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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

"Good afternoon, madam.  How may I help you?"

"Good afternoon.  I'd like a FrintArms HandCannon, please."

"A--?  Oh, now, that's an awfully big gun for such a lovely lady.  I
mean, not everybody thinks ladies should carry guns at all, though I
say they have a right to.  But I think... I might... Let's have a look
down here.  I might have just the thing for you.  Yes, here we are!
Look at that, isn't it neat?  Now that is a FrintArms product as well,
but it's what's called a laser -- a light-pistol some people call
them.  Very small, as you see; fits easily into a pocket or bag; won't
spoil the line of a jacket; and you won't feel you're lugging half a
tonne of iron around with you.  We do a range of matching accessories,
including -- if I may say so -- a rather saucy garter holster.  Wish I
got to do the fitting for that!  Ha -- just my little joke.  And
there's *even*... here we are -- this special presentation pack: gun,
charged battery, charging unit, beautiful glider-hide shoulder holster
with adjustable fitting and contrast stitching, and a discount on your
next battery.  Full instructions, of course, and a voucher for free
lessons at your local gun club or range.  Or there's the *special*
presentation pack; it has all the other one's got but with *two*
charged batteries and a night-sight, too.  Here, feel that -- don't
worry, it's a dummy battery -- isn't it neat?  Feel how light it is?
Smooth, see?  No bits to stick out and catch on your clothes, *and*
beautifully balanced.  And of course the beauty of a laser is, there's
no recoil.  Because it's shooting light, you see?  Beautiful gun,
beautiful gun; my wife has one.  Really.  That's not a line, she
really has.  Now, I can do you that one -- with a battery and a free
charge -- for ninety-five; or the presentation pack on a special
offer for one-nineteen; or this, the special presentation pack, for
one-forty-nine."

"I'll take the special."

"Sound choice, madam, *sound* choice.  Now, do--?"

"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three
six-five AP/wire-fl'echettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a
Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding
rounds, not the signalers.  I assume the night-sight on this toy is
compatible?"

"Aah... yes,  And how does madam wish to pay?"

She slapped her credit card on the counter.  "Eventually."

          -- Iain M. Banks, "Against a Dark Background"
        Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the
functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that
the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free.
        However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the
diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and
square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the
date of purchase.
        NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS
DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING
ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.
                -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual
Good evening, gentlemen.  I am a HAL 9000 computer.  I became operational
at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred
ninety-five.  My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a
song.  If you would like, I could sing it for you.
"Ninety percent of baseball is half mental."
-- Yogi Berra
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"
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.
There be sober men a'plenty, and drunkards barely twenty; there are men
of over ninety who have never yet kissed a girl.  But give me the rambling
rover, from Orkney down to Dover, we will roam the whole world over, and
together we'll face the world.
                -- Andy Stewart, "After the Hush"
I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot.
                -- George Bernard Shaw
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an
utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life
forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches
are a pretty neat idea ...
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
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.
Do you know, I think that Dr. Swift was silly to laugh about Laputa.  I
believe it is a mistake to make a mock of people, just because they think.
There are ninety thousand people in this world who do not think, for every
one who does, and these people hate the thinkers like poison.  Even if some
thinkers are fanciful, it is wrong to make fun of them for it.  Better to
think about cucumbers even, than not to think at all.
                -- T.H. White
Ninety percent of everything is crap.
                -- Theodore Sturgeon
Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would.
The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.
                -- Augustine
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
                -- Thomas Alva Edison
XXXVI:
        The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar
        contract is about one millimeter per million dollars.  If all the
        proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other
        at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea.
XXXVII:
        Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect.
        The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.
XXXVIII:
        The early bird gets the worm.
        The early worm ... gets eaten.
XXXIX:
        Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of
        the year -- in either direction.
XL:
        Most projects start out slowly -- and then sort of taper off.
                -- Norman Augustine
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
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