the Visual C++ source code for the
two games will be available from the Microsoft website "in the first quarter"
(no year was specified).

Industry pundits hail the move as revolutionary.  "Microsoft's release of its
most popular Windows feature as open source software demonstrates just how
innovative the company really is.  The DoJ is clearly barking up the wrong
tree," wrote one Ziff-Davis flunkie. One executive at a large company said,
"Freely available source code is the best idea Microsoft has ever invented."

One Linux developer told Humorix, "Let's just hope some fool doesn't try to
port this thing to Linux.  Imagine the havoc that could ensue if a bunch of
core Linux contributors downloaded Solitaire and became addicted to it.  It
would be a disaster!  Linux and open source development would grind to a halt
while the hackers wasted their time playing Solitaire or FreeCell.  'Just one
more game...' they would say."
Is Windows Antique?

SILICON VALLEY -- The first ever antique mall devoted to computers has
opened its doors deep in the heart of Silicon Valley.  Named "Stacks
of Antiqueues", the new mall features obsolete hardware, old software,
and other curiosities that only a nerd would want to buy.  The mall
also features a whole collection of Microsoft software, which, as can
be expected, has the Redmond giant up in arms.

The mall, founded by a group of Linux, FreeBSD, and BeOS users, has a whole
section devoted to Microsoft "antiques".  Offerings range from a rare
(and expensive) copy of Windows 1.0 all the way up to Windows 98.  All
versions of DOS from 1.0 up are available, in addition to such Microsoft
products as Bob, Profit, and Multiplan.

Bob Hinesdorf, one of the mall's founders, defends the decision to
include Microsoft products in its selection of antique computer stuff.
"Windows 98 is surely antique; it's based on 16 bit Windows 3.x code,
which was based on 16 bit DOS code, which was based loosely on 8 bit
CP/M."
New Crime Identified: "Tech Rage"

HARRISBURG, IL -- The police department in this Illinois town has coined a
new term for a growing trend in crime: "tech rage". Tech rage shares many
similarities with another modern crime, "road rage", but instead of
affecting drivers, tech rage is experienced by disgruntled computer users.

The first documented case of tech rage involves a Microsoft salesman, Bob
Glutzfield, who convinced the local TV station to "upgrade" its computer
systems from Macintosh to Wintel.  While the migration seemed successful at
first, the Blue Screen became more prevalent during the following months.

Then, in January, the entire computer system crashed in the middle of the
weather forecast during the 10 o'clock evening news. Viewers could plainly
see the Blue Screen of Death showing in the monitors behind James Roland,
the chief meteorologist. The instability of Windows 98 stretched Roland's
patience until he snapped last week and succumbed to tech rage.

Roland tracked down the Microsoft salesman and followed him one evening to
his apartment.  The weatherman yelled at the bewildered Microserf, "You
[expletive]! Because of you, I'm the [expletive] laughing stock of Southern
Illinois!" and then proceeded to beat him up.  Roland is currently out on
bond pending trial next month.
Boston Software Party

BOSTON, MA -- Thousands of disgruntled Linux revolutionaries showed up at
the Boston Harbor today to protest "taxation without representation" by
the oppressive Microsoft Corporation. Thousands of pounds of Microsoft
boxes, CD-ROMs, manuals, license agreements, promotional materials, and
registration forms were dumped into the harbor during the First Annual
Boston Software Party.

Some attendees sold hastily printed T-shirts with slogans like "July 4th,
1999: Microsoft Independence Day!" and "What do you call 10,000 pounds of
Microsoft software at the bottom of the ocean? A darned good start!"
Others sold fake dollar bills with a portrait of Tux Penguin and the
saying, "In Linus We Trust"...
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"?).
Jargon Coiner (#9)

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

* RHYMES WITH CYNICS: The final answer to any debate about how to
  pronounce Linux. Of course, "cynics" might not be the best word to
  associate Linux with...

* WISL? (Will It Support Linux?): The very first thought that springs into
  a Linux user's mind when a cool new piece of software or hardware is
  announced.

* JJMD! (Jar Jar Must Die!): Meaningless reply given to a question or poll
  for which you don't have a good answer.

  Example: Question: "When did you stop beating your wife?"
           Answer: "JJMD!"
Jargon Coiner (#13)

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

* NINETY-NINERS: In 1849, a horde of people ("Forty-niners") headed to
  California to pan gold and get rich quick. In 1999, a horde of people
  ("Ninety-niners") headed to California to invest in Linux companies and
  get rich quick. Some things never change.

* ZOO: The ubiquitous shelf of O'Reilly Animal Books that many nerds keep
  next to their computer

* THEY'RE MULTIPLYING LIKE PORTALS: The proliferation of Linux portals
  that have the latest headlines from Slashdot and LinuxToday but offer
  little original content.

* YOU CAN SPELL EVIL WITHOUT vi: A curse uttered by freshman Computer
  Science students struggling with vi's insert mode for the first time.
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#4)

The buzz surrounding Linux and Open Source during 1999 has produced a
large number of billionnaires. However, people who weren't employed by Red
Hat or VA Linux, or who didn't receive The Letter, are still poor. The
visionaries at The IPO Factory want to change all that.

As the name suggests, this company helps other businesses get off the
ground, secure investments from Venture Capitalists, and eventually hold
an IPO that exits the stratosphere. "You can think of us as meta-VCs," the
IPO Factory's founder said. "You provide the idea... and we do the rest.
If your company doesn't hold a successful IPO, you get your money back,
guaranteed!" He added quickly, "Of course, if you do undergo a billion
dollar IPO, we get to keep 25% of your stock."

The company's first customer, LinuxOne, has been a failure. "From now on
we're only going to service clients that actually have a viable product,"
an IPO Factory salesperson admitted. "Oh, and we've learned our lesson:
it's not a good idea to cut-and-paste large sections from Red Hat's S-1
filing."
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#2)
(held during Super Bowl Sunday 2000 at the Silicon Valley Transmeta Dome)

BRYANT DUMBELL: Look out! Here comes Linus Torvalds himself to deliver the
starting chug. The crowd is going wild... all 64 people in the stands are
on their feet! Here we go... Linus is lifting up the Ceremonial Beer
Can... he's flipping off the top...

JOHN SPLADDEN: You can feel the excitement in the air! Wow!

DUMBELL: ...And there he goes! Wow... he chugged that beer in only 1.4
seconds... Let's see Bill top that! What a remarkable display to kick off
this grandest of all nerd sporting events.

SPLADDEN: "Nerd sporting event"? Isn't that an oxymoron?

DUMBELL: Linus is now waving to the crowd... Oops!  He just belched.
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#1)

JOHN SPLADDEN: Hi, and welcome to the first annual Nerd Bowl in sunny
Silicon Valley.

BRYANT DUMBELL: We're coming to you live from the Transmeta Dome to watch
the battle between the North Carolina Mad Hatters and the Michigan
Portalbacks as they compete for the coveted Linus Torvalds Trophy.

SPLADDEN: This is shaping up to be one hell of a match. The Mad Hatters --
sponsored by Linux distributor Red Hat -- have been on fire the past
month. But the Andover.Net sponsored Michigan Portalbacks are on a tear as
well, thanks in part to the stellar performance of Rob "Taco Boy" Malda.

DUMBELL: Taco Boy is quite a star, John. Last week at the Kernelbowl he
blew away the Transmeta Secret Agents when he scored 51 points
singlehandedly in the Flying CompactDiscus round.

SPLADDEN: But then Mad Hatter's Alan Cox was voted this season's Most
Valuable Hacker in the Eastern Division. So, this game is going to be
quite a show.
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#3)

BRYANT DUMBELL: It's time for Round One: The Flying CompactDiscus.

JOHN SPLADDEN: That's right, Bryant. Each team member will hurl one CD-ROM
and receive points for both the distance thrown and whether the disc is
still readable afterwards.

DUMBELL: First up is Mad Hatter's Alan Cox. He struts, he winds up, and
there it goes! Look at the trajectory on that baby... Now it's time for
the Portalback's Anonymous Coward #521 to throw. This guy was voted as the
best CompactDiscus thrower in the league by popular vote on Slashdot.

SPLADDEN: Indeed, AnonCow has got some powerful muscles. No brain though.
Did you know that he dropped out of college to join the Andover.Net team?

DUMBELL: Yeah, what a tough decision to make. It's now becoming quite
common for nerd superstars to ditch college and move to Silicon Valley and
receive Big League stock options. Still, AnonCow was out for several games
this season due to a Carpal Tunnel flareup. I hope he isn't squandering
his millions... he might be forced to retire early.
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#4)

BRYANT DUMBELL: Welcome back. After Round 1, the Mad Hatters are ahead 15
to 12. Round 2, the Caffeine Craziness event, is now underway.

JOHN SPLADDEN: This is my favorite part of the Nerdbowl. Each player tries
to consume as many gallons of caffeinated beverages within one minute, and
then points are awarded based on the redness of their eyes.

DUMBELL: I like this event too... I must admit, it's much better than the
"Crash It" event that was played in the Zeroth Annual Nerdbowl last year.
Players were each seated in front of a PC running Windows 98... points
were awarded based on how fast the player could cause a Blue Screen.

SPLADDEN: Ah, yes, I remember that. Everybody complained that the event
was too easy. "Where the hell is the challenge?" yelled Chris DiBona while
doing a victory dance after the VA Linux Rich Penguins beat the SuSE Cats
In The Hats last year 121-96.
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#5)

A commercial that aired during the live ASCII broadcast of the game:

  Having trouble staying awake for weeks at a time working on that latest
  hack? Worried that some young punk will take over your cushy job because
  you sleep too much? Don't worry, EyeOpener® brand cola is here to save
  the day. You'll never feel sleepy again when you drink EyeOpener®.

  Surgeon General's Warning: This product should only be used under a
  doctor's immediate supervision, as it contains more caffeine than 512
  cases of Coca-Cola.

  Caution: When sleep does occur after about three weeks, optometrists
  recommend having someone on hand to close your eyelids.

  Coming soon: ExtremelyWired(tm) cola with 50% more sugar! May or may not
  meet FDA approval... we're still trying.
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#6)

JOHN SPLADDEN: We're back. The players have assumed their positions and
are ready to answer computer-related questions posed by referree Eric S.
Raymond. Let's listen in...

RAYMOND: Okay, men, you know the rules... And now here's the first
question: Who is the most respected, sexy, gifted, and talented spokesmen
for the Open Source movement? [Bzzz] Taco Boy, you buzzed in first.

ROB MALDA: The answer is me.

RAYMOND: No, you egomaniacal billionaire. Anybody else want to answer?
[Bzzz] Yes, Alan Cox?

ALAN COX: Well, duh, the answer has to be Eric Raymond.

RAYMOND: Correct! That answer is worth 10 million points.

ROB MALDA: Protest! Who wrote these questions?!
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#6)
(Round 4, the Who Wants To Be A Billionaire? Round)

ERIC RAYMOND (Moderator): Here's the second question: Who is the primary
author of the world-renowned fetchmail program? [Bzzz] Yes, Hemos?

HEMOS: Mr. Eric... Fetch of Cincinnati, Ohio.

RAYMOND: No, no, no! The answer is me, me, me, you idiots! Sheesh. I'm
resetting your points to zero for that.

ALAN COX: Are you going to ask any questions that are not about you?

RAYMOND: Um... let's see... yeah, there's one or two here... Okay, here's
  question three... What loud-mouthed hippie-spirtualist founder of the
  GNU Project keeps demanding that everybody use the crappy term "Free
  Software" instead of "Open Source"? [Bzzz] Yes, Anonymous Coward?

ANONCOW: Eric Raymond!

RAYMOND: Why you little [expletive]! I'm going to...
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#7)

JOHN SPLADDEN: In this final round, the two teams must assemble a 16-node
Beowulf cluster from scratch, install Linux on them, and then use the
system to calculate pi to 1 million digits. This is the ultimate test for
nerds... only people in the Big Leagues should attempt this... [snip]

BRYANT DUMBELL: Look at that! Instead of messing with screws, the
Portalbacks are using duct tape to attach their motherboards to the cases!
That should save some time. [snip] They've done it! The Mad Hatters have
completed the Final Round in 2 hours, 15 minutes. That's one hell of a
Beowulf cluster they produced... drool.

SPLADDEN: With that, the Mad Hatters win the Nerd Bowl 105 to 68! There's
going to be some serious beer-drinking tonight back at the Red Hat offices.

DUMBELL: Linus Torvalds has emerged from the sidelines to present his
Linus Torvalds Trophy to the winners. What a glorious sight! This has
definitely been the best Nerdbowl ever. I pity those people that have been
watching the Superbowl instead.
The new "I Love You" virus is not the work of some snot-nosed acne-laced
teenager working from a basement in the Phillipines. It's actually part of
a conspiracy concocted by the unholy alliance of Microsoft and several
well-known and well-despised spammers.

You'll notice that the ILOVEYOU, Melissa, and Tuxissa strains all extract
email addresses from the victim's system. This is a gold mine for
spammers, who are able to use these viruses to harvest active email
addresses for them. Everytime ILOVEYOU, for instance, propogates, it keeps
track of all the email addresses it has been sent to, so that when it
finally boomerangs back to a spammer, they have a nice convenient list of
addresses to send "laser printer toner" and "get rich quick!"
advertisements to.

   -- Bob Smith (not his real code-name), in a speech given at the
      First Annual Connecticut Conspiracy Convention (ConConCon),
      "the largest ever gathering of conspiracy theorists east of the
      Mississippi."
Right now hundreds of Anonymous Cowards are cheering the fact that only
Windows boobs are victims of ILOVEYOU and other email viruses. I realize
Outlook is so insecure that using it is like posting a sign outside your
door saying, "DOOR UNLOCKED -- ROB ME!". However, Linux isn't immune. If I
had a dollar for every pine buffer overflow uncovered, I could buy a
truckload of fresh herring.

I expect the next mass email virus to spread will be cross-platform. If
the recipient is a Windows/Outlook luser, they'll get hit. If the
recipient is a Linux/pine user, they'll find themselves staring at a
self-executing bash script that's has just allocated 1 petabyte of memory
and crashed the system (or worse).

Either that or the next mass email virus will only damage Linux systems. I
can just see Bill Gates assigning some junior programmer that very task.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

   -- A speech given at the First Annual Connecticut Conspiracy]
      Convention (ConConCon) by an anonymous creature said to
      be "wearing what appeared to be a tuxedo".
Security Holes Found In Microsoft Easter Eggs

REDMOND, WA -- It's damage control time for the Microsoft Marketing
Machine. Not only have exploits been found in IE, Outlook, and even the
Dancing Paper Clip, but now holes have been uncovered in Excel's Flight
Simulator and Word's pinball game.

"If you enter Excel 97's flight simulator and then hit the F1, X, and
SysRq keys while reading a file from Drive A:, you automatically gain
Administrator rights on Windows NT," explained the security expert who
first discovered the problem. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg."

Office 97 and 2000 both contain two hidden DLLs, billrulez.dll and
eastereggs.dll, that are marked as "Safe for scripting" but are not.
Arbitrary Visual BASIC code can be executed using these files. More
disturbing, however, are the undocumented API calls
"ChangeAllPasswordsToDefault", "OpenBackDoor", "InitiateBlueScreenNow",
and "UploadRegistryToMicrosoft" within easter~1.dll.

Microsoft spokesdroids have already hailed the problem as "an
insignificant byproduct of Microsoft innovation."
Brief History Of Linux (#3)
Lawyers Unite

Humanity faced a tremendous setback ca. 1100 A.D., when the first law
school was established in Bologna. Ironically, the free exchange of ideas
at the law school spurred the law students to invent new ways (patents,
trademarks, copyrights) to stifle the free exchange of ideas in other
industries.

If, at some point in the future, you happen upon a time machine, we here
at Humorix (and, indeed, the whole world) implore you to travel back to
1100, track down a law teacher called Irnerius, and prevent him from
founding his school using whatever means necessary. Your contribution to
humanity will truly make the world (in an alternate timeline) a better
place.
Brief History Of Linux (#10)
The AnyQuack Computer

One electronic machine, Colossus, was used by the British in World War II
to decode Nazi transmissions. The code-breakers were quite successful in
their mission, except for the tiny detail that nobody knew how to read
German. They had decoded unreadable messages into... unreadable messages.

Two years later in 1945, a group of professors and students at the Univ.
of Pennsylvania were discussing computing theory. An argument ensued, in
which one professor yelled, "Any quack can build an electronic computer!
The real challenge is building one that doesn't crash every five minutes."

One graduate student, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., responded, "I'm any quack!
I'll take you up on that challenge. I'll build a device that can calculate
1,000 digits of pi in one hour... without crashing!" Several professors
laughed; "Such high-speed calculations are beyond our level of technology."

Eckert and his friends did build such a device. As a joke, he called the
machine "AnyQuack", which eventually became ENIAC -- ENIAC's Not Intended
As Crashware, the first known example of a self-referential acronym.
Brief History Of Linux (#13)
Wanted: Eunuchs programmers

Everything you know about the creation of the Unix operating system is
wrong. We have uncovered the truth: Unix was a conspiracy hatched by
Ritchie and Thompson to thwart the AT&T monopoly that they worked for. The
system, code-named EUNUCHS (Electronic UNtrustworthy User-Condemning
Horrible System), was horribly conceived, just as they had planned.

The OS, quickly renamed to a more respectable "Unix", was adopted first by
Ma Bell's Patent Department and then by the rest of the monopoly. AT&T saw
an inexpensive, multi-user, portable operating system that it had all
rights to; the authors, however, saw a horrible, multi-crashing system
that the Evil Ma Bell Empire would become hopelessly dependent on. AT&T
would go bankrupt trying to maintain the system and eventually collapse.

That didn't happen. Ritchie and Thompson were too talented to create a
crappy operating system; no matter how hard they tried the system was too
good. Their last ditch effort to sabotage the system by recoding it
obfuscated C was unsuccessful. Before long Unix spread outside of Bell
Labs and their conspiracy collapsed.
Brief History Of Linux (#14)
Military Intelligence: Not an oxymoron in 1969

It was the Department Of Defense that commissioned the ARPANET in 1969, a
rare example of the US military breaking away from its official motto,
"The Leading Edge Of Yesterday's Technology(tm)".

In the years leading up to 1969, packet switching technology had evolved
enough to make the ARPANET possible. Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.
received the ARPA contract in 1968 for packet switching "Interface Message
Processors". US Senator Edward Kennedy, always on the ball, sent a
telegram to BBN praising them for their non-denominational "Interfaith"
Message Processors, an act unsurpassed by elected representatives until Al
Gore invented the Internet years later.

While ARPANET started with only four nodes in 1969, it evolved rapidly.
Email was first used in 1971; by 1975 the first mailing list, MsgGroup,
was created by Steve Walker when he sent a "First post!"  messages to it.
In 1979 all productive use of ARPANET ceased when USENET and the first MUD
were created. In 1983, when the network surpassed 1,000 hosts, a study
showed that 90.4% of all traffic was devoted to email and USENET flame wars.
Brief History Of Linux (#15)
Too many hyphens: Traf-O-Data and Micro-soft

Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended an exclusive private school in Seattle.
In 1968, after raising $3,000 from a yard sale, they gained access to a
timeshare computer and became addicted. After depleting their money
learning BASIC and playing Solitaire, they convinced a company to give
them free computer time in exchange for reporting bugs -- ironically, an
early form of Open Source development!

The two then founded a small company called Traf-O-Data that collected and
analyzed traffic counts for municipalities using a crude device based on
the Intel "Pretanium" 8008 CPU. They had some success at first, but ran
into problems when they were unable to deliver their much hyped
next-generation device called "TrafficX". An engineer is quoted as saying
that "Traf-O-Data is the local leader in vaporware", the first documented
usage of the term that has come to be synonymous with Bill Gates.

Soon thereafter, the two developed their own BASIC interpreter, and sold
it to MITS for their new Altair computer. April 4, 1975 is the fateful day
that Micro-soft was founded in Albuquerque, NM as a language vendor.
Brief History Of Linux (#16)
Closed source, opened wallets

In 1976 Bill Gates wrote the famous letter to Altair hobbyists accusing
them of "stealing software" and "preventing good software from being
written". We must assume Bill's statement was true, because no good
software was being written at Micro-soft.

Bill Gates did not innovate the concept of charging megabucks for
software, but he was the first to make megabucks from peddling commercial
software.
Brief History Of Linux (#17)
If only Gary had been sober

When Micro-soft moved to Seattle in 1979, most of its revenue came from
sales of BASIC, a horrible language so dependant on GOTOs that spaghetti
looked more orderly than its code did. (BASIC has ruined more promising
programmers than anything else, prompting its original inventor Dartmouth
University to issue a public apology in 1986.)

However, by 1981 BASIC hit the backburner to what is now considered the
luckiest break in the history of computing: MS-DOS. (We use the term
"break" because MS-DOS was and always will be broken.) IBM was developing
a 16-bit "personal computer" and desperately needed an OS to drive it.

Their first choice was Gary Kildall's CP/M, but IBM never struck a deal
with him. We've discovered the true reason: Kildall was drunk at the time
the IBM representatives went to talk with him. A sober man would not have
insulted the reps, calling their employer an "Incredibly Bad Monopoly" and
referring to their new IBM-PC as an "Idealistically Backwards
Microcomputer for People without Clues". Needless to say, Gary "I Lost The
Deal Of The Century" Kildall was not sober.
Brief History Of Linux (#18)
There are lies, damned lies, and Microsoft brochures

Even from the very first day, the Microsoft Marketing Department was at
full throttle. Vaporware has always been their weapon of choice. Back when
MS-DOS 1.25 was released to OEMs, Microsoft handed out brochures touting
some of the features to be included in future versions, including:
Xenix-compatible pipes, process forks, multitasking, graphics and cursor
positioning, and multi-user support.

The brochure also stated, "MS-DOS has no practical limit on disk size.
MS-DOS uses 4-byte Xenix compatible pointers for file and disk capacity up
to 4 gigabytes." We would like to emphasize in true Dave Barry fashion
that we are not making this up.

Big vaporous plans were also in store for Microsoft's "Apple Killer"
graphical interface. In 1983 Microsoft innovated a new marketing ploy --
the rigged "smoke-and-mirrors" demo -- to showcase the "overlapping
windows" and "multitasking" features of Interface Manager, the predecessor
to Windows. These features never made it into Windows 1.0 -- which,
incidentally, was released 1.5 years behind schedule.
Brief History Of Linux (#20)
Linux is born

Linus' superhuman programming talent produced, within a year, a full
operating system that rivaled Minix. The first official announcement on
comp.os.minix came October 5th, in which Linus wrote these famous words:

   Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote
   their own device drivers? Do you want to cut your teeth on an operating
   system that will achieve world domination within 15 years? Want to get
   rich quick by the end of the century by taking money from hordes of
   venture capitalists and clueless Wall Street suits? Need to get even
   with Bill Gates but don't know what to do except throw cream pies at
   him? Then this post might just be for you :-)

Linux (which was known as "Lindows", "Freax", and "Billsux" for short
periods in 1991) hit the bigtime on January 5, 1992 (exactly one year
after Linus wasn't hit by a bus) when version 0.12 was released under the
GNU GPL. Linus called his creation a "better Minix than Minix"; the famous
Linus vs. Tanenbaum flamewar erupted soon thereafter on January 29th and
injured several Usenet bystanders.
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.
Anonymous Noncoward writes, "For my Economics 101 class, I have to pretend
to be Bill Gates and write an editorial defending Microsoft against
anti-trust charges, citing economic principles. To complete such an
assignment violates every moral fiber of my body. What should I do?"

The Oracle responds: Well, it seems that you have to make a decision among
two choices. You can blow off the assignment, thus forcing you to fail
EC101, lowering your GPA below the required minimum to keep your
scholarship, causing you to drop out of college and work at McDonalds all
your life. Or you can write a paper that's positive towards Microsoft and
make an 'A'. This seems like a no-brainer to me; I'd choose the first
option without hesitation -- a burger flipper has far more dignity and
self-respect than somebody who utters a positive statement about the Evil
Empire.
Look Out! It's Microsoft Outlook

An old maxim in the Unix community states, "All programs expand until they
can read mail... except Microsoft Outlook." Well, that's no longer true.
By taking advantage of loopholes in several undocumented APIs, a team of
geeks were able to transform Outlook from a virus-delivery system into an
actual mail client.

"It was quite a feat to accomplish this," said one of the geeks. "I mean,
the rat's nest that is the Windows API can be used to frighten small
children... or adults. And the frequency by which Outlook exploits are
discovered is directly proportional to the number of times Bill Gates uses
the word 'innovation'. But this is the first time somebody has discovered
a beneficial exploit."

Microsoft has vowed to release a patch to fix the uncovered security
flaws. "We simply cannot tolerate unauthorized reverse engineering and
hacking of our innovative solutions. Our Security Response Team will pull
an all-nighter to eliminate these known issues."
UNobfuscated Perl Code Contest

The Perl Gazette has announced the winners in the First Annual Unobfuscated
Perl Code Contest. First place went to Edwin Fuller, who submitted this
unobfuscated program:

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  print "Hello world!\n";

"This was definitely a challenging contest," said an ecstatic Edwin
Fuller. "I've never written a Perl program before that didn't have
hundreds of qw( $ @ % & * | ? / \ ! # ~ ) symbols. I really had to summon
all of my programming skills to produce an unobfuscated program."

...The second place winner, Mrs. Sea Pearl, submitted the following code:

  #!/usr/bin/perl
  use strict;
  # Do nothing, successfully
  exit(0);
Microsoft Fights Linux -- By Contributing Kernel Patches

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em... and then destory 'em. That seems to be the
new Microsoft strategy for dealing with Linux. Instead of fighting a FUD or
patent war, Microsoft operatives are doing something totally out of character:
they are contributing patches for the Linux kernel and other programs.

Don't worry, Microsoft is still evil. It's all part of a massive denial of
service attack against Linus Torvalds designed to bring kernel development to
a standstill. By sending over 10,000 patches per minute by email to Linus and
other top kernel hackers, Microsoft has exposed Linux's Achilles heel.

"I can't believe this is happening!" one stressed-out kernel hacker said at a
press conference on IRC. "If this goes on, we may have to conduct kernel
development over some other network protocol, like avian carriers... Aw crap,
there's smoke coming from my email server! Ahh... it can't handle the load!"
At this point the developer cut off and we haven't heard from him since.

At first Linus was unsure where the deluge of patches was coming from. But
when he saw one patch to replace kernel panics with bluescreens, the source
was pretty obvious. "Oh, and the fact that all of the patches are covered by
Microsoft's GPL [Grossly Private License] was a dead giveaway, too,"
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!
"Oops," Says MPAA President

Recently, the United States filed a legal brief in support of the MPAA's
argument that linking to the DeCSS source code is not protected by the
First Amendment.

At the time, the MPAA was ecstatic. But not any longer. The tables have
turned: the Federal government has filed a lawsuit against the movie
industry, arguing that many Hollywood-produced movies 'link' to illegal
content. The MPAA is now desperately wrapping itself up in the Bill of
Rights.

"Murder is illegal. Showing a murder in a movie -- or, rather, 'linking'
to it -- is also illegal," explained a spokesperson for the Coalition Of
Angry Soccer Moms In Support Of Brow-Beating Movie Industry Executives, an
interest group that has backed the government's lawsuit.
"...Earlier today a New York account executive was arrested for revealing
an account or description of a Yankees baseball game without the prior
written permission of Major League Baseball. The man has been turned over
to MLB's parent company, Nike Sports Monopoly, for sentencing at the Nike
SuperMax Prison in Albany..."

  -- Excerpt from a radio broadcast during the first day of the Month of
     Disney (formerly December), 2028
"...Smugglers were arrested at the Canadian border by Microsoft-FBI for
attempting to import copies of banned 'Linux' software. Such contraband is
prohibited by the 35th Amendment because it infringes on the inalienable
right of Microsoft to make money. Said one MS-FBI prosecutor, 'This is
just the latest salvo against Capitalism by the corporate terrorists in
Finland. We must put an end to these atrocities which irreperably harm
Microsoft employees, stockholders, customers, and ultimately the entire
world...'"

  -- Excerpt from a radio broadcast during the first day of the Month of
     Disney (formerly December), 2028
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. %
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
"Anyone can say 'no'. It is the first word a child learns and often the
first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no
explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for
intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of
thought on every occasion."
                -- Chuck Jones (Warner Bros. animation director.)
Are your glasses mended with a strip of masking tape right over your nose?
Do you put pennies in the slots in your penny loafers?
Does your bow-tie flash "hey you kid" in red neon at parties?
Do you think pizza before noon is unhealthy?
Do you use the "greasy kid's stuff" to stick down your cowlick?
Do you wear a "nerd-pack" in your shirt pocket to keep the dozen
        or so pencils from marking the cloth?
Do you think Mary Jane is somebody's name?
Is illegal fishing something only a daring criminal would do?
Is Batman your hero?  Superman?  Green Lantern?  The Shadow?
Do you think girls who kiss on the first date are loose?
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #2

        If at first you don't succeed, think how many people
        you've made happy.
History repeats itself -- the first time as a tragi-comedy, the second
time as bedroom farce.
History repeats itself only if one does not listen the first time.
Humility is the first of the virtues -- for other people.
                -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first.
It's amazing how many people you could be friends with if only they'd
make the first approach.
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin
Franklin said it first.
Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom.  The first is being a bore.
                -- Cecil Beaton
Such a fine first dream!
But they laughed at me; they said
I had made it up.
The truth about a man lies first and foremost in what he hides.
                -- Andre Malraux
Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime.
For a first offense, that is.
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity.  We are all formed
of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that
is the first law of nature.
                -- Voltaire
Whatever you want to do, you have to do something else first.
You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first
and last month in advance.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your
acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
                -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
/* First check any supplied i/o locations. User knows best. <cough> */

        - comment from drivers/net/ne.c
Bruno Avila wrote:
>        I can't find this anywhere. What is the version of the tools to
> compile linux kernel 0.0.0.1 (../Historic)? And where can i find them?  

Well, first you have to find a good source of obsidean, a couple of sharp
rocks, and some flint...

        - Alan Olsen on linux-kernel
This is probably the first and last time I will openly agree for someone
to tell me were to go, and do it ;-).

        - Andre Hedrick on linux-kernel
You can extend EXTRAVERSION infinitely, but after the first 10 or so
characters, it starts to get silly.

        - Russell King on linux-kernel
/*
* At first I thought these guys were on crack, but then I discovered the
* LART.
*/

        - comment from include/linux/mtd/cfi_endian.h
> The only idea is that 2.4.x kernel turns off cache (L1 & L2) on
> processor (on my cpu). How can I check it? Any ideas?

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

        - Alan Cox explaining the merits of ACPI on linux-kernel
Let's start with conslutants who kept pushing crap into said network.
And continue with those who had bred tons of worthless "certified"
wankers pretending to be sysadmins, driving the wages down and replacing
clued people with illiterate trash.  Getting rid of script kiddies is
nice, but fsckwits who are directly responsible for current situation
should be first against the wall.

        - Al Viro on virus attacks
That which shrinks
Must first expand.
That which fails
Must first be strong.
That which is cast down
Must first be raised.
Before receiving
There must be giving.

This is called perception of the nature of things.
Soft and weak overcome hard and strong.

Fish cannot leave deep waters,
And a country's weapons should not be displayed.
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.
Everyone under heaven says that my Tao is great and beyond compare.
Because it is great, it seems different.
If it were not different, it would have vanished long ago.

I have three treasures which I hold and keep.
The first is mercy; the second is economy;
The third is daring not to be ahead of others.
From mercy comes courage; from economy comes generosity;
From humility comes leadership.

Nowadays men shun mercy, but try to be brave;
They abandon economy, but try to be generous;
They do not believe in humility, but always try to be first.
This is certain death.

Mercy brings victory in battle and strength in defense.
It is the means by which heaven saves and guards.
There is a saying among soldiers:
  I dare not make the first move but would rather play the guest;
  I dare not advance an inch but would rather withdraw a foot.

This is called marching without appearing to move,
Rolling up your sleeves without showing your arm,
Capturing the enemy without attacking,
Being armed without weapons.

There is no greater catastrophe than underestimating the enemy.
By underestimating the enemy, I almost lost what I value.

Therefore when the battle is joined,
The underdog will win.
        A young married couple had their first child.  Their original pride
and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the
child had never uttered any form of speech.  They hired the best speech
therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail.  The child simply refused
to speak.  One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading
the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from
his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold."
        The couple is stunned.  The man, in tears, confronts his son.  "Son,
after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?".
        Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now".
        After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient
earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several
minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help.
        "No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a
name for my baby."
        "But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds
of first names and their meanings," said the orderly.
        "That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first name."
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling
the walk before it stops snowing.
                -- Phyllis Diller

There is no need to do any housework at all.  After the first four years
the dirt doesn't get any worse.
                -- Quentin Crisp
My ritual differs slightly.  What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I
hop into the shower stall.  Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped
in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot
character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off
of while he showers.  Then I hop right back into the stall because our dog,
Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up powerful
dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the bathroom and wants
to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any one of which -- bear
in mind that I am naked and, without my contact lenses, essentially blind
-- could result in the kind of injury where you have to learn a whole new
part if you want to sing the "Messiah," if you get my drift.  Then I hop
right back out, because Robert, with that uncanny sixth sense some children
have -- you cannot teach it; they either have it or they don't -- has chosen
exactly that moment to flush one of the toilets.  Perhaps several of them.
                -- Dave Barry
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half
by our children.
                -- Clarence Darrow
* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the
  splits in the first place...
* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress
<sel> need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-(
<netgod> sel:  dont send the first one, start with #2
While the year 2000 (y2k) problem is not an issue for us, all Linux
implementations will impacted by the year 2038 (y2.038k) issue. The
Debian Project is committed to working with the industry on this issue
and we will have our full plans and strategy posted by the first quarter
of 2020.
"I wonder if this is the first constitution in the history of mankind
where you have to calculate a square root to determine if a motion
passes.  :-)"
        -- Seen on Slashdot
First off - Quake is simply incredible. It lets you repeatedly kill your
boss in the office without being arrested. :)
        -- Signal 11, in a slashdot comment
<Espy_on_crack> "I installed 'Linux 6.1', doesn't that make me a unix
                guru?"
<BenC> Espy_on_crack: no, you have to install it twice before you are a
       guru...once to prove you can do it, the second to fix the things
       your broke the first time
<Espy_on_crack> oh right, how silly of me
<raptor> Adamel, i think the code you fixed of mine didn't work
<raptor> i must not have commited the working code
<Knghtbrd> raptor: like it's the first time THAT has ever happened  =p
I am practicing a fine point of ethics.  It is acceptable to shoot back.
It is not acceptable to shoot first.
        -- Zed Pobre
"Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my "gold standard", and it has been quite a
while since I have had to report a problem to them, and even their brand
new extensions work as documented the first time I try them.  When I have
a problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault.  With anyone else's
drivers, I assume it is their fault.  This has turned out correct almost
all the time."
        -- John Carmack
        A grade school teacher was asking students what their parents did
for a living.  "Tim, you be first," she said.  "What does your mother do
all day?"
        Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."
        "That's wonderful.  How about you, Amie?"
        Amie shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a
mailman."
        "Thank you, Amie," said the teacher.  "What about your father, Billy?"
        Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a
whorehouse."
        The teacher was aghast and promptly changed the subject to geography.
Later that day she went to Billy's house and rang the bell.  Billy's father
answered the door.  The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded
an explanation.
        Billy's father replied, "Well, I'm really an attorney.  But how do
you explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old child?"
A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater.
An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder.
"Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into
a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border.  Just north of Tijuana a cop
spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase.  Now, I would like to stress
that my client is *___not* a murderer.  A sloppy packer, maybe..."
Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with
little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives.
                -- Roy G. Blount, Jr.
First there was Dial-A-Prayer, then Dial-A-Recipe, and even Dial-A-Footballer.
But the south-east Victorian town of Sale has produced one to top them all.
Dial-A-Wombat.
        It all began early yesterday when Sale police received a telephone
call: "You won't believe this, and I'm not drunk, but there's a wombat in the
phone booth outside the town hall," the caller said.
        Not firmly convinced about the caller's claim to sobriety, members of
the constabulary drove to the scene, expecting to pick up a drunk.
        But there it was, an annoyed wombat, trapped in a telephone booth.
        The wombat, determined not to be had the better of again, threw its
bulk into the fray. It was eventually lassoed and released in a nearby scrub.
        Then the officers received another message ... another wombat in
another phone booth.
        There it was: *Another* angry wombat trapped in a telephone booth.
        The constables took the miffed marsupial into temporary custody and
released it, too, in the scrub.
        But on their way back to the station they happened to pass another
telephone booth, and -- you guessed it -- another imprisoned wombat.
        After some serious detective work, the lads in blue found a suspect,
and after questioning, released him to be charged on summons.
        Their problem ... they cannot find a law against placing wombats in
telephone booths.
                -- "Newcastle Morning Herald", NSW Australia, Aug 1980.
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41:

Q:  Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
A:  By death.
Q:  And by whose death was it terminated?
Humor in the Court:
Q.  What is your brother-in-law's name?
A.  Borofkin.
Q.  What's his first name?
A.  I can't remember.
Q.  He's been your brother-in-law for years, and you can't remember his first
    name?
A.  No.  I tell you I'm too excited. (Rising from the witness chair and
    pointing to Mr. Borofkin.) Nathan, for God's sake, tell them your first
    name!
I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals.  I
don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected
with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger,
the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier
in the summer.
                -- Brendan Behan
        In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to
his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's
kill all the lawyers."  That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment
was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc.
Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News,
Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess
of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts.  Lawyers
and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure
out how the pie gets divided.  Neither profession provides any added value
to product."
        According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has
10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population.  The U.S. has 200
lawyers and 700 accountants.  This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of
pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack."  Could Dick Butcher have
been an efficiency expert?
                -- Motor Trend, May 1983
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"
When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm
yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him.

Step number 3 is of particular importance.  If you leave the guy alive
out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay your generosity of spirit
by suing you for causing his subsequent paraplegia and seek to force you
to support him for the rest of his rotten life.  In court he will plead
that he was depressed because society had failed him, and that he was
looking for Mother Teresa for comfort and to offer his services to the
poor.  In that lawsuit, you will lose.  If, on the other hand, you kill
him, the most that you can expect is that a relative will bring a wrongful
death action. You will have two advantages: first, there be only your
story; forget Mother Teresa.  Second, even if you lose, how much could
the bum's life be worth anyway?  A Lot less than 50 years worth of
paralysis.  Don't play George Bush and Saddam Hussein.  Finish the job.
        -- G. Gordon Liddy's "Forbes" column on personal security
Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have
more lawyers?

New Jersey had first choice.
... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality and remembers
words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first.
                -- Bertolt Brecht
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
                -- Voltaire
In order to discover who you are, first learn who everybody else is;
you're what's left.
Indeed, the first noble truth of Buddhism, usually translated as
`all life is suffering,' is more accurately rendered `life is filled
with a sense of pervasive unsatisfactoriness.'
                -- M.D. Epstein
        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"
Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to serve
him.  Nasrudin said, "First things first.  Did you see me walk into your
shop?"
        "Of course."
        "Have you ever seen me before?"
        "Never."
        "Then how do you know it was me?"
Nothing is as simple as it seems at first
        Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle
                Or as finished as it seems in the end.
One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell the
truth.  A gallows was erected in front of the city gates.  A herald announced,
"Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to a question
which will be put to him."  Nasrudin was first in line.  The captain of the
guard asked him, "Where are you going?  Tell the truth -- the alternative
is death by hanging."
        "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows."
        "I don't believe you."
        "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!"
        "But that would make it the truth!"
        "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."
Remember, Grasshopper, falling down 1000 stairs begins by tripping over
the first one.
                -- Confusion
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
                -- A. Camus
The first requisite for immortality is death.
                -- Stanislaw Lem
To give of yourself, you must first know yourself.
Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate.  The first man said,
"This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The second man said,
"He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his chambers, and spent an hour
trying to bite his own ear.  He succeeded only in falling over and bruising
his forehead.  Returning to the courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the
man whose ear was bitten. If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and
the case is dismissed.  If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it
and must pay three silver pieces."
The first rule of all intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts.
                -- Aldo Leopold, quoted in Donald Wurster's "Nature's Economy"
I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than
first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then
I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')
        -- Olaf Kirch
> You know you are "there" when you are known by your first name, and
> are recognized.
> Lemmie see, there is Madonna, and Linus, and ..... help me out here!
Bill ? ;-)
        -- From some postings on comp.os.linux.misc
> What does ELF stand for (in respect to Linux?)
ELF is the first rock group that Ronnie James Dio performed with back in
the early 1970's.  In constrast, a.out is a misspelling         of the French word
for the month of August.  What the two have in common is beyond me, but
Linux users seem to use the two words together.
        -- seen on c.o.l.misc
The most important design issue... is the fact that Linux is supposed to
be fun...
        -- Linus Torvalds at the First Dutch International Symposium on Linux
Whoa, first contact!

[...]

Welcome, from the people of Terra (Sol III). We extend our hands in
friendship, and sincerely hope you shall do the same with your
hand-equivelents.
        -- Jason Burrell about a russian posting
> Whoa, first contact!

Nope, 'fraid not, Linux is still primarily used on planet Earth, I'm
afraid.

Our friend here sent a message in Russian (KOI8-R encoding).
        -- Aleksey Kliger, explaining a russian posting
>    What is the status of Linux' Unicode implementation. Will Linux
>    be prepared for the first contact?

We have full klingon console support just in case
        -- Alan Cox on linux-kernel
* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits in the first place...
* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress
        -- Seen on #Debian
<sel> need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-(
<netgod> sel:  dont send the first one, start with #2
* netgod is kidding
Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
        (1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
        (2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
        (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
            first two laws.
The first is to ensure your partner understands that nature has root
privileges - nature doesn't have to make sense.
        -- Telsa Gwynne
Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
great effort pushing boulders into a single word.

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

It stands today, a monument to human spirit.  If life exists on other
planets, this may be the first message received from us.
                -- The Realist, November, 1964.
But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a
brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and
lived in New Jersey.  Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the
phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where
it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented.  But Edison's
greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company.
Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit:
the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then
immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is
the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of
electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few
customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the
last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937;
the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is
why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases.
                -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
Human resources are human first, and resources second.
                -- J. Garbers
If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.
In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper.  The
creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.
In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it.
In the middle of a wide field is a pot of gold.  100 feet to the north stands
a smart manager.  100 feet to the south stands a dumb manager.  100 feet to
the east is the Easter Bunny, and 100 feet to the west is Santa Claus.

Q:        Who gets to the pot of gold first?
A:        The dumb manager.  All the rest are myths.
Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a
number.  Youre two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash and
another number.
                -- James Estes
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"
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first
overcome.
                -- Dr. Johnson
        One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus,
and drove off along the route.  No problems for the first few stops -- a few
people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.  At the next
stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on.  Six feet eight, built like a
wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground.  He glared at the driver and said,
"Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back.
        Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically
meek?  Well, he was.  Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't
happy about it.  Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on
again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down.  And the next day, and the
one after that, and so forth.  This grated on the bus driver, who started
losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.  Finally he
could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo,
and all that good stuff.  By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong;
what's more, he felt really good about himself.
        So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus
and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the
passenger, and screamed, "And why not?"
        With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a
bus pass."
One possible reason that things aren't going according to plan
is that there never was a plan in the first place.
The departing division general manager met a last time with his young
successor and gave him three envelopes.  "My predecessor did this for me,
and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said.  "At the first sign
of trouble, open the first envelope.  Any further difficulties, open the
second envelope.  Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope.
Good luck."  The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes
into a drawer.
        Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the
young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me."
        The next day, he held a press conference and did just that.  The
crisis passed.
        Six months later, sales dropped precipitously.  The beleagured
manager opened the second envelope.  It said, "Reorganize."
        He held another press conference, announcing that the division
would be restructured.  The crisis passed.
        A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was
blamed for all of it.  The harried executive closed his office door, sank
into his chair, and opened the third envelope.
        "Prepare three envelopes..." it said.
The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time, the last 10% takes the
other 90% of the time.
The first myth of management is that it exists.  The second myth of
management is that success equals skill.
                -- Robert Heller
The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack."
                -- H.L. Mencken
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
                -- Paul Erlich
The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be
able to correct them.
                -- Nicolaides
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
appreciates how difficult it was.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near
the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people
to do so.
                -- Bertrand Russell
:       I've tried (in vi) "g/[a-z]\n[a-z]/s//_/"...but that doesn't
: cut it.  Any ideas?  (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution).
In the first pass, install perl. :-)
             -- Larry Wall <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords?  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
His heart was yours from the first moment that you met.
Let us live!!!
Let us love!!!
Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!

You first.
Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
world has ever seen.
The magic of our first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.
                -- Benjamin Disraeli
We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack.
                -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach
First, I'm going to give you all the ANSWERS to today's test ...  So
just plug in your SONY WALKMANS and relax!!
GOOD-NIGHT, everybody ... Now I have to go administer FIRST-AID to my
pet LEISURE SUIT!!
I can't decide which WRONG TURN to make first!!  I wonder if BOB
GUCCIONE has these problems!
OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS??  Oh, YEH!!  First you need four GALLONS of JELL-O
and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if
it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S
the WASHING MACHINES?
"How do you know she is a unicorn?" Molly demanded.  "And why were you afraid
to let her touch you?  I saw you.  You were afraid of her."
        "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long," the cat
replied without rancor.  "I would not waste time in foolishness if I were
you.  As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be
deceived by appearances.  Unlike human beings, who enjoy them.  As for your
second question --"  Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested
in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then
licked himself smooth again.  Even then he would not look at Molly, but
examined his claws.
        "If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been
hers and not my own, not ever again."
                -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
"The first rule of magic is simple.  Don't waste your time waving your
hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do."
                -- McCloctnik the Lucid
His ideas of first-aid stopped short of squirting soda water.
                -- P.G. Wodehouse
The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard to
deal with: death.
                -- Michael Phelps
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"
        "Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn.  Evelyn, will
you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the
psycho-prompter couch?"
        "Thank you, Red."
        "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing
your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior
pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem."
        "Yes, Red."
        "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy
repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times.  Now,
at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off
your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900.  Now, any combination of
two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive
projections will put you out of the game.  Are you willing to go ahead?"
        "Yes, Red."
        "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have
been checked for accuracy with her analyst.  Now, Evelyn, for $80,000
explain the failure of your three marriages."
        "Well, I--"
        "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute.  First a word about our
product."
                -- Jules Feiffer
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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