team : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. -- Michael Winner, British film director
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine"
Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. - Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Futhermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. - Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. - Indiana University fans' chant for their perennially bad football team
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_
A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? -- Tom Galloway
A mathematician, a doctor, and an engineer are walking on the beach and observe a team of lifeguards pumping the stomach of a drowned woman. As they watch, water, sand, snails and such come out of the pump. The doctor watches for a while and says: "Keep pumping, men, you may yet save her!!" The mathematician does some calculations and says: "According to my understanding of the size of that pump, you have already pumped more water from her body than could be contained in a cylinder 4 feet in diameter and 6 feet high." The engineer says: "I think she's sitting in a puddle."
In high school in Brooklyn I was the baseball manager, proud as I could be I chased baseballs, gathered thrown bats handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own It was very important work but it was dark blue while for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything When the team got to me about my blue jacket; their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket got these jackets, and among all those green ones surely not a manager Even now, forty years after, I still recall that jacket and the memory goes on hurting. -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"
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"
If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good attitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to playing the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win -- unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager can make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry? -- Sparky Anderson
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"
Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out in case of emergency. As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging over from, say, right field, to deal with it. She's been on the team for three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her. They know, deep in their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without ever considering whether there were men on base. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
The fellow sat down at a bar, ordered a drink and asked the bartender if he wanted to hear a dumb-jock joke. "Hey, buddy," the bartender replied, "you see those two guys next to you? They used to be with the Chicago Bears. The two dudes behind you made the U.S. Olympic wrestling team. And for your information, I used to play center at Notre Dame." "Forget it," the customer said. "I don't want to explain it five times."
"He expanded his chest to make it totally clear that here was the sort of man you only dared to cross if you had a team of Sherpas with you. "
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If... 1. When a Microsoft program crashes for the millionth time, you say "Oh, well!" and reboot without any negative thoughts 2. The Windows 95 startup screen (the clouds) makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside 3. You fully understand why Windows 95's Shutdown Option has to be accessed from the Start Menu 4. You believe Internet Explorer's security flaws were slipped in by a crack team of Netscape programmers 5. You keep valuable papers near your fireplace. Therefore, you are comfortable with Windows 95's "may-delete-it-at-anytime" philosophy 6. You're the Bob that Microsoft Bob was named after 7. Instead of "I'd rather be fishing," your bumper sticker says, "I'd rather be writing buggy Microsoft code" 8. You know the technical difference between OLE 1.0 and OLE 2.0 9. You've ever completed your income taxes while waiting for Windows 95 to boot, and didn't think anything of it 10. You run Solitaire more than any other program, and therefore you consider your computer a Dedicated Solitaire Engine (DSE)
Microsoft ActivePromo Campaign: "Match Vaporware & Win!" Microsoft's PR masterminds are planning a massive marketing campaign, code-named "ActivePromo 2000", to promote the upcoming release of Windows 2000 (scheduled for February 2001). This marketing campaign will include a "Match Vaporware & Win!" promotion. Microsoft will team up with a major fast-food chain (McDonalds, probably, since it has the largest market share, but Burger King is another possibility) for a special Windows 2000 promotion. With every combo meal purchase, the customer will receive a game token containing a date on it. If the official release of Windows 2000 is on that date, the customer can redeem the token for a variety of prizes -- ranging from a "lifetime supply" of Windows upgrades, to 25,000 shares of Microsoft stock.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#14) Customers who want to upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition must now fill out a Microsoft survey online before they can order the bugfix/upgrade. Question 14: How would you rate the performance of the Microsoft defense team in the antitrust trial? A. Perfect; they have clearly shown that Microsoft's market leading position is good for consumers. B. Outstanding; all of the pundits who are predicting that Microsoft will lose are a bunch of idiots. C. Excellent; Bill Gates' wonderful video deposition clearly demonstrated to the American public that he is a true visionary. D. I don't know; I haven't been paying any attention to the case because I know Microsoft will prevail anyways.
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.
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."
Life is like bein' on a mule team. Unless you're the lead mule, all the scenery looks about the same.
You know you're in trouble when... (1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind her own business. (2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better. (3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold. (4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office. (5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles. (6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to flush a grapefruit down the toilet. (7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box.
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.
<elmo> unclean: err, the admin team do not control the archive, that's the ftp cabal <elmo> get your cabals right, damn it :-P
Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, please? I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds
The entire CHINESE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM all share ONE personality -- and have since BIRTH!!