Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again. | |
Q: Why is it that Mexico isn't sending anyone to the '84 summer games? A: Anyone in Mexico who can run, swim or jump is already in LA. | |
I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway. -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Knoxville | |
Visit[1] the beautiful Smoky Mountains! [1] visit, v.: Come for a week, spend too much money and pay lots of hidden taxes, then leave. We'll be happy to see your money again next year. You can save time by simply sending the money, if you're too busy. | |
A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 | |
Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is not worth sending. | |
World Domination, One CPU Cycle At A Time Forget about searching for alien signals or prime numbers. The real distributed computing application is "Domination@World", a program to advocate Linux and Apache to every website in the world that uses Windows and IIS. The goal of the project is to probe every IP number to determine what kind of platform each Net-connected machine is running. "That's a tall order... we need lots of computers running our Domination@World clients to help probe every nook and cranny of the Net," explained Mr. Zell Litt, the project head. After the probing is complete, the second phase calls for the data to be cross-referenced with the InterNIC whois database. "This way we'll have the names, addresses, and phone numbers for every Windows-using system administrator on the planet," Zell gloated. "That's when the fun begins." The "fun" part involves LART (Linux Advocacy & Re-education Training), a plan for extreme advocacy. As part of LART, each Linux User Group will receive a list of the Windows-using weenies in their region. The LUG will then be able to employ various advocacy techniques, ranging from a soft-sell approach (sending the target a free Linux CD in the mail) all the way to "LARTcon 5" (cracking into their system and forcibly installing Linux). | |
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," | |
All we know is the phenomenon: we spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives." -- Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell" | |
"I want you guys to look at your computer screen, imagining the worst monster you can (the cacodeamon from Quake will do, just make him hairier and bigger and more MEAN), and think of me. Think of me like I am when I see a patch which isn't a pure bug-fix. If you're whimpering just _thinking_ about sending me a new feature, you're in the right mindframe. Keep that mindframe." - Linus Torvalds | |
Alan Olsen wrote: > things correctly they have enhanced Wake-on-LAN to allow you to do > things like reset the machine, update the BIOS and such by sending > magic packets which are interpreted by the network card. Or maybe I am Normally 'sending magic packets resets the machine' is considered a feature reported to bugtraq. The alert stuff I have seen is more akin to sending SNMP traps for things like people opening the lid, or fan failure - Alan Cox on linux-kernel | |
Re-sending is always the right thing to do. Sometimes it takes a few times, and you can add a small exasperated message at the top by the third time ("Don't you love me any more?"). - Linus Torvalds about sending patches to him | |
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Are you sure you're telling the truth? Think hard. Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave? If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too? Do you feel bad? How do you think I feel? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Don't you know any better? How could you be so stupid? If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful. You can't fool me. I know what you're thinking. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. | |
Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words. fee fie foe foo [sic] -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org> | |
Eight was also the Number of Bel-Shamharoth, which was why a sensible wizard would never mention the number if he could avoid it. Or you'll be eight alive, apprentices were jocularly warned. Bel-Shamharoth was especially attracted to dabblers in magic who, by being as it were beachcombers on the shores of the unnatural, were already half-enmeshed in his nets. Rincewind's room number in his hall of residence had been 7a. He hadn't been surprised. -- Terry Pratchett, "The Sending of Eight" |