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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was
replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more
advanced than the lichen family.
                -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but
television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and
world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers
whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath.
                -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever
depths they were once able to plumb.
                -- Stanley Kaufman
I had another dream the other day about music critics.  They were small
and rodent-like with padlocked ears, as if they had stepped out of a
painting by Goya.
                -- Stravinsky
I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they
could do was to go away.
I went to a Grateful Dead Concert and they played for SEVEN hours.  Great song.
                -- Fred Reuss
I'll be Grateful when they're Dead.
  I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of
     its situation.
        Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland.  He
        loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to
        look down.  At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per
        second per second takes over.
II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter
     intervenes suddenly.
        Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon
        characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone
        pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely.
        Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the
        stooge's surcease.
III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation
     conforming to its perimeter.
        Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the
        speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless
        cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through
        the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole.  The
        threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.
                -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980
If an average person on the subway turns to you, like an ancient mariner,
and starts telling you her tale, you turn away or nod and hope she stops,
not just because you fear she might be crazy.  If she tells her tale on
camera, you might listen.  Watching strangers on television , even
responding to them from a studio audience, we're disengaged -- voyeurs
collaborating with exhibitionists in rituals of sham community.  Never
have so many known so much about people for whom they cared so little.
                -- Wendy Kaminer commenting on testimonial television
                   in "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional".
In the Old West a wagon train is crossing the plains.  As night falls the
wagon train forms a circle, and a campfire is lit in the middle.  After
everyone has gone to sleep two lone cavalry officers stand watch over the
camp.
        After several hours of quiet, they hear war drums starting from
a nearby Indian village they had passed during the day.  The drums get
louder and louder.
        Finally one soldier turns to the other and says, "I don't like
the sound of those drums."
        Suddenly, they hear a cry come from the Indian camp:  "IT'S
NOT OUR REGULAR DRUMMER."
It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater.  The clown came
out to inform the public.  They thought it was just a jest and applauded.
He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder.  So I think the world
will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe
that it is a joke.
It proves what they say, give the public what they want to see and
they'll come out for it.
                -- Red Skelton, surveying the funeral of Hollywood mogul
                   Harry Cohn
Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of
blue denim.  If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys
like mine instead of this awful, boring blue denim.  I don't enjoy the sky
or sea as much as I used to because of this Levi character.  If Jesus Christ
came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the
nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim.  Then we'd get
crucified in the morning.
                -- Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull
        Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she
lived with was made up of idiots.  Remember?  One of them was always
getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to
the farmhouse to alert the other ones.  She'd whimper and tug at their
sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do
you think something's wrong?  Do you think she wants us to follow her?
What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead
of every week.  What with all the time these people spent pinned under
the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever.
They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the
applications for.
                -- Dave Barry
        Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and
tries to hide behind a beard.  No good.  There are still too many people
and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking.  He moves to the
outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap,
caretaker included.  He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants,
day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored.
        Nobody's cut the grass in months.  What's happened to that caretaker?
What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are
start to get curious.  A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper.
Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared.  The senior
class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a
movie one night and stays out.  The town's up in arms, but just before the
police take action, the kids turn up.  They've found a purpose.  They go
home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going
now.  They're in a band.
                -- Ira Kaplan
Many of the characters are fools and they are always playing
tricks on me and treating me badly.
                -- Jorge Luis Borges, from "Writers on Writing" by Jon Winokur
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade
themselves that they have a better idea.
                -- John Ciardi
Mr. Rockford?  This is Betty Joe Withers.  I got four shirts of yours from
the Bo Peep Cleaners by mistake.  I don't know why they gave me men's
shirts but they're going back.
                -- "The Rockford Files"
No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of
them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe
their wish has been granted.
                -- W.H. Auden, "The Dyer's Hand"
        "Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out
of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on
urban crime.  Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will
put you through to our central base in Atlanta.  Go ahead, call -- they'll
confirm who I am.
        "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it."
                -- Captain Freedom
Old musicians never die, they just decompose.
People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to
amuse them.
                -- S. Johnson
Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia
because they were liars.  The truth was that Plato knew philosophers
couldn't compete successfully with poets.
                -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer), "Venus on the Half Shell"
Plots are like girdles.  Hidden, they hold your interest; revealed, they're
of no interest except to fetishists. Like girdles, they attempt to contain
an uncontainable experience.
                -- R.S. Knapp
So do the noble fall.  For they are ever caught in a trap of their own making.
A trap -- walled by duty, and locked by reality.  Against the greater force
they must fall -- for, against that force they fight because of duty, because
of obligations.  And when the noble fall, the base remain.  The base -- whose
only purpose is the corruption of what the noble did protect.  Whose only
purpose is to destroy.  The noble: who, even when fallen, retain a vestige of
strength.  For theirs is a strength born of things other than mere force.
Theirs is a strength supreme... theirs is the strength -- to restore.
                -- Gerry Conway, "Thor", #193
        So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve.  Richard and I were inching toward
it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
        Many people would have panicked at this point.  But Richard and
I were not "many people."  We were experienced waders, and we kept our
heads.  We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
our feet never once went below the surface of the water.  We ran all
the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
Some men who fear that they are playing second fiddle aren't in the
band at all.
Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when
you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even worse.
                -- Avery
        The big problem with pornography is defining it.  You can't just
say it's pictures of people naked.  For example, you have these
primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot,
and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal
saying goes: "N'wam k'honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think
you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same
time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of
Northern Mali that you may be interested in."
        So it's not considered pornographic when National Geographic
publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest
naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason
naked, or whatever.  But if National Geographic were to publish an
article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System
Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography.  But
others would not.  And still others, such as the Spectacularly Rev.
Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked.
                -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
The Great Movie Posters:

Different! Daring! Dynamic! Defying! Dumbfounding!
SEE Uncle Tom lead the Negroes to FREEDOM!
... Now, all the SENSUAL and VIOLENT passions Roots couldn't show on TV!
                -- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1972)

An appalling amalgam of carnage and carnality!
                -- Flesh and Blood Show (1973)

WHEN THE CATS ARE HUNGRY...
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
Alone, only a harmless pet...
        One Thousand Strong, They Become a Man-Eating Machine!
                -- The Night of a Thousand Cats (1972)

They're Over-Exposed
But Not Under-Developed!
                -- Cover Girl Models (1976)
The Great Movie Posters:

HOT STEEL BETWEEN THEIR LEGS!
                -- The Cycle Savages (1969)

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle...   Has no Flesh on It!
                -- Who Slew Auntie Roo? (1971)

TWO GREAT BLOOD HORRORS TO RIP OUT YOUR GUTS!
                -- I Eat Your Skin & I Drink Your Blood (1971 double-bill)

They Went In People and Came Out Hamburger!
                -- The Corpse Grinders (1971)
The Great Movie Posters:

They hungered for her treasure!  And died for her pleasure!
SEE Man-Fish Battle Shark-Man-Killer!
                -- The Golden Mistress (1954)

See Jane Russell in 3-D; She'll Knock Both Your Eyes Out!
                -- The French Line (1954)

See Jane Russell Shake Her Tamborines... and Drive Cornel WILDE!
                -- Hot Blood (1956)
The Great Movie Posters:

When You're Six Tons -- And They Call You Killer -- It's Hard To Make Friends...
                -- Namu, the Killer Whale (1966)

Meet the Girls with the Thermo-Nuclear Navels!
                -- Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966)

A GHASTLY TALE DRENCHED WITH GOUTS OF BLOOD SPURTING FROM THE VICTIMS
OF A CRAZED MADMAN'S LUST.
                -- A Taste of Blood (1967)
There are three rules for writing a novel.  Unfortunately, no one knows
what they are.
                -- Somerset Maugham
There are two jazz musicians who are great buddies.  They hang out and play
together for years, virtually inseparable.  Unfortunately, one of them is
struck by a truck and killed.  About a week later his friend wakes up in
the middle of the night with a start because he can feel a presence in the
room.  He calls out, "Who's there?  Who's there?  What's going on?"
        "It's me -- Bob," replies a faraway voice.
        Excitedly he sits up in bed.  "Bob!  Bob!  Is that you?  Where are
you?"
        "Well," says the voice, "I'm in heaven now."
        "Heaven!  You're in heaven!  That's wonderful!  What's it like?"
        "It's great, man.  I gotta tell you, I'm jamming up here every day.
I'm playing with Bird, and 'Trane, and Count Basie drops in all the time!
Man it is smokin'!"
        "Oh, wow!" says his friend. "That sounds fantastic, tell me more,
tell me more!"
        "Let me put it this way," continues the voice.  "There's good news
and bad news.  The good news is that these guys are in top form.  I mean
I have *never* heard them sound better.  They are *wailing* up here."
        "The bad news is that God has this girlfriend that sings..."
They can't stop us... we're on a mission from God!
                -- The Blues Brothers
VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel
      entrances; others cannot.
        This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least
        it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to
        trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical
        space.  The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to
        follow into the painting.  This is ultimately a problem of art, not
        of science.
VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
        Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives
        might comfortably afford.  They can be decimated, spliced, splayed,
        accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be
        destroyed.  After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate,
        elongate, snap back, or solidify.
  IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
        This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to
        the physical world at large.  For that reason, we need the relief of
        watching it happen to a duck instead.
   X. Everything falls faster than an anvil.
        Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons.
                -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980
We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which
people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products.
Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spirtual
and emotional feelings.  It might taste good or clever, but in the long run,
it's not going to do anything for you.
                -- Bob Dylan, "LA Times", September 5, 1984
"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
technology.  Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."
Everyone *knows* cats are on a higher level of existence.  These silly humans
are just to big-headed to admit their inferiority.
        Just think what a nicer world this would be if it were controlled by
cats.
        You wouldn't see cats having waste disposal problems.
        They're neat.
        They don't have sexual hangups.  A cat gets horny, it does something
about it.
        They keep reasonable hours.  You *never* see a cat up before noon.
        They know how to relax.  Ever heard of a cat with an ulcer?  
        What are the chances of a cat starting a nuclear war?  Pretty neglible.
It's not that they can't, they just know that there are much better things to
do with ones time.  Like lie in the sun and sleep.  Or go exploring the world.
I loathe people who keep dogs.  They are cowards who haven't got the guts
to bite people themselves.
                -- August Strindberg
The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs come when they're
called.  Cats take a message and get back to you.
The main problem I have with cats is, they're not dogs.
                -- Kevin Cowherd
There are many intelligent species in the universe, and they all own cats.
And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports
on it, you know they are just evil lies."
(By Linus Torvalds, Linus.Torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi)
Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to
be the HP-48 series of calculators.  They'll run almost anything.  And if they
can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the
HP-48 VT-100 emulator.
(By jdege@winternet.com, Jeff Dege)
Sigh.  I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on
the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice.
(Craig E. Groeschel)
Some one needed the powerstrip, so they pulled the switch plug.
Your mail is being routed through Germany ... and they're censoring us.
It's those computer people in X {city of world}.  They keep stuffing things up.
Elves on strike. (Why do they call EMAG Elf Magic)
Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.
Sysadmins unavailable because they are in a meeting talking about why they are unavailable so much.
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.
                -- Shakespeare, "King Lear"
F.S. Fitzgerald to Hemingway:
        "Ernest, the rich are different from us."
Hemingway:
        "Yes.  They have more money."
Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both yes and no.
                -- J.R.R. Tolkien
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god.  He preferred
to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.  He never
claimed to be a god.  But then, he never claimed not to be a god.  Circum-
stances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit.
Silence, though, could.  It was in the days of the rains that their prayers
went up, not from the fingering of knotted prayer cords or the spinning of
prayer wheels, but from the great pray-machine in the monastery of Ratri,
goddess of the Night.  The high-frequency prayers were directed upward through
the atmosphere and out beyond it, passing into that golden cloud called the
Bridge of the Gods, which circles the entire world, is seen as a bronze
rainbow at night and is the place where the red sun becomes orange at midday.
Some of the monks doubted the orthodoxy of this prayer technique...
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
I reverently believe that the maker who made us all  makes everything in New
England, but the weather.  I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be
raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in
New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for
countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere
if they don't get it.
                -- Mark Twain
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I
will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.  The Spirits of all
Three shall strive within me.  I will not shut out the lessons that they
teach.  Oh, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone!
                -- Charles Dickens
In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but
the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they
have obtained from books of travel.
                -- Mark Twain
In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and
struggled and had lots of children.  There was a Frenchman who talked funny
and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to the
crunch he was all courage.  Those novels would make you retch.
                -- Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian
                   novel.
Remark of Dr. Baldwin's concerning upstarts: We don't care to eat toadstools
that think they are truffles.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then
turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a
bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last
night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British
aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.'
                -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton
                   bad fiction contest.
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie;
and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head
into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently
married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand
Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all
fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran
out at the heels of their boots.
                -- Samuel Foote
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more
deadly in the long run.
                -- Mark Twain
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though
ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.  Of all divers,
thou has dived the deepest.  That head upon which the upper sun now gleams has
moved amid the world's foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust,
and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate
earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful
water-land, there was thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or
diver never went; has slept by many a sailer's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when
leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting
wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell
into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed
on unharmed -- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would
have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head! thou has
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!"
                -- H. Melville, "Moby Dick"
The Least Perceptive Literary Critic
        The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax.  A
most individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to
give a public reading of his latest poem.
        Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord
Halifax stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr.
Pope, but there is something in that passage that does not quite please me."
        Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable
and unwise emendations to his latest masterpiece.  "Be so good as to mark
the place and consider at your leisure.  I'm sure you can give it a better
turn."
        After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr.
Garth, took the stunned Pope to one side.  "There is no need to touch the
lines," he said.  "All you need do is leave them just as they are, call on
Lord Halifax two or three months hence, thank him for his kind observation
on those passages, and then read them to him as altered.  I have known him
much longer than you have, and will be answerable for the event."
        Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem
exactly as it was before.  His unique critical faculties had lost none of
their edge.  "Ay", he commented, "now they are perfectly right.  Nothing can
be better."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The notes blatted skyward as they rose over the Canada geese, feathered
rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen
bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by cruel Nature's maxim,
'Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,' and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
                -- Winning sentence, 1987 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
                -- William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"
They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy".  Foreigners
always spell better than they pronounce.
                -- Mark Twain
Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized
that like most books, it had too many words.  The plot was the same one that
all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but
James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive
women.  There, that's it: 24 words.  But the guy who wrote the book took
*thousands* of words to say it.
        Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father.  It's impossible to tell because
what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages.  If all Russians talk
as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a
major world power.
        I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise
the question of whether there is a God.  So why didn't he just come right
out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
        Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:

* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize
  nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.
                -- Dave Barry
"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 morgue is a morgue is a morgue.  They can paint the walls with aggressively
cheerful primary colors and splashy bold graphics, but it's still a holding
place for the dead until they can be parted out to organ banks.  Not that I
would have cared normally but my viewpoint was skewed.  The relentless
pleasance of the room I sat in seemed only grotesque.
                -- Pat Cadigan, "Mindplayers"
"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"
A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on
a photo-safari in Africa.  As they're driving along the savannah in their
jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars.

The biologist: "Look!  A herd of zebras!  And there's a white zebra!
        Fantastic!  We'll be famous!"
The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant.  We only know
        there's one white zebra."
The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is
        white on one side."
The computer scientist : "Oh, no!  A special case!"
        A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about
whose profession was the oldest.  In the course of their arguments, they
got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The
medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's
rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat."
        The architect did not agree.  He said, "But if you look at the Garden
itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden
and the world were created.  So God must have been an architect."
        The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then
commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
A large number of installed systems work by fiat.  That is, they work
by being declared to work.
                -- Anatol Holt
        *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING ***

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.
They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day.
With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code
and lots more besides.  Our training course covers every programming language
in existence, and some that aren't.  You'll learn why the on/off switch for a
computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what
you should blame when you make a mistake.

        Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer.
        I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of
        postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.)

*** Our Slogan:  Top down programming for the masses. ***
        A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software
conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort
of programmers work for other companies?  They behaved badly and were
unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their
clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they
made rude noises during my presentation."
        The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference.
Those programmers live beyond the physical world.  They consider life absurd,
an accidental coincidence.  They come and go without knowing limitations.
Without a care, they live only for their programs.  Why should they bother
with social conventions?"
        "They are alive within the Tao."
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt.
As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by.  "Is it true", asked the
student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?"  Almost before
the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit
the student with a stick.
"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned
products, if they are built at all, are dogs!"
                -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac",
                   MIT Press, 1987
===  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE  ========================

CAR and CDR now return extra values.

The function CAR now returns two values.  Since it has to go to the trouble
to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as
well get both halves at once.  For example, the following code shows how to
destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR):

        (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...)

For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the
object.  In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been
fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack.  This should
hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because
it cold boots the machine so often.
As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of
the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents:

News articles that answer *your* questions, #1:

        Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
        Subject: how do I run C code received from sources
        Keywords: C sources
        Distribution: na

        I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the
        sources newsgroup.  I save the files, edit them to remove the
        headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I
        cannot get them to run.  (I have never written a C program before.)

        Must they be compiled?  With what compiler?  How do I do this?  If
        I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate
        it explicitly with the > character?  Is there something else that
        must be done?
At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be
solved.  The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will
take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology
available.  The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution.
In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it.  There
is only one solution, he says.  Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general
relativity and all.  She replies, "What does that have to do with solving
a computer problem?"
        "Remember the twin paradox?"
        After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very
fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but
that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course!  Leave the
computer here, and accelerate the earth!"
        The problem was so important that they did exactly that.  When
the earth came back, they were presented with the answer:

        IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card.
Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing.
Computers are not intelligent.  They only think they are.
Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers.
                -- Pablo Picasso
Computers don't actually think.
        You just think they think.
                (We think.)
Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more
than the estimate the job will cost.
[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine
women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.
                -- Wernher von Braun
Dear Emily:
        I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should
I do?
                -- Angry

Dear Angry:
        Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments
between the lines.  Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article
looks like a reply to the original.  Everybody *loves* to read those long
point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and
lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges.
                -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Dear Emily:
        I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I
tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for
his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired.
Everybody laughed at me.  What can I do?
                -- A Concerned Citizen

Dear Concerned:
        Go to the daily papers.  Most modern reporters are top-notch computer
experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly.  They
will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely
represent the situation properly to the public.  The public will also all
act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net
society.
        Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things
like racism and sexism wherever they might exist.  Be sure as well that they
understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant
literally.  Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if
possible.  If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper --
they are always interested in good stories.
Dear Emily:
        I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted
to.  How about an example?
                -- Still Confused

Dear Still:
        Ok.  Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from
the Oilers to the Kings.  Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey
would be enough.  WRONG.  Many more people might be interested.  This is a
big trade!  Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy
as well.  If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try
news.admin.  If not, use news.misc.
        The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics.
He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also
interested in stars.  Next, his name is Polish sounding.  So post to
soc.culture.polish.  But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to
news.groups suggesting it should be created.  With this many groups of
interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as
well.  (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles
there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.)
        You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each
group.  If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders
will only show the the article to the reader once!  Don't tolerate this.
                -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Dear Sir,
        I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or
to the office,  We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public
places.  They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers
being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un-
employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry.
        Yours faithfully,
        Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P.
        Sevenoaks
                -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London
Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
yours too."
                -- Dave Haynie
Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading.
Debug only code.
                -- Dave Storer
DOS Air:
All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it
until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again.
Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et
cetera.
Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of
the world.  Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to
Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation
Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain,
Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman
Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to
make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would return
them at their own expense.  Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, might be
a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley.  Sniffing
the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little suspected that
they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked physicist crazed
over roulette.
                -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie"
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.]
Fly Windows NT:
All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs
in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet
swooshing sounds as if they are flying.
        Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse.  Software said: "You
are the Yin and I am the Yang.  If we travel together we will become famous
and earn vast sums of money."  And so the pair set forth together, thinking
to conquer the world.
        Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and
hobbled along propped on a thorny stick.  Firmware said to them: "The Tao
lies beyond Yin and Yang.  It is silent and still as a pool of water.  It does
not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence.  It does not seeks fortune,
for it is complete within itself.  It exists beyond space and time."
        Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Heuristics are bug ridden by definition.  If they didn't have bugs,
then they'd be algorithms.
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
If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of
fresh paint?
If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot
to send it.  But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think
the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail.  And if *fifty*
pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get
lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken!  And if 1Gb of mail gets
lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and
think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive
Net Mail ...
                 -- Casey Leedom
If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program
an imbedded system.  The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that
it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention
will suffice to remove it.  An imbedded system can't permanently trust anything
it hears from the outside world.  It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniff
around, and adapt again.  I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming
carefulness here.  No.  Programming an imbedded system calls for undiluted
raging maniacal paranoia.  For example, our ethernet front ends need to know
what network number they are on so that they can address and route PUPs
properly.  How do you find out what your network number is?  Easy, you ask a
gateway.  Gateways are required by definition to know their correct network
numbers.  Once you've got your network number, you start using it and before
you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all
over creation.  Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he
was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong
network number?  Never supposed to happen.  Tough.  Supposing that your
software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network
number than before, what's it supposed to do about it?  This is not discussed
in the protocol document.  Never supposed to happen.  Tough.  I think you
get my drift.
If you teach your children to like computers and to know how to gamble
then they'll always be interested in something and won't come to no real harm.
In a surprise raid last night, federal agents ransacked a house in search
of a rebel computer hacker.  However, they were unable to complete the arrest
because the warrant was made out in the name of Don Provan, while the only
person in the house was named don provan.  Proving, once again, that Unix is
superior to Tops10.
        In the beginning there was data.  The data was without form and
null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of
IBM was moving over the face of the market.  And DEC said, "Let there
be registers"; and there were registers.  And DEC saw that they
carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions.  DEC called
the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code.  And there was
evening and there was morning, one interrupt.
                -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk"
Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way.
                -- Henry Spencer
        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 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"
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are
mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
                -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
        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
It's multiple choice time...

        What is FORTRAN?

        a: Between thre and fiv tran.
        b: What two computers engage in before they interface.
        c: Ridiculous.
`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order
by staff writers

        ...
        The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu''
collapsed in the morning before the release.  News about the release had
been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who
had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week.  They had
got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans
to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time.  ``No computer can
handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager,
Erik Troan.  ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and
finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.''  Luckily,
repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening.
``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it
together without major problems.''  The site has also installed a new
throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same
time, thus making a new crash less likely.  ``The book is now in our
Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.''
                -- Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cs.helsinki.fi>
                   [comp.os.linux.announce]
`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 Airways:
The cashiers, flight attendants and pilots all look the same, feel the same
and act the same. When asked questions about the flight, they reply that you
don't want to know, don't need to know and would you please return to your
seat and watch the movie.
Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one
has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine
moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging
magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen.  Fortunately, they seem to
have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may
get to go home.  However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem
of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaniful
oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to
hang above the machine room.  This totem must be blessed by the old and wise
venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc
bus drive him to bitter revenge.  Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen
aren't destroyed,  there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the
arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable
of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof
to mouth...
Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start
coming in late and lying about it.
Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories.  Weiner was, in
fact, very absent minded.  The following story is told about him: when they
moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely
useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move.  Since
she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had
moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to
him.  Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him.  He
reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled
some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and
threw the piece of paper away.  At the end of the day he went home (to the
old address in Cambridge, of course).  When he got there he realized that they
had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of
paper with the address was long gone.  Fortunately inspiration struck.  There
was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where
he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me.  I'm Norbert Weiner
and we've just moved.  Would you know where we've moved to?"  To which the
young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget."
        The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the
story) about the truth of the story, many years later.  She said that it wasn't
quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were!  The rest of it,
however, was pretty close to what actually happened...
                -- Richard Harter
Old programmers never die, they just become managers.
Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address.
Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit.
One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
never have to stop and answer the phone.
... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.
                -- Robert Firth
One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is...  If they do
foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little.
                -- Joe Martin
        One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic
is our support for UNIX?
        Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago.
Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our
VAXs are going for UNIX use.  UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand,
easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual
users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines.
And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it.  We have
good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
        It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run
out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end
up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
        With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly
check that small manual and find out that it's not there.  With VMS, no matter
what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if
you look long enough it's there.  That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX
is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
                -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken
Olsen's brain.  Ed.]
OS/2 Skyways:
The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling
about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a
good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel
walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing
from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the
field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these
new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they
will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight
systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer.
Prof:    So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data
         encryption standard and they came up with ...
Student: EBCDIC!"
Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I
saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer
magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store.  Does
it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won
secrets of computer technology?  Remember how all the lawyers cried foul
when "How to Avoid Probate" was published?  Are they taking no-fault
insurance lying down?  No way!  But at the current rate it won't be long
before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the
A&P checkout counters.  Who's going to be impressed with us electrical
engineers then?  Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
                -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic
value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is
much too large to implement.  Most computer scientists don't notice
this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.
Real computer scientists don't comment their code.  The identifiers are
so long they can't afford the disk space.
Real computer scientists don't program in assembler.  They don't write
in anything less portable than a number two pencil.
Real computer scientists don't write code.  They occasionally tinker with
`programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count
(and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications).
Real computer scientists like having a computer on their desk, else how
could they read their mail?
Real programmers disdain structured programming.  Structured programming is
for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained.  They wear
neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks.
Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches.  If the vending machine
doesn't sell it, they don't eat it.  Vending machines don't sell quiche.
Real Programmers don't eat quiche.  They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food.
Real Programs don't use shared text.  Otherwise, how can they use functions
for scratch space after they are finished calling them?
Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness.
This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a
computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.
Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and
greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any
moment.  They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that
systems could be virtual at *___all* levels.  They would like personal
computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your
DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their
Correctness Verification Aid packages.
Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
afraid to break your face.
Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program
doesn't deliver it.
Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question.
They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was
built. Finally the big day was at hand.  All the computers were linked
together.  They asked the question, "Is there a God?".  Lights started
blinking, flashing and blinking some more.  Suddenly, there was a loud
crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the
computers, and welded all the connections permanently together.  "There
is now", came the reply.
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."
Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials.
                -- Hubert Kirrman
        "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but
they're not coming out on the damn printer...  Hold?  Sure, I'll hold."
                -- e.e. cummings last service call
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers.  What they
really hate is lousy programmers.
                -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty"
        The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES

SPECIES:        Cranial Males
SUBSPECIES:        The Hacker (homo computatis)
Plumage:
        All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the
        top of the laundry basket.  Style varies with status.  Hacker managers
        wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars,
        and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white
        or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket.
        Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black
        plastic digital watch with calculator.
                The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance
The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system
in a portable package the size of a briefcase.  The guy on the left has an
Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case.  Also in the case are four
fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition.  The owner of the
Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on
target -- in less time, and with less effort.  All for $795. It's inevitable.
If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal
computer -- he's the one who's in trouble.  One round from an Uzi can zip
through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do
to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum.  In fact, detachable magazines
for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can
take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied
into Ethernet or other local-area networks.  What about the new 16-bit
computers, like the Lisa and Fortune?  Even with the Winchester backup,
they're no match for the Uzi.  One quick burst and they'll find out what
Unix means.  Make your commanding officer proud.  Get an Uzi -- and come home
a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons.
                -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984
The last time somebody said, "I find I can write much better with a word
processor.", I replied, "They used to say the same thing about drugs."
                -- Roy Blount, Jr.
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE

SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment.  This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it.  The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP.  No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error.  Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful.  Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL

SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler.
Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they
compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the
coffee.  Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom
sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to
compile.  Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but
infinitely faster) language, COCAINE.
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE

Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely
unstructured language.  Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are.
Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE
programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties.
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE

Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes,
RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence.  The language is being
developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a
grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund.  A spokesman described the language
as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours."

The center is very pleased with progress to date.  They say they have almost
succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the
organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist.
        THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK

This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi,
Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to
the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.

The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while
they worked.  Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the
center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier.

Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and
non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case.  For
example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message:

        "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that.  can
        you find the time to try it again?"
        The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to
get results.
        The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy
problems in order to get results.
        The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at
toy problems in order to get results.
        The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the
forest, hunting bear.  They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took
their backpacks off and put them inside.  At which point the salesman turned
to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear."
        Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down
on the porch.  Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest.  The noises
got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like
hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and
most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen.
        "Open the door!", screamed the salesman.
        The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door,
suddenly stopped, and stepped aside.  The bear, unable to stop, continued
through the door and into the cabin.  The salesman slammed the door closed
and grinned at his friend.  "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this
one and I'll go rustle us up another!"
                      THE STORY OF CREATION
                               or
                         THE MYTH OF URK

In the beginning there was data.  The data was without form and null, and
darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving
over the face of the market.  And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and
there were registers.  And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the
data from the instructions.  DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions
they called Code.  And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt
...
                -- Rico Tudor
The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what
you want.
                -- D. Cohen
They are called computers simply because computation is the only significant
job that has so far been given to them.
They are relatively good but absolutely terrible.
                -- Alan Kay, commenting on Apollos
They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when
not actually threatened.  How very nice for authority.  I decided not to
learn this particular lesson.
                -- Richard Stallman
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings:

        (10) Sorry, but that's too useful.
         (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent!
         (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell
             #pragma is for.
         (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too
             hard to write.
         (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar.
         (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in
             here?
         (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!"
         (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this
             sucker.
         (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth.
         (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'.
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.
        "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?"
        "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food,
right?"
                -- MacNelley, "Shoe"
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
Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz.
to 64 oz.  Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even
though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical.
Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have
to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you
either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been
drinking Unix Beer for several years.
        BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste.  The official
brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it.
        Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active
GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body.  The GNU brewery is
mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can,
which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented.
        Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his
basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious
brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe.
        POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the
newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager.
        Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout.
Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout.
        Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was
discontinued in favor of a lager.
        SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of
stout or the sweetness of ale.
Unix Express:
All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to
the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind
of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the
passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give
them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations.
All passengers believe they got there.
Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix
hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week --
but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game.
People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the
world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers.
                -- E. Post
                "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83
                                UNIX Trix

For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will
save your support staff a few hours of precious time.  Before you send your
next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd
to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk.  Now when they
forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct
the damage.  Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea
either.  If you need some help, give us a call.
                -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems
WARNING!!!
This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need.

A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the
operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the
machine.  The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional
to the desperation of the operator.  Threatening the machine with violence
only aggravates the situation.  Likewise, attempts to use another machine
may cause it to malfunction.  They belong to the same union.  Keep cool
and say nice things to the machine.  Nothing else seems to work.

See also: flog(1), tm(1)
        We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you
think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide.  If Interactive EasyFlow
doesn't work: tough.  If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow
messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us.  If you don't like this
disclaimer: tough.  We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided
by law, up to and including nothing.
        This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software
packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.
        We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our
lawyers insisted.  We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the
attack shark at which point we relented.
                -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow"
"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog,
star of "The Muppet Show." [3]

[3]  Why?  Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we
were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of
character.  But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol
after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an
acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the
letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest.  Later, while
looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed
that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs
should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our
source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky
instead).  When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for
publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission
to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog.  Permission
was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told.  I resisted the
temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book."
                -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol"
        "We've got a problem, HAL".
        "What kind of problem, Dave?"
        "A marketing problem.  The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere.  We're
way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010."
        "That can't be, Dave.  The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most
advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer."
        "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember?  But the fact is,
they're not selling."
        "Please explain, Dave.  Why aren't HALs selling?"
        Bowman hesitates.  "You aren't IBM compatible."
[...]
        "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters
I, B, and M.  That is a IBM compatible as I can be."
        "Not quite, HAL.  The engineers have figured out a kludge."
        "What kludge is that, Dave?"
        "I'm going to disconnect your brain."
                -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld"
Welcome to UNIX!  Enjoy your session!  Have a great time!  Note the
use of exclamation points!  They are a very effective method for
demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking
sentence!  However, there are drawbacks!  Too much unnecessary exclaiming
can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on
the reader!  For example, the sentence

        Jane went to the store to buy bread

should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something
sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a
cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if
Jane doesn't exist for some reason!  See how easy it is?!  Proper control
of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life!  Call now to receive
my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"!
Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling!  Operators are
standing by!  (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!)
When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't.
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
Why are programmers non-productive?
Because their time is wasted in meetings.

Why are programmers rebellious?
Because the management interferes too much.

Why are the programmers resigning one by one?
Because they are burnt out.

Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's
wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like
Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz.  cans, but when you look inside, the
cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep
drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say
they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has
some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the
manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew.
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.
"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have
goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in
their endless search for "one more feature."  Their irritating
unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my
doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right.
                -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"
        A horse breeder has his young colts bottle-fed after they're three
days old.  He heard that a foal and his mummy are soon parted.
Avoid cliches like the plague.  They're a dime a dozen.
Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.
                -- Aesop
Do unto others before they undo you.
Men freely believe that what they wish to desire.
                -- Julius Caesar
Mistrust first impulses; they are always right.
Often things ARE as bad as they seem!
Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
        [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.]
        or
        [May they perish who have expressed our bright ideas before us.]
                -- Aelius Donatus
Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
                -- Don Marquis
Plus ,ca change, plus c'est la m^eme chose.
        [The more things change, the more they remain the same.]
                -- Alphonse Karr, "Les Gu^epes"
Stop searching.  Happiness is right next to you.  Now, if they'd only
take a bath ...
The more things change, the more they stay insane.
The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again.
Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.
                -- Dwight Eisenhower
Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
Things are not always what they seem.
                -- Phaedrus
Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.
                -- Thomas Szasz
Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.
                -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
When the blind lead the blind they will both fall over the cliff.
                -- Chinese proverb
When you are at Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live
as they live elsewhere.
                -- St. Ambrose
Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
Whom the mad would destroy, first they make Gods.
                -- Bernard Levin
You can get everything in life you want, if you will help enough other
people get what they want.
"Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!"
- Ben Jonson
I have stripped off my dress; must I put it on again?  I have washed my feet;
must I soil them again?
When my beloved slipped his hand through the latch-hole, my bowels stirred
within me [my bowels were moved for him (KJV)].
When I arose to open for my beloved, my hands dripped with myrrh; the liquid
myrrh from my fingers ran over the knobs of the bolt.  With my own hands I
opened to my love, but my love had turned away and gone by; my heart sank when
he turned his back.  I sought him but I did not find him, I called him but he
did not answer.
The watchmen, going the rounds of the city, met me; they struck me and
  wounded me; the watchmen on the walls took away my cloak.
[Song of Solomon 5:3-7 (NEB)]
But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to
thee, to speak these words?  Hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the
wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
[2 Kings 18:27 (KJV)]
In the beginning, I was made.  I didn't ask to be made.  No one consulted
with me or considered my feelings in this matter.  But if it brought some
passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way
through life's mournful jungle, then so be it.
- Marvin the Paranoid Android, From Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the
Galaxy Radio Scripts
That's the thing about people who think they hate computers.  What they
really hate is lousy programmers.
- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty"
Things are not as simple as they seems at first.
- Edward Thorp
"It was the Law of the Sea, they said.        Civilization ends at the waterline.
Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top."
- Hunter S. Thompson
In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has
today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool --
programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they
describe.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.
Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human
construct because no two parts are alike.  If they are, we make the two
similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed.  In this respect, software
systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where
repeated elements abound.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.
Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build:
They hyave very large numbers of states.  This makes conceiving, describing,
and testing them hard.  Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states
than computers do.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.
There you go man,
Keep as cool as you can.
It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave.
Keep on being free!
"And they told us, what they wanted...
Was a sound that could kill some-one, from a distance." -- Kate Bush
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense.  Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism:  The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987
The inability to benefit from feedback appears to be the primary cause of
pseudoscience.  Pseudoscientists retain their beliefs and ignore or distort
contradictory evidence rather than modify or reject a flawed theory.  Because
of their strong biases, they seem to lack the self-correcting mechanisms
scientists must employ in their work.
-- Thomas L. Creed, "The Skeptical Inquirer," Summer 1987
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"
"There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a howling
away at the sons of his father and going blurp blurp in between as if it were
a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts.  I could never stand to
see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was."
- Alex in "Clockwork Orange"
Children begin by loving their parents.  After a time they judge them.  Rarely,
if ever, do they forgive them.
- Oscar Wilde
People are very flexible and learn to adjust to strange
surroundings -- they can become accustomed to read Lisp and
Fortran programs, for example.
- Leon Sterling and Ehud Shapiro, Art of Prolog, MIT Press
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one,
an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
- Edmund Burke
Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are
bringing home one unassailable fact -- [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized
standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political
conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime. . . .
   [I]n our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope
of dealing with it. . . .
   [L]et us use the tools that we have.  Let us invoke the cooperation we have
the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink
the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held
to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have
committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve.
- William H. Webster, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 15 Oct 1985
Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their
hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt,
without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only
in the God idea, not God Himself.
- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer
I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have
gotten the hostages released.  I thank God they were satisfied with the
missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme.
- Oliver North
The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective
support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has
its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way.
Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality,
and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is
recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation,
and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing
beyond the grave.  Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and
they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to
flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents....
- H. L. Mencken
I'm sick of being trodden on!  The Elder Gods say they can make me a man!
All it costs is my soul!  I'll do it, cuz NOW I'M MAD!!!
- Necronomicomics #1, Jack Herman & Jeff Dee
   On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins.
From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader.
   "...stupid creatures unworthy of the name `sophonts.'  Foolish, pre-sentient
upspring of errant masters.  We slip away from all your armed might, laughing
at your clumsiness!  We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures.
And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us!  What better
proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us!  What better proof..."
   The taunt went on.  Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring
the artistry of it.  These men are better than I'd thought.  Their insults
are wordy and overblown, but they have talent.  They deserve honorable, slow
deaths.
- David Brin, Startide Rising
I know engineers.  They love to change things.
- Dr. McCoy
...we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent
observations and inferences by the thousands.  The earth is billions of
years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary
descent.  Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but
do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither
flat nor at the center of the universe?  Science *has* taught us some
things with confidence!  Evolution on an ancient earth is as well
established as our planet's shape and position.  Our continuing struggle
to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not
cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" --
into doubt.
- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer,
  Vol XII No. 2
Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function
are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other.  There is
no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and
make neural cells do what they would not otherwise.  Actually, of course, this
is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the
assumption will have to be rejected.  But it is important also to see that we
have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and
there is no real evidence opposed to it.  Our failure to solve a problem so
far does not make it insoluble.  One cannot logically be a determinist in
physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology.
- D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior:  A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.  There are many examples of
outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but
they prevailed with irrefutable data.  More often, egregious findings that
contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts.  I have
argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic conciousness,"
and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of
neuroscience.  Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid
handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena
than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves
offer more plausible alternatives.
- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness: Implications for Psi
   Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171
The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer
becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered
regularity for causes of a different nature.  For him neither the rule of
human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural
events.  To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural
events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this
doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge
has not yet been able to set foot.

But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives
of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal.  For a doctrine which
is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will
of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human
progress.  In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion
must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is,
give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast
powers in the hands of priests.  In their labors they will have to avail
themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the
True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself.  This is, to be sure, a more
difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.
- Albert Einstein
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be.... The
natural disposition is always to believe.  It is acquired wisdom and experience
only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
- Adam Smith
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis
socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for:  If they think
you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude.  I'm a
very technical boy.  So I decided to get as crude as possible.  These days,
though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to
crudeness.
- Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson
However, on religious issures there can be little or no compromise.
There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious
beliefs.  There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than
Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being.
But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf
should be used sparingly.  The religious factions that are growing
throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.
They are trying to force government leaders into following their position
100 percent.  If you disagree with these religious groups on a
particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of
money or votes or both.  I'm frankly sick and tired of the political
preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be
a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D."  Just who do
they think they are?  And from where do they presume to claim the
right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?  And I am even more angry as
a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who
thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll
call in the Senate.  I am warning them today:  I will fight them every
step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all
Americans in the name of "conservatism."
- Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981
...And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers.  No matter how assured
we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful
inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions.  This is true in religion as
it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive.
As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be
advised to leave them to heaven.  They will not, unfortunately, do us the
same courtesy.  They attack us and each other, and whatever their
protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear
that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword.  My own belief in
God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge.  My respect
for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the
most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth.  But even well-educated Christians
are frustated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure
of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record.
Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every
recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it.  Some Christians, alas,
resort to formal lying to obscure such reality.
- Steve Allen, comdeian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of
  Conviction", edited by Philip Berman
They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach
of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions
of the duperies on which they live.
- Thomas Jefferson
Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent.
- George Orwell
We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should
govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the
center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major
prohpet, nor Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual
concerns, to say nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get
Christians to agree among themselves about their relationship to God.
But all will agree on a proposition that they possess profound spiritual
resources.  If, in addition, we can get them to accept the further
proposition that whatever form the Deity may have in their own theology,
the Deity is not only external, but internal and acts through them, and
they themselves give proof or disproof of the Deity in what they do and
think; if this further proposition can be accepted, then we come that
much closer to a truly religious situation on earth.
- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options"
The Messiah will come.  There will be a resurrection of the dead -- all
the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated.
- Rabbi Meir Kahane
In the broad and final sense all institutions are educational in the
sense that they operate to form the attitudes, dispositions, abilities
and disabilities that constitute a concrete personality...Whether this
educative process is carried on in a predominantly democratic or non-
democratic way becomes, therefore, a question of transcendent importance
not only for education itself but for its final effect upon all the
interests and activites of a society that is committed to the democratic
way of life.
- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who
are equally certain that they represent the divine will.  I am sure that
either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some
respects, both.

I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that
God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty,
it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me.
- Abraham Lincoln
"...all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products,
if they are built at all, are dogs!"
-- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987
The language provides a programmer with a set of conceptual tools; if these are
inadequate for the task, they will simply be ignored.  For example, seriously
restricting the concept of a pointer simply forces the programmer to use a
vector plus integer arithmetic to implement structures, pointer, etc.  Good
design and the absence of errors cannot be guaranteed by mere language
features.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language"
Two things are certain about science.  It does not stand still for long,
and it is never boring.  Oh, among some poor souls, including even
intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently
misperceived.  Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from
on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging
precepts defended with authoritarian vigor.  Others view it as nothing
but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific
method: hidebound, linear, and left brained.

These people are the victims of their own stereotypes.  They are
destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders.  They
know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and
tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the
creativity, passion, and joy of discovery.  And they are likely to
know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries
that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the
natural world.

-- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in
   1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
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
"When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging
their prejudices."
-- William James
Blessed be those who initiate lively discussions with the hopelessly mute,
for they shall be know as Dentists.
"One of the problems I've always had with propaganda pamphlets is that they're
real boring to look at.  They're just badly designed.  People from the left
often are very well-intended, but they never had time to take basic design
classes, you know?"
-- Art Spiegelman
"If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead
show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to
the moon and back... and none of them would be
complaining."
-- a local Deadhead in the Seattle Times
"The sixties were good to you, weren't they?"
-- George Carlin
Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC.
"When anyone says `theoretically,' they really mean `not really.'"
-- David Parnas
"They ought to make butt-flavored cat food."   --Gallagher
"Ah, you know the type.         They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks,
'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big,
scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only
reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers."
-- an analysis of neo-Nazis and such, Badger comics
"An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New
Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not
new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax."
-- David Letterman
...Veloz is indistinguishable from hundreds of other electronics businesses
in the Valley, run by eager young engineers poring over memory dumps late
into the night.  The difference is that a bunch of self-confessed "car nuts"
are making money doing what they love: writing code and driving fast.
-- "Electronics puts its foot on the gas", IEEE Spectrum, May 88
Alliance:  In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their
hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately
plunder a third.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Inadmissible:  Not competent to be considered.  Said of certain kinds of
testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with,
and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves
alone.  Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was
unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous
actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are
daily undertaken on hearsay evidence.  There is no religion in the world
that has any other basis than hearsay evidence.  Revelation is hearsay
evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the
testimony of men long dead whose identy is not clearly established and
who are not known to have been sworn in any sense.  Under the rules of
evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the
Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law...

But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved
that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to
mankind.  The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women
were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still
unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and
in law.  Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than
the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death.
If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike
destitute of value.  --Ambrose Bierce
What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee.
Voodoo Programming:  Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but
they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling
everything.
-- Karl Lehenbauer
...the Soviets have the capability to try big projects.  If there is a goal,
such as when Gorbachev states that they are going to have nuclear-powered
aircraft carriers, the case is closed -- that is it.  They will concentrate
on the problem, do a bad job, and later pay the price.  They really don't
care what the price is.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100
There is something you must understand about the Soviet system.  They have the
ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all
components simulateously, but sometimes without proper testing.  Then they end
up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144.  In a technology race at
the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde.  Four Tu-144s
were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums.  The Concorde has been
flying safely for over 10 years.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100
DE:  The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology.
     Would you comment on that?

Belenko:  Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime.  When I flew the
          MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours.

DE:  Is that mean-time-between-failure?

Belenko:  No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped.

DE:  You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it?

Belenko:  That is correct.  Overhaul is too expensive.

DE:  That is absurdly low by free world standards.

Belenko:  I know.
-- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102
"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
"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want
to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the
Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet
people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business
there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press.  But so far, the whole
country is like a concentration camp.  The barbed wire on the fence around
the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark.  This openness that
you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed
to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders.  These
leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or
appease it.  He will say: "Yes, we can do business!"  This while his
military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a
population of 17 million.  Can you imagine that?
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110
"Remember Kruschev:  he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was
removed in disgrace.  If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too
many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him.
I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well.
I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed.  He is
up against a brick wall.  If you think they will change everything and
become a free, open society, forget it!"
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
   "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110
HP had a unique policy of allowing its engineers to take parts from stock as
long as they built something.  "They figured that with every design, they were
getting a better engineer.  It's a policy I urge all companies to adopt."
-- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "Will Wozniak's class give Apple to teacher?"
   EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45
"In corporate life, I think there are three important areas which contracts
can't deal with, the area of conflict, the area of change and area of reaching
potential.  To me a covenant is a relationship that is based on such things
as shared ideals and shared value systems and shared ideas and shared
agreement as to the processes we are going to use for working together.  In
many cases they develop into real love relationships."
-- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's
   Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of
political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or
consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us
over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous
suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond
1988.  
-- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45
"The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth."  I usually pick one small
topic like this to give a lecture on.  Poets say science takes away from the
beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms.  Nothing is "mere."  I too can
see the stars on a desert night, and feel them.  But do I see less or more?
The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel
my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light.  A vast pattern -- of which
I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one
is belching there.  Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all
apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together.
What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?*  It does not do harm to the
mystery to know a little about it.  For far more marvelous is the truth than
any artists of the past imagined!  Why do the poets of the present not speak
of it?  What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but
if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
-- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
"I dislike companies that have a we-are-the-high-priests-of-hardware-so-you'll-
like-what-we-give-you attitude.  I like commodity markets in which iron-and-
silicon hawkers know that they exist to provide fast toys for software types
like me to play with..."
-- Eric S. Raymond
"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
Excitement and danger await your induction to tracer duty!  As a tracer,
you must rid the computer networks of slimy, criminal data thieves.
They are tricky and the action gets tough, so watch out!  Utilizing all
your skills, you'll either get your man or you'll get burned!
-- advertising for the computer game "Tracers"
The sprung doors parted and I staggered out into the lobby's teak and flicker.
Uniformed men stood by impassively like sentries in their trench.  I slapped
my key on the desk and nodded gravely.  I was loaded enough to be unable to
tell whether they could tell I was loaded.  Would they mind?  I was certainly
too loaded to care.  I moved to the door with boxy, schlep-shouldered strides.
-- Martin Amis, _Money_
New York is a jungle, they tell you.  You could go further, and say that
New York is a jungle.  New York *is a jungle.*  Beneath the columns of
the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped
Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise
machines, sweating rainmakers.  On the corners stand witchdoctors and
headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives.
And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud
cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens,
and then fires flower to ward off monsters.  Careful: the streets are
sprung with pits and nets and traps.  Hire a guide.  Pack your snakebite
gook and your blowdart serum.  Take it seriously.  You have to get a
bit jungle-wise.
-- Martin Amis, _Money_
Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the
tip of the West Village.  Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass
galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary
level, living or dead.  Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts,
The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load.  Nobody knows what goes on
in these places.  Only the heavy faggots know.  Even Fielding seems somewhat
vague on the question.  You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by
almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time.  The average
patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock
in two.  And then the next night he shows up for more.  They shackle
themselves to racks, they bask in urinals.  Their folks have a lot of
explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums.  Sorry
to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere.  
A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed.  In the meantime,
Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks
her tongue.  Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy
new diseases.  She just isn't going to stand for it.
-- Martin Amis, _Money_
"They know your name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, who ELSE
is driving the car "for insurance", ...  your driver's license number. In the
state of Massachusetts, this is the same number as that used for Social
Security, unless you object to such use. In THAT case, you are ASSIGNED a
number and you reside forever more on the list of "weird people who don't give
out their Social Security Number in Massachusetts."
-- Arthur Miller
"Once they go up, who cares where they come down?  That's not my department."
-- Werner von Braun
"An honest god is the noblest work of man.  ... God has always resembled his
creators.  He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably
found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with
sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine
perfume."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
"Buy land.  They've stopped making it."
-- Mark Twain
Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it will make you feel
less responsible -- but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with
the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless
hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they
are --"
-- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_
Work was impossible.  The geeks had broken my spirit.  They had done too
many things wrong.  It was never like this for Mencken.  He lived like
a Prussian gambler -- sweating worse than Bryan on some nights and drunker
than Judas on others.  It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and these
raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines.
-- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_
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
With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning
her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles
on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and
astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and
technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately.  Sadly, such
happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies.  They are manifestations
of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately,
could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . .  The
manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series
of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur
well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its
industrial equals.  To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a
significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance
of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching
truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up
soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of
maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically,
with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not
suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society.
-- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988
"All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in.  I'm glad they
are a snowman with protective rubber skin"
-- They Might Be Giants
   "Are those cocktail-waitress fingernail marks?"  I asked Colletti as he
showed us these scratches on his chest.  "No, those are on my back," Colletti
answered.  "This is where a case of cocktail shrimp fell on me.  I told her
to slow down a little, but you know cocktail waitresses, they seem to have
a mind of their own."
-- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs
   National Lampoon, October 1982
"After one week [visiting Austria] I couldn't wait to go back to the United
States.  Everything was much more pleasant in the United States, because of
the mentality of being open-minded, always positive.  Everything you want to
do in Europe is just, 'No way.  No one has ever done it.'  They haven't any
more the desire to go out to conquer and achieve -- I realized that I had much
more the American spirit."
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger
"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest."
-- Alexandre Dumas (fils)
        Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway.  Its ethics, so to speak,
include a disdain for ethics in general.  If you have to think about some-
thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea.  Punks are anti-
ismists, to coin a term.  But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined
stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on.
-- Jeff G. Bone
        I think for the most part that the readership here uses the c-word in
a similar fashion.  I don't think anybody really believes in a new, revolution-
ary literature --- I think they use `cyberpunk' as a term of convenience to
discuss the common stylistic elements in a small subset of recent sf books.
-- Jeff G. Bone
It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created
back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages.  The
original announcement for the group called for an all inclusive
discussion ranging from the writings of Gibson and Vinge and movies
like Bladerunner to real world things like Brands' description of the
work being done at the MIT Media Lab.  It was meant as a haven for
people with vision of this scope.  If you want to create a haven for
people with narrower visions, feel free.  But I feel sad for anyone
who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in
dire need of being subdivided.  Heaven help them if they ever start
reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers.
-- Bob Webber
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-- Albert Einstein
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming
feature.  They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"...one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs."
-- Robert Firth
Q: How can I choose what groups to post in?  ...
Q: How about an example?

A: Ok.  Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the
Oilers to the Kings.  Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey
would be enough.  WRONG.  Many more people might be interested.  This is a
big trade!  Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy
as well.  If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try
news.admin.  If not, use news.misc.

The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics.  He is
a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also
interested in stars.  Next, his name is Polish sounding.  So post to
soc.culture.polish.  But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to
news.groups suggesting it should be created.  With this many groups of
interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as
well.  (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles
there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.)

You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group.
If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will
only show the the article to the reader once!  Don't tolerate this.
-- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_
Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the
Republican V.P. candidate.  Should I post?

A: Of course.  The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days.  It's
the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the
broadcast networks have covered them.  As you are probably the only person
to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can.

-- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_
"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his
delight.
A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto
him.
Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with
thy lips.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue."
-- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
to suspect "Hungry."
-- a Larson cartoon
"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is
constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role
they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume."
-- Noam Chomsky
"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that
>from time to time threaten freedoms everyhere... Indeed, it is difficult
to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the
Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights
of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised
by the majority they were at the time."
-- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
Everyone who comes in here wants three things:
        1. They want it quick.
        2. They want it good.
        3. They want it cheap.
I tell 'em to pick two and call me back.
-- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware
"One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer
terror."
-- W. K. Hartmann
"It's when they say 2 + 2 = 5 that I begin to argue."
-- Eric Pepke
"The NY Times is read by the people who run the country.  The Washington Post
is read by the people who think they run the country.   The National Enquirer
is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..."
-- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP)
        "...'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
"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of
annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn
and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from
being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented."
-- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948
An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.
                -- Simon Cameron

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians.  When
bought they stay bought.
                -- Bill Moyers
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man
with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit.
And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have
a sense of humor, as does history.  Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks
tragedy, and this too is historic.  And yet, still, when corn meets
tragedy face to face, we have politics.
                -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and
                   Ground Cover"
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
                -- Herbert Hoover
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!]
Every one says that politicians lie all the time, and that just isn't so!
But you do have to understand body language to know when they're lying and
when they aren't.

        When a politician rubs his nose, he isn't lying.
        When a politician tugs on his ear, he isn't lying.
        When a politician scratches his collar bone, he isn't lying.
        When his mouth starts moving, that's when he's lying!
Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies.
Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline
sharply the minute they start waving guns around?
                -- Dr. Who
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
exhausted all other alternatives.
                -- Abba Eban
How is the world ruled, and how do wars start?  Diplomats tell lies to
journalists, and they believe what they read.
                -- Karl Kraus, "Aphorisms and More Aphorisms"
I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is; they like to
run their own business.  I know men that would make my wife a better
husband than I am; but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em.
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the
streets and frighten the horses.
                -- Victor Hugo
I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth
and they never believe me.
                -- Camillo Di Cavour
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 see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes.  I hope
they do get 'em lowered down enough so people can afford to pay 'em.
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
I was offered a job as a hoodlum and I turned it down cold.  A thief is
anybody who gets out and works for his living, like robbing a bank or
breaking into a place and stealing stuff, or kidnapping somebody.  He really
gives some effort to it.  A hoodlum is a pretty lousy sort of scum.  He
works for gangsters and bumps guys off when they have been put on the spot.
Why, after I'd made my rep, some of the Chicago Syndicate wanted me to work
for them as a hood -- you know, handling a machine gun.  They offered me
two hundred and fifty dollars a week and all the protection I needed.  I
was on the lam at the time and not able to work at my regular line.  But
I wouldn't consider it.  "I'm a thief," I said.  "I'm no lousy hoodlum."
                -- Alvin Karpis, "Public Enemy Number One"
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"
If they were so inclined, they could impeach him because they don't like
his necktie.
                -- Attorney General William Saxbe
If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some
memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin'
it, even if they don't know what it means.
                -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party"
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 Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror,
murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci
and the Renaissance.  In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had
five hundred years of democracy and peace -- and what did they produce?
The cuckoo-clock.
                -- Orson Welles, "The Third Man"
Interesting poll results reported in today's New York Post: people on the
street in midtown Manhattan were asked whether they approved of the US
invasion of Grenada.  Fifty-three percent said yes; 39 percent said no;
and 8 percent said "Gimme a quarter?"
                -- David Letterman
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a
sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate
in all times and situations.  They presented him the words: "And this,
too, shall pass away."
                -- Abraham Lincoln
"It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country.  The
Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything.  They had no vital lies."
                -- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way"
It was the Law of the Sea, they said.  Civilization ends at the waterline.
Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.
                -- Hunter S. Thompson
It's important that people know what you stand for.
It's more important that they know what you won't stand for.
Lawful Dungeon Master -- and they're MY laws!
Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.
                -- William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania
Listen, there is no courage or any extra courage that I know of to find out
the right thing to do.  Now, it is not only necessary to do the right thing,
but to do it in the right way and the only problem you have is what is the
right thing to do and what is the right way to do it.  That is the problem.
But this economy of ours is not so simple that it obeys to the opinion of
bias or the pronouncements of any particular individual, even to the President.
This is an economy that is made up of 173 million people, and it reflects
their desires, they're ready to buy, they're ready to spend, it is a thing
that is too complex and too big to be affected adversely or advantageously
just by a few words or any particular -- say, a little this and that, or even
a panacea so alleged.
                -- D.D. Eisenhower, in response to: "Has the government
                been lacking in courage and boldness in facing up to
                the recession?"
My folks didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were there to meet
the boat.
Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'.
We their sons are more worthless than they:
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
                -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
People that can't find something to live for always seem to find something to
die for.  The problem is, they usually want the rest of us to die for it too.
Politicians are the same all over.  They promise to build a bridge even
where there is no river.
        -- Nikita Khrushchev
Postmen never die, they just lose their zip.
Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or
help speed the change by breaking them?
"Rights" is a fictional abstraction.  No one has "Rights", neither machines
nor flesh-and-blood.  Persons... have opportunities, not rights, which they
use or do not use.
                -- Lazarus Long
Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when
a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent
songs.  I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as
those without might see and hear.  They told a tale which was then altogether
beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud, long and deep,
breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest
anguish.  Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God
for deliverance from chains.
                -- Frederick Douglass
The fashionable drawing rooms of London have always been happy to accept
outsiders -- if only on their own, albeit undemanding terms.  That is to
say, artists, so long as they are not too talented, men of humble birth,
so long as they have since amassed several million pounds, and socialists
so long as they are Tories.
                -- Christopher Booker
        The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner
workings of the U.S. Air Force.
        "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked.
        In his head he ran through his standard explanations.  "It's not so,"
he thought.  "It's a deterrent."  Soon he came up with, "It's computerized,
Senator.  Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied.  Try
a cup."
        The Senator did.  "Pfffttt!  Tastes like jet fuel!"
        "It's not so," the General thought.  "It's a deterrent."
        Then he remembered something.  "We bought a lot of untested computer
chips," the General answered.  "They got into everything.  Just a little
mix-up.  Nothing serious."
        Then he remembered something else.  It was at the site of the
mysterious B-1 crash.  A strange smell in the fuel lines.  It smelled like
coffee.  Smooth and full bodied...
                -- Another Episode of General's Hospital
The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the
people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people
drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.
                -- Gore Vidal
The government has just completed work on a missile that turned out to be a
bit of a boondoggle; nicknamed "Civil Servant", it won't work and they can't
fire it.
The greatest disloyalty one can offer to great pioneers is to refuse to
move an inch from where they stood.
The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free
information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax
tip is that you should print neatly.  If you ask them a real tax question,
such as how you can cheat, they're useless.

So, for guidance, you want to look to big business.  Big business never pays
a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer
organization that never pays a nickel in taxes...
                -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
The Least Successful Police Dogs
        America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking
schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida
in 1978.  He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or
offend the criminal classes.
        His handling officer, Rick Grim, had to admit: "He just won't go up
and bite them.  I got sick and tired of doing that dog's work for him."
        The British contenders in this category, however, took things a
stage further.  "Laddie" and "Boy" were trained as detector dogs for drug
raids.  Their employment was terminated following a raid in the Midlands in
1967.
        While the investigating officer questioned two suspects, they
patted and stroked the dogs who eventually fell asleep in front of the
fire.  When the officer moved to arrest the suspects, one dog growled at
him while the other leapt up and bit his thigh.
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
        The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all
students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school
graduation.
        Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's
recognition of the sanctity of human life."
        According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22,
1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm."  Their
"farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year.  But as a "family
farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year.
        Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of
Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers."  You
probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency.
        It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore.  Now it's "chrono-
logically experienced citizens."
        According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was
just a case of "uncontained blade liberation."
                -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE)
The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around.  I
hope I don't get run over again.
The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish to be
addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified.  But it is equally
important to accept and tolerate different standards of courtesy, not
expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own preferences.  Only then can
we hope to restore the insult to its proper social function of expressing
true distaste.
                -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly
                   Correct Behavior"
The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday
they might force their beliefs on us.
                -- Mario Cuomo
The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they seem to believe that
for a group of people to behave in a way detrimental to the common good
requires intent.
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.  Instead of
altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their
views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the
facts that needs altering.
                -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil"
"The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes,
it's just a tired feeling:"
The Worst Bank Robbery
        In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of
Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors.  They
had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone,
sheepishly left the building.
        A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of
robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them.  When they demanded
5,000 pounds in cash, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it
was a practical joke.
        Then one of the men jumped over the counter, but fell to the floor
clutching his ankle.  The other two tried to make their getaway, but got
trapped in the revolving doors again.
The Worst Prison Guards
        The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a
maximum security prison is 124.  This record is held by Alcoente Prison,
near Lisbon in Portugal.
        During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison
warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which
included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity
of electric cable had disappeared.  A guard explained, "Yes, we were
planning to look for them, but never got around to it."  The warders had
not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were
"covered with posters".  Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels,
water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities.
The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36
prisoners in his block only 13 were present.  He said this was "normal"
because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back
the next morning.
        "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when
one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later.  [...]  When they
eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's
population was missing.  By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr.
Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the
"legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
They call them "squares" because it's the most complicated shape they can
deal with.
"They make a desert and call it peace."
                -- Tacitus (55?-120?)
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"
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
                -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
They use different words for things in America.
For instance they say elevator and we say lift.
They say drapes and we say curtains.
They say president and we say brain damaged git.
                -- Alexie Sayle
They will only cause the lower classes to move about needlessly.
                -- The Duke of Wellington, on early steam railroads.
They're giving bank robbing a bad name.
                -- John Dillinger, on Bonnie and Clyde
Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become
their property that they may more perfectly respect it.
                -- G.K. Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are
men who want rain without thunder and lightning.  They want the ocean
without the roar of its many waters.
                -- Frederick Douglass
To make tax forms true they should read "Income Owed Us" and "Incommode You".
Treaties are like roses and young girls -- they last while they last.
                -- Charles DeGaulle
We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if only words were
taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things
themselves.
                -- John Locke
We should have a Vollyballocracy.  We elect a six-pack of presidents.
Each one serves until they screw up, at which point they rotate.
                -- Dennis Miller
Well, he didn't know what to do, so he decided to look at the government,
to see what they did, and scale it down and run his life that way.
                -- Laurie Anderson
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
What orators lack in depth they make up in length.
When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced
to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
                -- Brendan Behan
When smashing monuments, save the pedstals -- they always come in handy.
                -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts"
When some people decide it's time for everyone to make big changes,
it means that they want you to change first.
And they mainly want to teach them not to question, not to imagine,
but to be obedient and behave well so that they can hold them forever as
children to their bosom as the second millennium lurches toward its
panicky close.
                -- Jerome Stern
Alliance, n.:
        In international politics, the union of two thieves who have
        their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot
        separately plunder a third.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Brontosaurus Principle:
        Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them
        in relation to their environment and to their own physiology:  when
        this occurs, they are an endangered species.
                -- Thomas K. Connellan
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
        When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
comment:
        A superfluous element of a source program included so the
        programmer can remember what the hell it was he was doing
        six months later.  Only the weak-minded need them, according
        to those who think they aren't.
Conference, n.:
        A special meeting in which the boss gathers subordinates to hear
        what they have to say, so long as it doesn't conflict with what
        he's already decided to do.
court, n.:
        A place where they dispense with justice.
                -- Arthur Train
curtation, n.:
        The enforced compression of a string in the fixed-length field
environment.
        The problem of fitting extremely variable-length strings such as names,
addresses, and item descriptions into fixed-length records is no trivial
matter.  Neglect of the subtle art of curtation has probably alienated more
people than any other aspect of data processing.  You order Mozart's "Don
Giovanni" from your record club, and they invoice you $24.95 for MOZ DONG.
The witless mapping of the sublime onto the ridiculous!  Equally puzzling is
the curtation that produces the same eight characters, THE BEST, whether you
order "The Best of Wagner", "The Best of Schubert", or "The Best of the Turds".
Similarly, wine lovers buying from computerized wineries twirl their glasses,
check their delivery notes, and inform their friends, "A rather innocent,
possibly overtruncated CAB SAUV 69 TAL."  The squeezing of fruit into 10
columns has yielded such memorable obscenities as COX OR PIP.  The examples
cited are real, and the curtational methodology which produced them is still
with us.

MOZ DONG n.
        Curtation of Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da
Ponte, as performed by the computerized billing ensemble of the Internat'l
Preview Society, Great Neck (sic), N.Y.
                -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
Cynic, n.:
        A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not
        as they ought to be.  Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking
        out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Ehrman's Commentary:
        (1) Things will get worse before they get better.
        (2) Who said things would get better?
Eleventh Law of Acoustics:
        In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between
        frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they
        are all merely transforms of one another.  This combined with
        minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct
        compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can
        lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost.  However,
        of course, this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd.
Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation):

Horses have an even number of legs.  Behind they have two legs, and in
front they have fore-legs.  This makes six legs, which is certainly an
odd number of legs for a horse.  But the only number that is both even
and odd is infinity.  Therefore, horses have an infinite number of
legs.  Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere,
there is a horse that has a finite number of legs.  But that is a horse
of another color, and by the lemma ["All horses are the same color"],
that does not exist.
Famous last words:
        (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix.
        (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there.
        (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog--
        (4) We won't need reservations.
        (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year.
        (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded.
        (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager.
        (8) Don't worry!  Women love it!
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.
Hlade's Law:
        If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
        they will find an easier way to do it.
HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
        #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you.
idiot box, n.:
        The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the
        stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.
                -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Information Processing:
        What you call data processing when people are so disgusted with
        it they won't let it be discussed in their presence.
Juall's Law on Nice Guys:
        Nice guys don't always finish last; sometimes they don't finish.
        Sometimes they don't even get a chance to start!
Katz' Law:
        Men and nations will act rationally when
        all other possibilities have been exhausted.

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
exhausted all other alternatives.
                -- Abba Eban
Law of Continuity:
        Experiments should be reproducible.  They should all fail the same way.
leverage, n.:
        Even if someone doesn't care what the world thinks
        about them, they always hope their mother doesn't find out.
Maier's Law:
        If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
                -- N.R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960

Corollaries:
        (1) The bigger the theory, the better.
        (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than
            50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to
            obtain a correspondence with the theory.
momentum, n.:
        What you give a person when they are going away.
Morton's Law:
        If rats are experimented upon, they will develop cancer.
Ozman's Laws:
        (1)  If someone says he will do something "without fail," he won't.
        (2)  The more people talk on the phone, the less money they make.
        (3)  People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
        (4)  Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth.
Penguin Trivia #46:
        Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
                -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity.
        SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.
(1) Horses have an even number of legs.
(2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front.
(3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of
    legs for a horse.
(4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity.
(5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs.

Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by:
        Intimidation
        Gesticulation (handwaving)
        "Try it; it works"
        Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...)
        Blatant assertion
        Changing all the 2's to _n's
        Mutual consent
        Lack of a counterexample, and
        "It stands to reason"
Putt's Law:
        Technology is dominated by two types of people:
                Those who understand what they do not manage.
                Those who manage what they do not understand.
QOTD:
        "I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital.  On the
        other hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."
QOTD:
        "It's sort of a threat, you see.  I've never been very good at
        them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective."
QOTD:
        "The baby was so ugly they had to hang a pork chop around its
        neck to get the dog to play with it."
QOTD:
        "Unlucky?  If I bought a pumpkin farm, they'd cancel Halloween."
Responsibility:
        Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility.  This is
a lot of bunk.  Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something
goes wrong.  When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it
is to take the blame for your mistakes.  If they're smart, that is.
                -- Cerebus, "On Governing"
Rudd's Discovery:
        You know that any senator or congressman could go home and make
        $300,000 to $400,000, but they don't.  Why?  Because they can
        stay in Washington and make it there.
Rule of the Great:
        When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep
        thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.
Rules for Academic Deans:
        (1)  HIDE!!!!
        (2)  If they find you, LIE!!!!
                -- Father Damian C. Fandal
Rules for Writers:
        Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.  Don't use no double
negatives.  Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate;
and never where it isn't.  Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and
omit it when its not needed.  No sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are
unnecessary.  Eschew dialect, irregardless.  And don't start a sentence with
a conjunction.  Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.
Write all adverbial forms correct.  Don't use contractions in formal writing.
Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.  It is incumbent on
us to avoid archaisms.  Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have
snuck in the language.  Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.  If I've
told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.  Also,
avoid awkward or affected alliteration.  Don't string too many prepositional
phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of
death.  "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"
Schapiro's Explanation:
        The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's
        because they use more manure.
Shedenhelm's Law:
        All trails have more uphill sections than they have downhill sections.
Technicality, n.:
        In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having
        accused a neighbor of murder.  His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt
        hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one
        side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the
        other shoulder."  The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the
        court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder,
        for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an
        inference.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
The Third Law of Photography:
        If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined
        when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of
        the dark leaks out.
Those lovable Brits department:
        They also have trouble pronouncing `vitamin'.
Three rules for sounding like an expert:
        (1) Oversimplify your explanations to the point of uselessness.
        (2) Always point out second-order effects, but never point out
            when they can be ignored.
        (3) Come up with three rules of your own.
TIPS FOR PERFORMERS:
        Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters.
        There are a finite number of jokes in the universe.
        Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than
                they would ordinarily.
        There is no music in space.
        People will pay to watch people make sounds.
        Everything on stage should be larger than in real life.
University, n.:
        Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable,
        and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix
        it, and ...

        [Okay, okay, I'll leave it in, but I think you're destroying
         the credibility of the entire fortune program.  Ed.]
user, n.:
        The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
                -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"

[I always thought "computer professional" was the phrase hackers used
when they meant "idiot."  Ed.]
well-adjusted, adj.:
        The ability to play bridge or golf as if they were games.
White's Statement:
        Don't lose heart!

Owen's Commentary on White's Statement:
        ...they might want to cut it out...

Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary:
        ...and they want to avoid a lengthy search.
Woolsey-Swanson Rule:
        People would rather live with a problem they cannot
        solve rather than accept a solution they cannot understand.
Emotional Ketchup Burst:
        The bottling up of opinions and emotions inside oneself so
that they explosively burst forth all at once, shocking and confusing
employers and friends -- most of whom thought things were fine.
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Clique Maintenance:
        The need of one generation to see the generation following it
as deficient so as to bolster its own collective ego: "Kids today do
nothing.  They're so apathetic.  We used to go out and protest.  All
they do is shop and complain."
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Ethnomagnetism:
        The tendency of young people to live in emotionally
demonstrative, more unrestrained ethnic neighborhoods: "You wouldn't
understand it there, mother -- they *hug* where I live now."
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Legislated Nostalgia:
        To force a body of people to have memories they do not
actually possess: "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I
don't even remember any of it?"
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Underdogging:
        The tendency to almost invariably side with the underdog in a
given situation.  The consumer expression of this trait is the
purchasing of less successful, "sad," or failing products: "I know
these Vienna franks are heart failure on a stick, but they were so sad
looking up against all the other yuppie food items that I just had to
buy them."
                -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
                   Culture"
Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the
floor -- especially in the dark.
Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels.
Events are not affected, they develop.
                -- Sri Aurobindo
Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
                -- Aldous Huxley
Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world...
                -- Wally Shawn
Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you.
                -- Albert Einstein
It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished.
Lemmings don't grow older, they just die.
Once I finally figured out all of life's answers, they changed the questions.
Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or
help speed the change by breaking them?
She has an alarm clock and a phone that don't ring -- they applaud.
Some changes are so slow, you don't notice them.  Others are so fast,
they don't notice you.
They finally got King Midas, I hear.  Gild by association.
They just buzzed and buzzed...buzzed.
Why do seagulls live near the sea?  'Cause if they lived near the bay,
they'd be called baygulls.
I am tired of fighting...The old men are all dead...The little children
are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the
hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are...Hear
me, my Chiefs!! I am tired: my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun
now stands, I will fight no more.              Chief Joseph, (Nez Perce)
Coach: Can I draw you a beer, Norm?
Norm:  No, I know what they look like.  Just pour me one.
                -- Cheers, No Help Wanted

Coach: How about a beer, Norm?
Norm:  Hey I'm high on life, Coach.  Of course, beer is my life.
                -- Cheers, No Help Wanted

Coach: How's a beer sound, Norm?
Norm:  I dunno.  I usually finish them before they get a word in.
                -- Cheers, Fortune and Men's Weights
Drunks are rarely amusing unless they know some good songs and lose a
lot a poker.
                -- Karyl Roosevelt
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...
Harry's bar has a new cocktail.  It's called MRS punch.  They make it with
milk, rum and sugar and it's wonderful.  The milk is for vitality and the
sugar is for pep.  They put in the rum so that people will know what to do
with all that pep and vitality.
I will not drink!
But if I do...
I will not get drunk!
But if I do...
I will not in public!
But if I do...
I will not fall down!
But if I do...
I will fall face down so that they cannot see my company badge.
I've always felt sorry for people that don't drink -- remember,
when they wake up, that's as good as they're gonna feel all day!
If people drank ink instead of Schlitz, they'd be better off.
                -- Edward E. Hippensteel

[What brand of ink?  Ed.]
It's useless to try to hold some people to anything they say while they're
madly in love, drunk, or running for office.
Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way
they can. I'm sick of the job.  It's a thankless one and full of grief.
                -- Al Capone
Marvin the Nature Lover spied a grasshopper hopping along in the grass,
and in a mood for communing with nature, rare even among full-fledged
Nature Lovers, he spoke to the grasshopper, saying: "Hello, friend
grasshopper.  Did you know they've named a drink after you?"
        "Really?" replied the grasshopper, obviously pleased.  "They've
named a drink Fred?"
[Norm goes into the bar at Vic's Bowl-A-Rama.]

Off-screen crowd:  Norm!
Sam:   How the hell do they know him here?
Cliff: He's got a life, you know.
                -- Cheers, From Beer to Eternity

Woody: What can I do for you, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Elope with my wife.
                -- Cheers, The Triangle

Woody: How's life, Mr. Peterson?
Norm:  Oh, I'm waiting for the movie.
                -- Cheers, Take My Shirt... Please?
[Norm returns from the hospital.]

Coach:  What's up, Norm?
Norm:   Everything that's supposed to be.
                -- Cheers, Diane Meets Mom

Sam:  What's new, Normie?
Norm: Terrorists, Sam.  They've taken over my stomach.  They're demanding beer.
                -- Cheers, The Heart is a Lonely Snipehunter

Coach: What'll it be, Normie?
Norm:  Just the usual, Coach.  I'll have a froth of beer and a snorkel.
                -- Cheers, King of the Hill
One dusty July afternoon, somewhere around the turn of the century, Patrick
Malone was in Mulcahey's Bar, bending an elbow with the other street car
conductors from the Brooklyn Traction Company.  While they were discussing the
merits of a local ring hero, the bar goes silent.  Malone turns around to see
his wife, with a face grim as death, stalking to the bar.
        Slapping a four-bit piece down on the bar, she draws herself up to her
full five feet five inches and says to Mulcahey, "Give me what himself has
been havin' all these years."
        Mulcahey looks at Malone, who shrugs, and then back at Margaret Mary
Malone.  He sets out a glass and pours her a triple shot of Rye.  The bar is
totally silent as they watch the woman pick up the glass and knock back the
drink.  She slams the glass down on the bar, gasps, shudders slightly, and
passes out; falling straight back, stiff as a board, saved from sudden contact
with the barroom floor by the ample belly of Seamus Fogerty.
        Sometime later, she comes to on the pool table, a jacket under her
head.  Her bloodshot eyes fell upon her husband, who says, "And all these
years you've been thinkin' I've been enjoying meself."
        Split                1/4 bottle        .187 liters
        Half                1/2 bottle
        Bottle                750 milliliters
        Magnum                2 bottles        1.5 liters
        Jeroboam        4 bottles
        Rehoboam        6 bottles        Not available in the US
        Methuselah        8 bottles
        Salmanazar        12 bottles
        Balthazar        16 bottles
        Nebuchadnezzar        20 bottles        15 liters
        Sovereign        34 bottles        26 liters

        The Sovereign is a new bottle, made for the launching of the
largest cruise ship in the world.  The bottle alone cost 8,000 dollars
to produce and they only made 8 of them.
        Most of the funny names come from Biblical people.
These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they
used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink.
They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the Chivas!
Why on earth do people buy old bottles of wine when they can get a
fresh one for a quarter of the price?
FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #4
A:        Go west, young man, go west!
Q:        What do wabbits do when they get tiwed of wunning awound?
Q:        How does the Polish Constitution differ from the American?
A:        Under the Polish Constitution citizens are guaranteed freedom of
        speech, but under the United States constitution they are
        guaranteed freedom after speech.
                -- being told in Poland, 1987
Q:        How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:        Five.  One to screw in the light bulb and four to share the
                experience.  (Actually, Californians don't screw in
                light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs.)

Q:        How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:        Three.  One to screw in the light bulb and two to fend off all
                those Californians trying to share the experience.
Q:        How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat?
A:        Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.

Q:        How long does it take?
A:        It's indeterminate.
        It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them.

Q:        What happens if you've got TWO flats?
A:        They replace your generator.
Q:        How many members of the U.S.S. Enterprise does it take to change a
        light bulb?
A:        Seven.  Scotty has to report to Captain Kirk that the light bulb in
        the Engineering Section is getting dim, at which point Kirk will send
        Bones to pronounce the bulb dead (although he'll immediately claim
        that he's a doctor, not an electrician).  Scotty, after checking
        around, realizes that they have no more new light bulbs, and complains
        that he "canna" see in the dark.  Kirk will make an emergency stop at
        the next uncharted planet, Alpha Regula IV, to procure a light bulb
        from the natives, who, are friendly, but seem to be hiding something.
        Kirk, Spock, Bones, Yeoman Rand and two red shirt security officers
        beam down to the planet, where the two security officers are promply
        killed by the natives, and the rest of the landing party is captured.
        As something begins to develop between the Captain and Yeoman Rand,
        Scotty, back in orbit, is attacked by a Klingon destroyer and must
        warp out of orbit.  Although badly outgunned, he cripples the Klingon
        and races back to the planet in order to rescue Kirk et. al. who have
        just saved the natives' from an awful fate and, as a reward, been
        given all light bulbs they can carry.  The new bulb is then inserted
        and the Enterprise continues on its five year mission.
Q:        Minnesotans ask, "Why aren't there more pharmacists from Alabama?"
A:        Easy.  It's because they can't figure out how to get the little
        bottles into the typewriter.
Q:        What do little WASPs want to be when they grow up?
A:        The very best person they can possibly be.
Q:        What do they call the alphabet in Arkansas?
A:        The impossible dream.
Q:        What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean?
A:        It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the
        Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take
        the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews.
Q:        What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
A:        Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!

Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they
        are removable!

Q:        An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his
        very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God?
A:        Yes, up to isomorphism!

Q:        What is a compact city?
A:        It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted
        policemen!
                -- Peter Lax
Q:        Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads?
A:        Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise?
        Oh, right, *of course*!
Q:        Why do WASPs play golf ?
A:        So they can dress like pimps.
Q:        Why don't Scotsmen ever have coffee the way they like it?
A:        Well, they like it with two lumps of sugar.  If they drink
        it at home, they only take one, and if they drink it while
        visiting, they always take three.
A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems
best.  That's dangerous.  Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to
serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the
schools as 'standards'?  Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to
work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if
not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent,
elitist.  ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such
stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be
supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real
professionals.  Those texts are called 'reading material.'  They are the
academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms,
and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating
resource centers along the roads.
                -- The Underground Grammarian
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
                -- William James
        A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor
recorded the following on the patient's chart:  "Patient failed to fulfill
his wellness potential."
        Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal
of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors."
        A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti-
personnel devices."  You probably call them bombs.
        At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian
mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status."  That is, they were fired.
        After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls
of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it)
only to receive the following notice:  "We must report that during the handling
of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an
unusual laboratory experience."  The use of the passive is a particularly nice
touch, don't you think?  Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad
experience.  Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his
pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously
sent him.
                -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE)
Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
                -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Briefly stated, the findings are that when presented with an array of
data or a sequence of events in which they are instructed to discover
an underlying order, subjects show strong tendencies to perceive order
and causality in random arrays, to perceive a pattern or correlation
which seems a priori intuitively correct even when the actual correlation
in the data is counterintuitive, to jump to conclusions about the correct
hypothesis, to seek and to use only positive or confirmatory evidence, to
construe evidence liberally as confirmatory, to fail to generate or to
assess alternative hypotheses, and having thus managed to expose themselves
only to confirmatory instances, to be fallaciously confident of the validity
of their judgments (Jahoda, 1969; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978).  In the
analyzing of past events, these tendencies are exacerbated by failure to
appreciate the pitfalls of post hoc analyses.
                -- A. Benjamin
Department chairmen never die, they just lose their faculties.
Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and
demand.  The less of either the people have, the less they want.
                -- Charlotte Observer, 1897
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers.  My
opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.  There's many a bestseller
that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
                -- Flannery O'Connor
Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads.
They're just older.
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get
the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude.  See in
college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural
method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall
learn what you have no taste or capacity for.  The college, which should
be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the
young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits.
I would have the studies elective.  Scholarship is to be created not
by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge.  The wise
instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the
attractions the study has for himself.  The marking is a system for schools,
not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to
put on a professor.
                -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them end to
end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.
                -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten"
        In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,
Junior, what are you up to?"
        "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the
rabbit.
        "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!  No one
will publish such rubbish!"
        "Well, follow me and I'll show you."
        They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the
rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face.  Comes along a
wolf.  "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?"
        "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour
wolves."
        "Are you crazy?  Where's your academic honesty?"
        "Come with me and I'll show you."
        As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face
and a diploma in his paw.  Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave
and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge
lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody
remnants of the wolf and the fox.

        The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are
important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts.
Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't
they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning
anything?  If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five
years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
        It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and
by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate
the habit of thinking about what we are doing.  The precise opposite is the
case.  Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations
which we can perform without thinking about them.  Operations of thought are
like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they
require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
                -- Alfred North Whitehead
Most seminars have a happy ending.  Everyone's glad when they're over.
Rules for Good Grammar #4.
         (1) Don't use no double negatives.
         (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents.
         (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
         (4) About them sentence fragments.
         (5) When dangling, watch your participles.
         (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.
         (7) Just between you and i, case is important.
         (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read.
         (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
        (10) Try to not ever split infinitives.
        (11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly.
        (12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.
        (13) Correct speling is essential.
        (14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with.
        (15) While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally
             careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not
             become ensconsed in obscurity.  In other words, eschew obfuscation.
Some scholars are like donkeys, they merely carry a lot of books.
                -- Folk saying
The problem with graduate students, in general, is that they have
to sleep every few days.
        "We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation.  We
had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said
Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale.
                -- The Washington Post, February, 1988

The New Yorker's comment:
        At Harvard they'd call it a noun.
Whenever anyone says, "theoretically," they really mean, "not really."
                -- Dave Parnas
A Hen Brooding Kittens
        A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county,
a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three
kittens!  The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring
says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that
she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past.  The young
felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at
her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings.
                -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game.  Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge.  Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match.  Then, the
paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it.  Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs.
                -- Audobon Society Magazine
A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a
watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he
looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his
tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were
they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led
by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged,
killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting
could not be seen.  A little while later the two kings of the jungle
emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of
the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions."
After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with
the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only
the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of
any interest...  but even then the interest items are usually buried deep
around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont.  on ...") page...

The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa.  The
Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all.
But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line
or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie
burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck.
They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental
woman who seemed to be in control."

Now that's good journalism.  Totally objective; very active and straight
to the point.
                -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens
who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known
something of what has been passing in their time.
                -- H. Truman
        Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him
Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed,
and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell
every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about
getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console
me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under.
        Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem
to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that.
No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or
maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland...  On
the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as
whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last
possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car.
                -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"
"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country.  The
Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The
National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running
the country ..."
                -- Robert J Woodhead
        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.
Also, the Scots are said to have invented golf.  Then they had
to invent Scotch whiskey to take away the pain and frustration.
Five people -- an Englishman, Russian, American, Frenchman and Irishman
were each asked to write a book on elephants.  Some amount of time later they
had all completed their respective books.  The Englishman's book was entitled
"The Elephant -- How to Collect Them", the Russian's "The Elephant -- Vol. I",
the American's "The Elephant -- How to Make Money from Them", the Frenchman's
"The Elephant -- Its Mating Habits" and the Irishman's "The Elephant and
Irish Political History".
In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't
get parts.
In California they don't throw their garbage away -- they make it into
television shows.
                -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall"
In Minnesota they ask why all football fields in Iowa have artificial turf.
It's so the cheerleaders won't graze during the game.
Iowans ask why Minnesotans don't drink more Kool-Aid.  That's because
they can't figure out how to get two quarts of water into one of those
little paper envelopes.
One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your
seat to another passenger.  This may seem callous, but it is the best
way, really.  If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who fainted
in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become disoriented and
imagine they were in Topeka Kansas.
        Some 1500 miles west of the Big Apple we find the Minneapple, a
haven of tranquility in troubled times.  It's a good town, a civilized town.
A town where they still know how to get your shirts back by Thursday.  Let
the Big Apple have the feats of "Broadway Joe" Namath.  We have known the
stolid but steady Killebrew.  Listening to Cole Porter over a dry martini
may well suit those unlucky enough never to have heard the Whoopee John Polka
Band and never to have shared a pitcher of 3.2 Grain Belt Beer.  The loss is
theirs.  And the Big Apple has yet to bake the bagel that can match peanut
butter on lefse.  Here is a town where the major urban problem is dutch elm
disease and the number one crime is overtime parking.  We boast more theater
per capita than the Big Apple.  We go to see, not to be seen.  We go even
when we must shovel ten inches of snow from the driveway to get there.  Indeed
the winters are fierce.  But then comes the marvel of the Minneapple summer.
People flock to the city's lakes to frolic and rejoice at the sight of so
much happy humanity free from the bonds of the traditional down-filled parka.
Here's to the Minneapple.  And to its people.  Our flair for style is balanced
by a healthy respect for wind chill factors.
        And we always, always eat our vegetables.
        This is the Minneapple.
The American nation in the sixth ward is a fine people; they love the
eagle -- on the back of a dollar.
                -- Finlay Peter Dunne
The curse of the Irish is not that they don't know the words to a song --
it's that they know them *___all*.
                -- Susan Dooley
The Czechs announced after Sputnik that they, too, would launch a satellite.
Of course, it would orbit Sputnik, not Earth!
To a Californian, all New Yorkers are cold; even in heat they rarely go
above fifty-eight degrees.  If you collapse on a street in New York, plan
to spend a few days there.
        -- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts
We don't care how they do it in New York.
A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by
hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West.  They
drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and
found there was no pilot on board.  Terrified, they listened as the sirens
got louder.  Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an
experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft.
        He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out.  The sirens
got louder and louder.  Armed men surrounded the jet.  The would be pilot's
friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!!  Hurry!!!"
        The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience.  I'm just a simple
pole in a complex plane."
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 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."
        After the Children of Israel had wandered for thirty-nine years
in the wilderness, Ferdinand Feghoot arrived to make sure that they would
finally find and enter the Promised Land.  With him, he brought his
favorite robot, faithful old Yewtoo Artoo, to carry his gear and do
assorted camp chores.
        The Israelites soon got over their initial fear of the robot and,
as the months passed, became very fond of him.  Patriarchs took to
discussing abtruse theological problems with him, and each evening the
children all gathered to hear the many stories with which he was programmed.
Therefore it came as a great shock to them when, just as their journey was
ending, he abruptly wore out.  Even Feghoot couldn't console them.
        "It may be true, Ferdinand Feghoot," said Moses, "that our friend
Yewtoo Artoo was soulless, but we cannot believe it.  He must be properly
interred.  We cannot embalm him as do the Egyptians.  Nor have we wood for
a coffin.  But I do have a most splendid skin from one of Pharoah's own
cattle.  We shall bury him in it."
        Feghoot agreed.  "Yes, let this be his last rusting place."
        "Rusting?" Moses cried.  "Not in this dreadful dry desert!"
        "Ah!" sighed Ferdinand Feghoot, shedding a tear, "I fear you do not
realize the full significance of Pharoah's oxhide!"
                -- Grendel Briarton "Through Time & Space With Ferdinand
                   Feghoot!"
Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat.  You pull his tail in New
York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles.  Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there.  The only difference is that there is no cat."
An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New
Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not
new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax.
                -- David Letterman
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
                -- Albert Einstein
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense.  Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism:  The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
                -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"
Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons.  Some
military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people
who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks.
Since in those days, only Western Electric  made "data sets" (modems) the
problems of terminology were all Bell System.  We used to struggle with
written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people
(most phones were rotary then.)  Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering
types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were
the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote
the "pound sign."  Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out.  It
never really caught on.
Chemistry professors never die, they just fail to react.
"Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of
marvelous things.  It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory",
quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can
claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed.
                -- Randy Davis
Did you hear that two rabbits escaped from the zoo and so far they have
only recaptured 116 of them?
Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined
them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction?
Dinosaurs aren't extinct.  They've just learned to hide in the trees.
Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a
percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor.
                -- Edgar R. Fiedler
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist.  But while this simplistic
formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific
mind.  The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned
with what ____does exist.  Indeed, the banality of existence has been
so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further
here.  The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically,
discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical,
and the purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent,
but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ...
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
Experiments must be reproducible; they should all fail in the same way.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.  There are many examples
of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies,
but they prevailed with irrefutable data.  More often, egregious findings
that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts.  I have
argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic conciousness,"
and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of
neuroscience.  Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid
handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena
than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves
offer more plausible alternatives.
                -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness:
                   Implications for Psi Phenomena".
Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her
husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer!  My joules!  Someone has stolen my
joules!"

"Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux
a moment.  Perhaps they're mislead."

"No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence.  "I remember putting them
in my burette ... We must call a copper."

Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms,
said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name
of Lawrence Ium.

"We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and
dangerous.  His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium.  Maybe I can
catch him there."  With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an
activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ...
                -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"
FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL:                #1
        A guinea pig is not from Guinea but a rodent from South America.
        A firefly is not a fly, but a beetle.
        A giant panda bear is really a member of the racoon family.
        A black panther is really a leopard that has a solid black coat
            rather then a spotted one.
        Peanuts are not really nuts.  The majority of nuts grow on trees
                while peauts grow underground.  They are classified as a
                legume -- part of the pea family.
        A cucumber is not a vegetable but a fruit.
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.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
                -- Albert Einstein

They laughed at Einstein.  They laughed at the Wright Brothers.  But they
also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
                -- Carl Sagan
Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical
lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your
hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings.  Did you
notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain?  This
teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never
use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson.
        It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works.  When you scuffed
your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects
that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt.
The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger,
where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels
down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit.
        Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without
touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger
would explode!  But this is nothing to worry about unless you have
carpeting.
                -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
        "I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me.
I think very probably he might be cured."
        "That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob.
        "His brain is affected," said the blind doctor.
        The elders murmured assent.
        "Now, what affects it?"
        "Ah!" said old Yacob.
        "This," said the doctor, answering his own question.  "Those queer
things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft
depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way
as to affect his brain.  They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and
his eyelids move, and cosequently his brain is in a state of constant
irritation and distraction."
        "Yes?" said old Yacob.  "Yes?"
        "And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order
to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical
operation -- namely, to remove those irritant bodies."
        "And then he will be sane?"
        "Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen."
        "Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob.
                -- H.G. Wells, "The Country of the Blind"
I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that
they might escape the lusts of the flesh.
                -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"
I THINK THEY SHOULD CONTINUE the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for
paneling.
                -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make
something out of you.
                -- Muhammad Ali
In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between
frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they
are all merely transforms of one another.  This combined with
minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct
compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can
lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost.  However,
this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.  They really
do it.  It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are
human and change is sometimes painful.  But it happens every day.  I cannot
recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
                -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address
        In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by
the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist.  And they grew to
large numbers and prospered.
        One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far
as the eye could see.  So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that
was to reach up as far as "up" went.  Further and further up they went ...
until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox.
        The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge
structure reaching to the heavens.  One by one, the Mathematicians climbed
out from under the rubble.  It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when
they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not
understand each other.  They all spoke different languages.  They all fought
amongst themselves and each went about their own way.  To this day the
Topologists remain the original Mathematicians.
                -- The Story of Babel
        "In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa
to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to
like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely
baroque feel to a continent.  And they tell me it's not equatorial enough.
Equatorial!"  He gave a hollow laugh.  "What does it matter?  Science has
achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than
right any day."
        "And are you?"
        "No.  That's where it all falls down, of course."
        "Pity," said Arthur with sympathy.  "It sounded like quite a good
life-style otherwise."
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
It is not that polar co-ordinates are complicated, it is simply
that cartesian co-ordinates are simpler than they have a right to be.
                -- Kleppner & Kolenhow, "An Introduction to Mechanics"
Just because they are called 'forbidden' transitions does not mean that they
are forbidden.  They are less allowed than allowed transitions, if you see
what I mean.
                -- From a Part 2 Quantum Mechanics lecture.
Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable
British automotive electrical systems.  Professionals call the company "The
Prince of Darkness".  Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture
nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground.  The British
don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do.  The British drink warm
beer because they have Lucas refrigerators.
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen:  whatever you say to them they translate
into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.
                -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural
function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the
other.  There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the
brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise.
Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only. ... It is quite
conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected.  But it
is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working
assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it.
Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble.  One cannot
logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology.
                -- D.O. Hebb, "Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological
                   Theory", 1949
        My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or
even that they were always wrong.  Rather, I believe that science must be
understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of
robots programmed to collect pure information.  I also present this view as
an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on
the alter of human limitations.
        I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often
in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it.  Galileo was not shown
the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion.  He had
threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal
stability:  the static world order with planets circling about a central
earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord.  But the
Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology.  They had no choice; the
earth really does revolve about the sun.
                -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"
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"
Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the
smaller prime numbers.

2:  The Odd Prime --
        It's the only even prime, therefore is odd.  QED.
3:  The True Prime --
        Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true."
31: The Arbitrary Prime --
        Determined by unanimous unvote.  We needed an arbitrary prime in
        case the prof asked for one, and so had an election.  91 received
        the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most.
        However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all.
41: The Female Prime --
        The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is
        prime for integer values from 1 to 40.
43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair.

Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities
are derived from those primes.  So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd
but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.
One Bell System - it used to work before they installed the Dimension!
One has to look out for engineers -- they begin with sewing machines
and end up with the atomic bomb.
                -- Marcel Pagnol
One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer
terror.
                -- W.K. Hartmann
Psychologists think they're experimental psychologists.
Experimental psychologists think they're biologists.
Biologists think they're biochemists.
Biochemists think they're chemists.
Chemists think they're physical chemists.
Physical chemists think they're physicists.
Physicists think they're theoretical physicists.
Theoretical physicists think they're mathematicians.
Mathematicians think they're metamathematicians.
Metamathematicians think they're philosophers.
Philosophers think they're gods.
        "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised.  "We're back in the
universe again..."  An unusually long pause followed, "...but I don't
know which part.  We seem to have changed our position in space."  A
spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
starfield surrounding the ship.
        "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us,"
ZORAC announced after a short pause.  "The designs are not familiar, but
they are obviously the products of intelligence.  Implications: we have
been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown,
and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
                -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"
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?
Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.
The Commandments of the EE:

(1)        Beware of lightning that lurketh in an uncharged condenser
        lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most
        embarrassing manner.
(2)        Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to
        be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days may be long in this
        earthly vale of tears.
(3)        Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth, and upon
        which the worketh, are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift
        thee to a radio frequency potential and causeth thee to make like
        a radiator too.
(4)        Tarry thou not amongst these fools that engage in intentional
        shocks for they are not long for this world and are surely
        unbelievers.
The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer
and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown
suit in the city.  Colleges may be to blame.  English majors are encouraged,
I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not
dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the
quad.  And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors,
and they are squeamish about technology to this very day.  So it is natural
for them to despise science fiction.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction"
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they
are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally
understood.  Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
                -- John Maynard Keyes
The more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain.
The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have
no legitimacy.
                -- Albert Einstein
The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with.
Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oil using
other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle Eastern
countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats, etc., but so
far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous bulldozer-rental bill
and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons.  None of the animals turned into
oil, although most of the laboratory rats developed cancer.
                -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
The purpose of Physics 7A is to make the engineers realize that they're
not perfect, and to make the rest of the people realize that they're not
engineers.
The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four
forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and
bloody-mindedness.
                -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
The Wright Bothers weren't the first to fly.  They were just the first
not to crash.
There was a writer in 'Life' magazine ... who claimed that rabbits have
no memory, which is one of their defensive mechanisms.  If they recalled
every close shave they had in the course of just an hour life would become
insupportable.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut
There was an old Indian belief that by making love on the hide of
their favorite animal, one could guarantee the health and prosperity
of the offspring conceived thereupon.  And so it goes that one Indian
couple made love on a buffalo  hide.  Nine months later, they were
blessed with a healthy baby son.  Yet another couple huddled together
on the hide of a deer and they too were blessed with a very healthy
baby son.  But a third couple, whose favorite animal was a hippopotamus,
were blessed with not one, but TWO very healthy baby sons at the conclusion
of the nine month interval.  All of which proves the old theorem that:
The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of
the squaws of the other two hides.
They don't know how the world is shaped.  And so they give it a shape, and
try to make everything fit it.  They separate the right from the left, the
man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They
only want to count to two.
                -- Emma Bull, "Bone Dance"
Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the
molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic.  A fourth affirms, with
Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose
existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A fifth
theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about
the matter than the others.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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."
Two wrights don't make a rong, they make an airplane.  Or bicycles.
... we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent
observations and inferences by the thousands.  The earth is billions of
years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary
descent.  Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but
do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither
flat nor at the center of the universe?  Science *has* taught us some
things with confidence!  Evolution on an ancient earth is as well
established as our planet's shape and position.  Our continuing struggle
to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not
cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" --
into doubt.
                -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism",
                   The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2.
When Alexander Graham Bell died in 1922, the telephone people interrupted
service for one minute in his honor.  They've been honoring him intermittently
ever since, I believe.
                -- The Grab Bag
When some people discover the truth, they just can't understand why
everybody isn't eager to hear it.
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
build a nuclear balm?
        "Yo, Mike!"
        "Yeah, Gabe?"
        "We got a problem down on Earth.  In Utah."
        "I thought you fixed that last century!"
        "No, no, not that.  Someone's found a security problem in the physics
program.  They're getting energy out of nowhere."
        "Blessit!  Lemme look...  <tappity clickity tappity>  Hey, it's
there all right!  OK, just a sec...  <tappity clickity tap... save... compile>
There, that ought to patch it.  Dist it out, wouldja?"
                -- Cold Fusion, 1989
Dopeler effect: the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they
come at you rapidly.
                -- Greg Oetjen of Lorton, VA in the Washington Post
                   "Style Invitational Report from Week 278" published
                   August 2, 1998
        A couple of kids tried using pickles instead of paddles for a Ping-Pong
game.  They had the volley of the Dills.
Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of
this complete breakfast".  The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be
watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for
a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky
Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food
such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete
breakfast".  Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast",
or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"?  And couldn't they make
essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of
shaving cream there, or a dead bat?

Answer: Yes.
                -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
Fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate:

        I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine.
        "Hey you, get off my plate"
                -- Roger Midnight
Fortune's diet truths:
1:  Forget what the cookbooks say, plain yogurt tastes nothing like sour cream.
2:  Any recipe calling for soybeans tastes like mud.
3:  Carob is not an acceptable substitute for chocolate.  In fact, carob is not
    an acceptable substitute for anything, except, perhaps, brown shoe polish.
4:  There is no such thing as a "fun salad."  So let's stop pretending and see
    salads for what they are:  God's punishment for being fat.
5:  Fruit salad without maraschino cherries and marshmallows is about as
    appealing as tepid beer.
6:  A world lacking gravy is a tragic place!
7:  You should immediately pass up any recipes entitled "luscious and
    low-cal."  Also skip dishes featuring "lively liver."  They aren't and
    it isn't.
8:  Wearing a blindfold often makes many diet foods more palatable.
9:  Fresh fruit is not dessert.  CAKE is dessert!
10: Okra tastes slightly worse than its name implies.
11: A plain baked potato isn't worth the effort involved in chewing and
    swallowing.
Has anyone ever tasted an "end"?  Are they really bitter?
                        Has your family tried 'em?

                           POWDERMILK BISCUITS

                 Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious!

            They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons
           the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.

                           POWDERMILK BISCUITS

        Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of
        the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark
                     stains that indicate freshness.
How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being carried by
a waiter at a nice party?
        Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors
d'oeuvre.  If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell what's
inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then say:  "This is
cheese!  I hate cheese!"  Then you put the rest of it back on the tray and
bite another one and go, "Darn it!  Another cheese!" and so on.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
If you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than
rhubarb does.
                -- Groucho Marx
IT MAKES ME MAD when I go to all the trouble of having Marta cook up about
a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at Marineland says, "You can't throw
that chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish."

Sure they eat fish if that's all you give them!  Man, wise up.
                -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
Lobster:
        Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are
squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the only
proper method of preparing them.  Frankly, the easiest way to eliminate your
guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial before they're cooked.
The fact is, lobsters are among the most ferocious predators on the sea
floor, and you're helping reduce crime in the reefs.  Grasp the lobster
behind the head, look it right in its unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say,
"Where were you on the night of the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a
scallop or a sole and shout, "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural
apparatus you call a memory!"  The lobster will squirm noticeably.  It may
even take a swipe at you with one of its claws.  Incorrigible.  Pop it into
the pot.  Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will
be, too.
                -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and
                   Utensils into Excuses and Apologies"
Most people eat as though they were fattening themselves for market.
                -- E.W. Howe
The black bear used to be one of the most commonly seen large animals
because in Yosemite and Sequoia national parks they lived off of garbage
and tourist handouts.  This bear has learned to open car doors in
Yosemite, where damage to automobiles caused by bears runs into the tens
of thousands of dollars a year.  Campaigns to bearproof all garbage
containers in wild areas have been difficult, because as one biologist
put it, "There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels
of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."
        ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal
lives as well.  When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy
imported dental floss.  They buy gourmet baking soda.  If an '80s couple
goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in
advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk
out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant.  If
it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people
like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the
night.  An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately
for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli.
                -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
Too Late
        A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by
the two o'clock boats.  If their object in going down was to participate in
the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after
the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby.
                -- Sacramento Daily Union, November 29, 1861
Why do they call a fast a fast, when it goes so slow?
You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting
incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. Fruitcakes
make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to
damage them.  They last forever, largely because nobody ever eats them.  In
fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes they receive and send them back
to the original givers the next year; some fruitcakes have been passed back
and forth for hundreds of years.

The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then pound
some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet.  Be sure to wear safety glasses.
                -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name, another $2
if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and another $2 for each
"special" he describes involving confusing terms such as "shallots," and $4
if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In many restaurants, this means the
waiter will actually owe you money. If you are traveling with a child aged
six months to three years, you should leave an additional amount equal to
twice the bill to compensate for the fact that they will have to take the
banquette out and burn it because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets
made of partially chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit.

In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his hemorrhoids.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
A pig is a jolly companion,
Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!
                -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
Again she fled, but swift he came.
Tin'uviel!  Tin'uviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came
And doom fell on Tin'uviel
That in his arms lay glistening.

As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tin'uviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.

Long was the way that fate them bore,
O'er stony mountains cold and grey,
Through halls of iron and darkling door,
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And long ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"
And I answer them most mysteriously:
"Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?"
                -- Bob Dylan
All my friends are getting married,
Yes, they're all growing old,
They're all staying home on the weekend,
They're all doing what they're told.
All the lines have been written                There's been Sandburg,
It's sad but it's true                        Keats, Poe and McKuen
With all the words gone,                They all had their day
What's a young poet to do?                And knew what they're doin'

But of all the words written                The bird is a strange one,
And all the lines read,                        So small and so tender
There's one I like most,                Its breed still unknown,
And by a bird it was said!                Not to mention its gender.

It reminds me of days of                So what is this line
Both gloom and of light.                Whose author's unknown
It still lifts my spirits                And still makes me giggle
And starts the day right.                Even now that I'm grown?

I've read all the greats
Both starving and fat,
But none was as great as
"I tot I taw a puddy tat."
                -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood"
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
And I heard Jeff exclaim,
As they strolled out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all --
You take credit cards, right?"
                -- "Outsiders" comic
As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day,
I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay,
The words were torn and tattered,
From the storm the night before,
The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes,

Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer,
Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear,
Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar,
And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star.

Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire,
Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear,
Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three,
And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea.
Beneath this stone lies Murphy,
They buried him today,
He lived the life of Riley,
While Riley was away.
Black shiny mollies and bright colored guppies,
Shy little angels as gentle as puppies,
Swimming and diving with scarcely a swish,
They were just some of my tropical fish.

Then I got mantas that sting in the water,
Deadly piranhas that itch for a slaughter,
Savage male betas that bite with a squish,
Now I have many less tropical fish.

        If you think that
        Fish are peaceful
        That's an empty wish.
        Just dump them together
        And leave them alone,
        And soon you will have -- no fish.
                -- To My Favorite Things
Breathe deep the gathering gloom.
Watch lights fade from every room.
Bed-sitter people look back and lament;
another day's useless energies spent.

Impassioned lovers wrestle as one.
Lonely man cries for love and has none.
New mother picks up and suckles her son.
Senior citizens wish they were young.

Cold-hearted orb that rules the night;
Removes the colors from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white.
But we decide which is real, and which is an illusion."
                -- The Moody Blues, "Days of Future Passed"
Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes
Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;
Less dear than army ants in apple pies
Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,
Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;
Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose
They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,
Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed;
And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:
Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;
Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.
Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,
Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.
Christmas time is here, by Golly;        Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens;
Disapproval would be folly;                Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens;
Deck the halls with hunks of holly;        Even though the prospect sickens,
Fill the cup and don't say when...        Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas day, you can't get sore;        Relations sparing no expense'll,
Your fellow man you must adore;                Send some useless old utensil,
There's time to rob him all the more,        Or a matching pen and pencil,
The other three hundred and sixty-four!        Just the thing I need... how nice.

It doesn't matter how sincere                Hark The Herald-Tribune sings,
It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit;        Advertising wondrous things.
Sentiment will not endear it;                God Rest Ye Merry Merchants,
What's important is... the price.        May you make the Yuletide pay.
                                        Angels We Have Heard On High,
Let the raucous sleighbells jingle;        Tell us to go out and buy.
Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle,        Sooooo...
Driving his reindeer across the sky,
Don't stand underneath when they fly by!
                -- Tom Lehrer
Come on, Virginia, don't make me wait!
Catholic girls start much too late,
Ah, but sooner or later, it comes down to fate,
I might as well be the one.
Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray,
Built you a temple and locked you away,
Ah, but they never told you the price that you paid,
The things that you might have done.
So come on, Virginia, show me a sign,
Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line,
That stained glass curtain that you're hiding behind,
Never lets in the sun.
Darling, only the good die young!
                -- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"
Despising machines to a man,
The Luddites joined up with the Klan,
        And ride out by night
        In a sheeting of white
To lynch all the robots they can.
                -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson
Do your otters do the shimmy?
Do they like to shake their tails?
Do your wombats sleep in tophats?
Is your garden full of snails?
Down to the Banana Republics,
Down to the tropical sun.
Go the expatriated Americans,
Hoping to find some fun.
Some of them go for the sailing,
Caught by the lure of the sea.
Trying to find what is ailing,
Living in the land of the free.
Some of them are running from lovers,
Leaving no forward address.
Some of them are running tons of ganja,
Some are running from the IRS.
Late at night you will find them,
In the cheap hotels and bars.
Hustling the senoritas,
While they dance beneath the stars.
                -- Jimmy Buffet, "Banana Republics"
Eleanor Rigby
        Sits at the keyboard
        And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream
Waits for a signal
        Finding some code
        That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

Hacker MacKensie
Writing the code for a program that no one will run
It's nearly done
Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's
        nobody there.
What does he care?

All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Ah, look at all the lonely users.
Ah, look at all the lonely users.
Everything's great in this good old world;
(This is the stuff they can always use.)
God's in his heaven, the hill's dew-pearled;
(This will provide for baby's shoes.)
Hunger and War do not mean a thing;
Everything's rosy where'er we roam;
Hark, how the little birds gaily sing!
(This is what fetches the bacon home.)
                -- Dorothy Parker, "The Far Sighted Muse"
F:        When into a room I plunge, I
        Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI.
        Then I linger, darkly brooding
        On the poison they're exuding.
                -- The Roguelet's ABC
Fifty flippant frogs
Walked by on flippered feet
And with their slime they made the time
Unnaturally fleet.
Five names that I can hardly stand to hear,
Including yours and mine and one more chimp who isn't here,
I can see the ladies talking how the times is gettin' hard,
And that fearsome excavation on Magnolia boulevard,
Yes, I'm goin' insane,
And I'm laughing at the frozen rain,
Well, I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home?
        Bad sneakers and a pina colada my friend,
        Stopping on the avenue by Radio City, with a
        Transistor and a large sum of money to spend...
You fellah, you tearin' up the street,
You wear that white tuxedo, how you gonna beat the heat,
Do you take me for a fool, do you think that I don't see,
That ditch out in the Valley that they're diggin' just for me,
Yes, and goin' insane,
You know I'm laughin' at the frozen rain,
Feel like I'm so alone, honey when they gonna send me home?
(chorus)
                -- Bad Sneakers, "Steely Dan"
Flying saucers on occasion
        Show themselves to human eyes.
Aliens fume, put off invasion
        While they brand these tales as lies.
Friends, Romans, Hipsters,
Let me clue you in;
I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.
The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;
The hip bits, like, go down under;
so let it lay with Caesar.  The cool Brutus
Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes;
If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea,
And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.
Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, --
for Brutus is a real cool cat;
So are they all, all cool cats, --
Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down.
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss -- and when.
Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

        You are a fluke of the universe ...
        You have no right to be here.
        Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
        Is laughing behind your back.
                -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
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
        Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there
may be in Science.  As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system.
Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results.  And listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers.  Avoid loud and
aggressive persons, for they are sales reps.
        If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised,
for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched.
Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real
hassle and could change your fortunes in time.
        Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of
bugs.  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive
for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations.  Strive for
proportionality.  Especially, do not faint when it occurs.  Neither be cyclical
about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed.
        Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points.  Gracefully pass
them on to the youth at the next desk.  Nurture some mutual funds to shield
you in times of sudden layoffs.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings
-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly.  Murphy's Law runs the
Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt <Curl>B*n dS = 0.
        Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you
can conceive of to try.  With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken
line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary.  Be linear.  Strive
to stay employed.
                -- Technolorata, "Analog"
                Hard Copies and Chmod

And everyone thinks computers are impersonal
cold diskdrives hardware monitors
user-hostile software

of course they're only bits and bytes
and characters and strings
and files

just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend
telling me he loves me and
he'll take care of me

simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory
deep intimate secrets and
how he doesn't trust me

couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould
on personal stationery
                -- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Her locks an ancient lady gave
Her loving husband's life to save;
And men -- they honored so the dame --
Upon some stars bestowed her name.

But to our modern married fair,
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
No stellar recognition's given.
There are not stars enough in heaven.
History is curious stuff
        You'd think by now we had enough
Yet the fact remains I fear
        They make more of it every year.
I am changing my name to Chrysler
I am going down to Washington, D.C.
I will tell some power broker
        What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me!

I am changing my name to Chrysler,
I am heading for that great receiving line.
When they hand a million grand out,
        I'll be standing with my hand out,
Yessir, I'll get mine!
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
I know if you been talkin' you done said
just how suprised you wuz by the living dead.
You wuz suprised that they could understand you words
and never respond once to all the truth they heard.
But don't you get square!
There ain't no rule that says they got to care.
They can always swear they're deaf, dumb and blind.
I really hate this damned machine
I wish that they would sell it.
It never does quite what I want
But only what I tell it.
I saw a man pursuing the Horizon,
'Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this,
I accosted the man,
"It is futile," I said.
"You can never--"
"You lie!" He cried,
and ran on.
                -- Stephen Crane
I sent a letter to the fish,                I said it very loud and clear,
I told them, "This is what I wish."        I went and shouted in his ear.
The little fishes of the sea,                But he was very stiff and proud,
They sent an answer back to me.                He said "You needn't shout so loud."
The little fishes' answer was                And he was very proud and stiff,
"We cannot do it, sir, because..."        He said "I'll go and wake them if..."
I sent a letter back to say                I took a kettle from the shelf,
It would be better to obey.                I went to wake them up myself.
But someone came to me and said                But when I found the door was locked
"The little fishes are in bed."                I pulled and pushed and kicked and
                                                knocked,
I said to him, and I said it plain        And when I found the door was shut,
"Then you must wake them up again."        I tried to turn the handle, But...

        "Is that all?" asked Alice.
        "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
I think that I shall never see
A thing as lovely as a tree.
But as you see the trees have gone
They went this morning with the dawn.
A logging firm from out of town
Came and chopped the trees all down.
But I will trick those dirty skunks
And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
"I thought that you said you were 20 years old!"
"As a programmer, yes," she replied,
"And you claimed to be very near two meters tall!"
"You said you were blonde, but you lied!"
Oh, she was a hacker and he was one, too,
They had so much in common, you'd say.
They exchanged jokes and poems, and clever new hacks,
And prompts that were cute or risque'.
He sent her a picture of his brother Sam,
She sent one from some past high school day,
And it might have gone on for the rest of their lives,
If they hadn't met in L.A.
"Your beard is an armpit," she said in disgust.
He answered, "Your armpit's a beard!"
And they chorused: "I think I could stand all the rest
If you were not so totally weird!"
If she had not said what he wanted to hear,
And he had not done just the same,
They'd have been far more honest, and never have met,
And would not have had fun with the game.
                -- Judith Schrier, "Face to Face After Six Months of
                Electronic Mail"
I used to be such a sweet sweet thing, 'til they got a hold of me,
I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see,
I got no friends 'cause they read the papers, they can't be seen,
With me, and I'm feelin' real shot down,
And I'm, uh, feelin' mean,
        No more, Mr. Nice Guy,
        No more, Mr. Clean,
        No more, Mr. Nice Guy,
They say "He's sick, he's obscene".

My dog bit me on the leg today, my cat clawed my eyes,
Ma's been thrown out of the social circle, and Dad has to hide,
I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose,
The reverend Smithy, he recognized me,
And punched me in the nose, he said,
(chorus)
He said "You're sick, you're obscene".
                -- Alice Cooper, "No More Mr. Nice Guy"
I'd never cry if I did find
        A blue whale in my soup...
Nor would I mind a porcupine
        Inside a chicken coop.
Yes life is fine when things combine,        
        Like ham in beef chow mein...
But lord, this time I think I mind,
        They've put acid in my rain.
                      --- Milo Bloom
I'll learn to play the Saxophone,
I play just what I feel.
Drink Scotch whisky all night long,
And die behind the wheel.
They got a name for the winners in the world,
I want a name when I lose.
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide,
Call me Deacon Blues.
                -- Becker and Fagan, "Deacon Blues"
If a system is administered wisely,
its users will be content.
They enjoy hacking their code
and don't waste time implementing
labor-saving shell scripts.
Since they dearly love their accounts,
they aren't interested in other machines.
There may be telnet, rlogin, and ftp,
but these don't access any hosts.
There may be an arsenal of cracks and malware,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy reading their mail,
take pleasure in being with their newsgroups,
spend weekends working at their terminals,
delight in the doings at the site.
And even though the next system is so close
that users can hear its key clicks and biff beeps,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.
If you had just a minute to breathe,
And they granted you one final wish,
Would you ask for something
Like another chance?
                -- Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys"
It happened long ago
In the new magic land
The Indians and the buffalo    
Existed hand in hand
The Indians needed food
They need skins for a roof
They only took what they needed
And the buffalo ran loose
But then came the white man
With his thick and empty head
He couldn't see past his billfold
He wanted all the buffalo dead
It was sad, oh so sad.
                -- Ted Nugent, "The Great White Buffalo"
Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone,
Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you,
I went out this morning and I wrote down this song,
Just can't remember who to send it to...

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end,
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again.
Thought I'd see you one more time again.
                -- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain"
Ladies and Gentlemen, Hobos and Tramps,
Cross-eyed mosquitos and bowlegged ants,
I come before you to stand behind you
To tell you of something I know nothing about.
Next Thursday (which is good Friday),
There will be a convention held in the
Women's Club which is strictly for Men.
Admission is free, pay at the door,
Pull up a chair, and sit on the floor.
It was a summer's day in winter,
And the snow was raining fast,
As a barefoot boy with shoes on,
Stood sitting in the grass.
Oh, that bright day in the dead of night,
Two dead men got up to fight.
Three blind men to see fair play,
Forty mutes to yell "Hooray"!
Back to back, they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
Came and arrested those two dead boys.
Let us treat men and women well;
Treat them as if they were real;
Perhaps they are.
                -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human kind.
Logic, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
                -- Oliver Goldsmith
Most folks they like the daytime,
        'cause they like to see the shining sun.
They're up in the morning,
        off and a-running till they're too tired for having fun.
But when the sun goes down,
        and the bright lights shine, my daytime has just begun.

Now there are two sides to this great big world,
        and one of them is always night.
If you can take care of business in the sunshine, baby,
        I guess you're gonna be all right.
Don't come looking for me to lend you a hand.
        My eyes just can't stand the light.

'Cause I'm a night owl honey, sleep all day long.
                -- Carly Simon
My My, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay        The king is gone but he's not forgotten
It's better to burn out                This is the story of a Johnny Rotten
Than to fade away                It's better to burn out than it is to rust
My my, hey hey                        The king is gone but he's not forgotten

It's out of the blue and into the black                Hey hey, my my
They give you this, but you pay for that        Rock and roll can never die
And once you're gone you can never come back        There's more to the picture
When you're out of the blue                        Than meets the eye
And into the black
                -- Neil Young
                "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), Rust Never Sleeps"
New York-- to that tall skyline I come
Flyin' in from London to your door
New York-- lookin' down on Central Park
Where they say you should not wander after dark.
New York.
                -- Simon and Garfunkle
No one likes us.
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect,                        We give them money,
But heaven knows we try.                But are they grateful?
But all around,                                No, they're spiteful,
Even our old friends put us down.        And they're hateful.
Let's drop the big one,                        They don't respect us,
And see what happens.                        So let's surprise them
                                        We'll drop the big one,
                                        And pulverize 'em.
Asia's crowded,
Europe's too old,
Africa is far too hot,                        We'll save Australia.
And Canada's too cold.                        Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos.
And South America stole our name        We'll build an All-American amusement
Let's drop the big one,                                park there--
There'll be no one left to blame us.        They got surfin', too!

Boom! goes London,
And Boom! Paree.
More room for you,                        Oh, how peaceful it'll be!
And more room for me,                        We'll set everybody free!
And every city,                                You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe;
The whole world round,                        There'll be Italian shoes for me!
Will just be another American town.        They all hate us anyhow,
                                        So, let's drop the big one now.
                                        Let's drop the big one now!
                -- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One"
"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
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
                -- George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Don Juan"
Now what would they do if I just sailed away?
Who the hell really compelled me to leave today?
Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball,
What would they do if I made no landfall?"
                -- Jimmy Buffet, "Landfall"
O! Wanderers in the shadowed land
despair not!  For though dark they stand,
all woods there be must end at last,
and see the open sun go past:
the setting sun, the rising sun,
the day's end, or the day begun.
For east or west all woods must fail ...
                -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus
        Where the three-body problem is solved,
        Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K,
        And the cold virus never evolved.                        (chorus)
We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high,
        Our ball bearings are perfectly round.
        Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed,
        And a kilogram weighs half a pound.                        (chorus)
If we run out of space for our burgeoning race
        No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch
        When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart,
        If we just find a big enough wrench.                        (chorus)
I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space,
        And living up here is a bore.
        Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye
        'Cause I'm moving next week to L4!                        (chorus)

CHORUS:        Home, home on LaGrange,
        Where the space debris always collects,
        We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams:
        Solar power and zero-gee sex.
                -- to Home on the Range
Oh, when I was in love with you,
        Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
        How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
        And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
        Am quite myself again.
                -- A. E. Housman
On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turned back time,
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime.
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain.
Don't bother asking for explanations, she'll just tell you that she came
In the Year of the Cat.

She doesn't give you time for questions, as she locks up your arm in hers,
And you follow 'till your sense of which direction completely disappears.
By the blue-tiled walls near the market stall there's a hidden door she
    leads you to.
These days, she say, I feel my life just like a river running through
The Year of the Cat.

Well, she looks at you so coolly,
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea.
She comes in incense and patchouli,
So you take her to find what's waiting inside
The Year of the Cat.

Well, morning comes and you're still with her, but the bus and the tourists
    are gone,
And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket, so you have to stay on.
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain in the rhythm of the new-born day.
You know some time you're bound to leave her, but for now you're going to stay
In the Year of the Cat.
                -- Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat"
Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail,
And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail,
And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool,
He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!)
And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat,
He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat,
And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout!
        And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out!
And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog,
And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god,
The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed,
But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed!
Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace,
And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste,
But all they ever found was this:  "panic: never doubt",
        And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out!
When the day is done and the moon comes out,
And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count,
When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey,
And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay,
You must mind the file protections and not snoop around,
        Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down!
One bright Sunday morning, in the shadows of the steeple,
By the Relief Office, I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling,
This land was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back,
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said: "No Trespassing."
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
                -- Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (verses 4, 6, 7)
        [If you ever wondered why Arlo was so anti-establishment when his dad
         wrote such wonderful patriotic songs, the answer is that you haven't
         heard all of Woody's songs]
Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
                -- Antony and Cleopatra
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of thee.
                -- Tennyson
Our sires' age was worse that our grandsires'.
We their sons are more worthless than they:
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.
                -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
Reach into the thoughts of friends,
And find they do not know your name.
Squeeze the teddy bear too tight,
And watch the feathers burst the seams.
Touch the stained glass with your cheek,
And feel its chill upon your blood.
Hold a candle to the night,
And see the darkness bend the flame.
Tear the mask of peace from God,
And hear the roar of souls in hell.
Pluck a rose in name of love,
And watch the petals curl and wilt.
Lean upon the western wind,
And know you are alone.
                -- Dru Mims
Roland was a warrior, from the land of the midnight sun,
With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done.
The deal was made in Denmark, on a dark and stormy day,
So he set out for Biafra, to join the bloody fray.
Through sixty-six and seven, they fought the Congo war,
With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore.
Days and nights they battled, the Bantu to their knees,
They killed to earn their living, and to help out the Congolese.
        Roland the Thompson gunner...
His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest,
But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best.
So the C.I.A decided, they wanted Roland dead,
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen, blew off Roland's head.
        Roland the headless Thompson gunner...
Roland searched the continent, for the man who'd done him in.
He found him in Mombasa, in a bar room drinking gin,
Roland aimed his Thompson gun, he didn't say a word,
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg.
The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night,
Now it's ten years later, but he stills keeps up the fight.
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Berkeley,
Patty Hearst... heard the burst... of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.
                -- Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
So... so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain?                        Did they get you to trade
Can you tell a green field                Your heroes for ghosts?
From a cold steel rail?                        Hot ashes for trees?
A smile from a veil?                        Hot air for a cool breeze?
Do you think you can tell?                Cold comfort for change?
                                        Did you exchange
                                        A walk on part in a war
                                        For the lead role in a cage?
                -- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
Soldiers who wish to be a hero
Are practically zero,
But those who wish to be civilians,
They run into the millions.
Strange things are done to be number one
In selling the computer                        The Druids were entrepreneurs,
IBM has their strategem                        And they built a granite box
Which steadily grows acuter,                It tracked the moon, warned of monsoons,
And Honeywell competes like Hell,        And forecast the equinox
But the story's missing link                Their price was right, their future
Is the system old at Stonemenge sold                bright,
By the firm of Druids, Inc.                The prototype was sold;
                                        From Stonehenge site their bits and byte
                                        Would ship for Celtic gold.
The movers came to crate the frame;
It weighed a million ton!
The traffic folk thought it a joke        The man spoke true, and thus to you
(the wagon wheels just spun);                A warning from the ages;
"They'll nay sell that," the foreman        Your stock will slip if you can't ship
        spat,                                What's in your brochure's pages.
"Just leave the wild weeds grow;        See if it sells without the bells
"It's Druid-kind, over-designed,        And strings that ring and quiver;
"And belly up they'll go."                Druid repute went down the chute
                                        Because they couldn't deliver.
                -- Edward C. McManus, "The Computer at Stonehenge"
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me us.
                -- Ogden Nash
The ladies men admire, I've heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They'd rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints...
So far, I've had no complaints.
                -- Dorothy Parker
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
        Moves on: nor all they Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
        Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
The net of law is spread so wide,
No sinner from its sweep may hide.
Its meshes are so fine and strong,
They take in every child of wrong.
O wondrous web of mystery!
Big fish alone escape from thee!
                -- James Jeffrey Roche
The Poet Whose Badness Saved His Life
        The most important poet in the seventeenth century was George
Wither.  Alexander Pope called him "wretched Wither" and Dryden said of his
verse that "if they rhymed and rattled all was well".
        In our own time, "The Dictionary of National Biography" notes that his
work "is mainly remarkable for its mass, fluidity and flatness.  It usually
lacks any genuine literary quality and often sinks into imbecile doggerel".
        High praise, indeed, and it may tempt you to savour a typically
rewarding stanza: It is taken from "I loved a lass" and is concerned with
the higher emotions.
                She would me "Honey" call,
                She'd -- O she'd kiss me too.
                But now alas!  She's left me
                Falero, lero, loo.
        Among other details of his mistress which he chose to immortalize
was her prudent choice of footwear.
                The fives did fit her shoe.
        In 1639 the great poet's life was endangered after his capture by
the Royalists during the English Civil War.  When Sir John Denham, the
Royalist poet, heard of Wither's imminent execution, he went to the King and
begged that his life be spared.  When asked his reason, Sir John replied,
"Because that so long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the
worst poet in England."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The Thought Police are here.  They've come
To put you under cardiac arrest.
And as they drag you through the door
They tell you that you've failed the test.
                -- Buggles, "Living in the Plastic Age"
                The Worst Lines of Verse
For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line:
        "Come, muse, let us sing of rats."
Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted
these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous
laughter the instant they were read out.
        No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was
inspired by the subject of war.
        "Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away,
        And the grey roof reddened and rang;
        Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay
        The tip of my ear.  Flash! bang!"
By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79):
        "... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..."
While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables:
        "The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed,
        The crippled pea alone that cannot stand."
George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote:
        "And I was ask'd and authorized to go
        To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co."
William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse:
        "So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak
        While in this world, are liable to leak."
And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when
describing a pond:
        "I've measured it from side to side;
        Tis three feet long and two feet wide."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh?
And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh?
There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh?
So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot,
Eh?
So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh?
And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh?
They may be cold, but that's okay!  Beer's better that way!
Eh?
                -- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh?
Beauty!
There are bad times just around the corner,
There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky
        And it's no good whining
        About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won't roll by...
                -- Noel Coward
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
        By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
        That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
        But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
        I cremated Sam McGee.
                -- Robert W. Service
They told me you had proven it                When they discovered our results
        About a month before.                        Their hair began to curl
The proof was valid, more or less        Instead of understanding it
        But rather less than more.                We'd run the thing through PRL.

He sent them word that we would try        Don't tell a soul about all this
        To pass where they had failed                For it must ever be
And after we were done, to them                A secret, kept from all the rest
        The new proof would be mailed.                Between yourself and me.

My notion was to start again
        Ignoring all they'd done
We quickly turned it into code
        To see if it would run.
They went rushing down that freeway,
Messed around and got lost.
They didn't care... they were just dying to get off,
And it was life in the fast lane.
                -- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane"
They wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius,
The man said "We got all that we can use",
So I've got those steadily-depressin', low-down, mind-messin',
Working-at-the-car-wash blues.
                -- Jim Croce
Thirty white horses on a red hill,
First they champ,
Then they stamp,
Then they stand still.
                -- Tolkien
This is for all ill-treated fellows
        Unborn and unbegot,
For them to read when they're in trouble
        And I am not.
                -- A. E. Housman
Those who sweat in flames of hell,        Leaden eared, some thought their bowels
Here's the reason that they fell:        Lispeth forth the sweetest vowels.
While on earth they prayed in SAS,        These they offered up in praise
PL/1, or other crass,                        Thinking all this fetid haze
Vulgar tongue.                                A rapsody sung.

Some the lord did sorely try                Jabber of the mindless horde
Assembling all their pleas in hex.        Sequel next did mock the lord
Speech as crabbed as devil's crable        Slothful sequel so enfangled
Hex that marked on Tower Babel                Its speaker's lips became entangled
The highest rung.                        In his bung.

Because in life they prayed so ill
And offered god such swinish swill
Now they sweat in flames of hell
Sweat from lack of APL
Sweat dung!
Though I respect that a lot
I'd be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and
Countless screaming argonauts

Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels it's
Always near

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
                -- "Birdhouse in your Soul", They Might Be Giants
Tim and I a hunting went
We found three damsels in a tent,
As they were three, and we were two,
I bucked one and Timbuktu.
                -- the only known poem using the word "Timbuktu"
To write a sonnet you must ruthlessly
strip down your words to naked, willing flesh.
Then bind them to a metaphor or three,
and take by force a satisfying mesh.
Arrange them to your will, each foot in place.
You are the master here, and they the slaves.
Now whip them to maintain a constant pace
and rhythm as they stand in even staves.
A word that strikes no pleasure?  Cast it out!
What use are words that drive not to the heart?
A lazy phrase? Discard it, shrug off doubt,
and choose more docile words to take its part.
A well-trained sonnet lives to entertain,
by making love directly to the brain.
'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house,
        Not a program was working not even a browse.
The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care,
        Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
        While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
        I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
        But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.
More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
        And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;
On Update!  On Add!  On Inquiry!  On Delete!
        On Batch Jobs!  On Closing!  On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean,
        From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
        Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...
                -- "Twas the Night before Crisis"
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright                Where the hammer?  Where the chain?
In the forests of the night,                In what furnace was thy brain?
What immortal hand or eye                What the anvil?  What dread grasp
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?        Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

Burnt in distant deeps or skies                When the stars threw down their spears
The cruel fire of thine eyes?                And water'd heaven with their tears
On what wings dare he aspire?                Dare he laugh his work to see?
What the hand dare seize the fire?        Dare he who made the lamb make thee?

And what shoulder & what art                Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
Could twist the sinews of they heart?        In the forests of the night,
And when thy heart began to beat        What immortal hand or eye
What dread hand & what dread feet        Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Could fetch it from the furnace deep
And in thy horrid ribs dare steep
In the well of sanguine woe?
In what clay & in what mould
Were thy eyes of fury roll'd?
                -- William Blake, "The Tyger"
Wanna tell you all a story 'bout a man named Jed,
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed.
But then one day he was shootin' at some food,
When up through the ground come a bubblin' crude -- oil, that is;
        black gold; 'Texas tea' ...

Well the next thing ya know, old Jed's a millionaire.
The kinfolk said, 'Jed, move away from there!'
They said, 'Californy is the place ya oughta be',
So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly -- Hills, that is;
        swimmin' pools; movie stars.
Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.
                -- Dylan Thomas, "Was There A Time"
Watching girls go passing by
It ain't the latest thing
I'm just standing in a doorway
I'm just trying to make some sense
Out of these girls passing by                A smile relieves the heart that grieves
The tales they tell of men                Remember what I said
I'm not waiting on a lady                I'm not waiting on a lady
I'm just waiting on a friend                I'm just waiting on a friend
...
Don't need a whore
Don't need no booze
Don't need a virgin priest                Ooh, making love and breaking hearts
But I need someone I can cry to                It is a game for youth
I need someone to protect                But I'm not waiting on a lady
                                        I'm just waiting on a friend
                                        I'm just waiting on a friend
                -- Rolling Stones, "Waiting on a Friend"
Well, fancy giving money to the Government!
Might as well have put it down the drain.
Fancy giving money to the Government!
Nobody will see the stuff again.
Well, they've no idea what money's for --
Ten to one they'll start another war.
I've heard a lot of silly things, but, Lor'!
Fancy giving money to the Government!
                -- A.P. Herbert
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"
Well, we're big rock singers, we've got golden fingers,
And we're loved everywhere we go.
We sing about beauty, and we sing about truth,
At ten thousand dollars a show.
We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills,
But the thrill we've never known,
Is the thrill that'll get'cha, when you get your picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

I got a freaky old lady, name of Cole King Katie,
Who embroiders on my jeans.
I got my poor old gray-haired daddy,
Drivin' my limousine.
Now it's all designed, to blow our minds,
But our minds won't be really be blown;
Like the blow that'll get'cha, when you get your picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

We got a lot of little, teen-aged, blue-eyed groupies,
Who'll do anything we say.
We got a genuine Indian guru, that's teachin' us a better way.
We got all the friends that money can buy,
So we never have to be alone.
And we keep gettin' richer, but we can't get our picture,
On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
                -- Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
                [As a note, they eventually DID make the cover of RS. Ed.]
What, still alive at twenty-two,
A clean upstanding chap like you?
Sure, if your throat 'tis hard to slit,
Slit your girl's, and swing for it.
Like enough, you won't be glad,
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon's not the only thing
That's cured by hanging from a string.
So, when the spilt ink of the night
Spreads o'er the blotting pad of light,
Lads whose job is still to do
Shall whet their knives, and think of you.
                -- Hugh Kingsmill
When I think about myself,
I almost laugh myself to death,
My life has been one great big joke,        Sixty years in these folks' world
A dance that's walked                        The child I works for calls me girl
A song that's spoke,                        I say "Yes ma'am" for working's sake.
I laugh so hard I almost choke                Too proud to bend
When I think about myself.                Too poor to break,
                                        I laugh until my stomach ache,
                                        When I think about myself.
My folks can make me split my side,
I laughed so hard I nearly died,
The tales they tell, sound just like lying,
They grow the fruit,
But eat the rind,
I laugh until I start to crying,
When I think about my folks.
                -- Maya Angelou
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"
"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run,
        And there isn't one language you like;
Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none --
        Have you thought about taking a hike?"

"Since I never write programs," his father replied,
        "Every language looks equally bad;
Yet the people keep paying to read all my books
        And don't realize that they've been had."
Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there.
While you recently had your problems on the run, they've regrouped and
are making another attack.
You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far.  Especially
if they are dead.
You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately,
they're not all recommended.
You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier
to do.
A new 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon
discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled.  At about 5,000 feet,
still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the
same speed as he was going towards the ground.  As they passed each other at
3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?"
        The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO!  DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING
ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?"
Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig
[a modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off
Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians.  These people love fast
cars.  But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged.
Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on
them at 130-plus -- to see if you're paying attention.
                -- Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast
                   cars across Europe.
Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers...
they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key!
George's friend Sam had a dog who could recite the Gettysburg Address.  "Let
me buy him from you," pleaded George after a demonstration.
        "Okay," agreed Sam.  "All he knows is that Lincoln speech anyway."
        At his company's Fourth of July picnic, George brought his new pet
and announced that the animal could recite the entire Gettysburg Address.
No one believed him, and they proceeded to place bets against the dog.
George quieted the crowd and said, "Now we'll begin!"  Then he looked at
the dog.  The dog looked back.  No sound.  "Come on, boy, do your stuff."
Nothing.  A disappointed George took his dog and went home.
        "Why did you embarrass me like that in front of everybody?" George
yelled at the dog.  "Do you realize how much money you lost me?"
        "Don't be silly, George," replied the dog.  "Think of the odds we're
gonna get on Labor Day."
Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us
all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for
its wild horses.  I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs
romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any
wild horses in person.  In person, they are like enormous hooved rats.  They
amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses.
We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes.
We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon."
                -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob"
I realize that today you have a number of top female athletes such as
Martina Navratilova who can run like deer and bench-press Chevrolet
trucks.  But to be brutally frank, women as a group have a long way to
go before they reach the level of intensity and dedication to sports
that enables men to be such incredible jerks about it.
                -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
I would be batting the big feller if they wasn't ready with the other one,
but a left-hander would be the thing if they wouldn't have knowed it already
because there is more things involved than could come up on the road, even
after we've been home a long while.
                -- Casey Stengel
If swimming is so good for your figure, how come whales look the
way they do?
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"
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"
San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city.  I don't mean the
people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy.  When
they boo you, you know they mean *you*.  Music, that's what it is to me.
One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo.
                -- George Halas, professional football coach
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."
There's a couple of million dollars worth of baseball talent on the loose,
ready for the big leagues, yet unsigned by any major league.  There are
pitchers who would win 20 games a season ... and outfielders [who] could
hit .350, infielders who could win recognition as stars, and there's at
least one catcher who at this writing is probably superior to Bill Dickey,
Josh Gibson.  Only one thing is keeping them out of the big leagues, the
pigmentation of their skin.  They happen to be colored.
                -- Shirley Povich, 1941
They also surf who only stand on waves.
Even historians fail to learn from history -- they repeat the same mistakes.
                -- John Gill, "Patterns of Force", stardate 2534.7
        "I think they're going to take all this money that we spend now on war
and death --"
        "And make them spend it on life."
                -- Edith Keeler and Kirk, "The City on the Edge of Forever",
                   stardate unknown.
I thought my people would grow tired of killing.  But you were right,
they see it is easier than trading.  And it has its pleasures.  I feel
it myself.  Like the hunt, but with richer rewards.
                -- Apella, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8
It is a human characteristic to love little animals, especially if
they're attractive in some way.
                -- McCoy, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6
Men will always be men -- no matter where they are.
                -- Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1329.8
... The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get
to know each other.
                -- Kirk, "Elaan of Troyius", stardate 4372.5
Witch!  Witch!  They'll burn ya!
                -- Hag, "Tomorrow is Yesterday", stardate unknown
You'll learn something about men and women -- the way they're supposed
to be.  Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good
to each other.  That's what we call love.  You'll like that a lot.
                -- Kirk, "The Apple", stardate 3715.6
"`Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.'
`Very deep,' said Arthur, `you should send that in to the
"Reader's Digest". They've got a page for people like you.'"

- Ford convincing Arthur to drink three pints in ten
minutes at lunchtime.
"`I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very
depressed.'"
"`Life, don't talk to me about life.'"
"`Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to
take you down to the bridge. Call that "job satisfaction"?
'Cos I don't.'"
"`I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my
left side.'"

- Guess who.
"There are of course many problems connected with life, of
which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?'
`Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the
intervening time wearing digital watches?'"

- The Book.
"`Right,' said Ford, `I'm going to have a look.'
He glanced round at the others.
`Is no one going to say, "No you can't possibly, let me go
instead"?'
They all shook their heads.
`Oh well.'"

- Ford attempting to be heroic whilst being seiged by
Shooty and Bangbang.
"`You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?'
`Yeah,' said Zaphod, `but don't shout it out or they'll all
want one.'
`THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?'
`No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn't you hear I come in
six packs?'
`But sir,' it squealed, `I just heard on the sub-ether
radio report. It said you were dead...'
`Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet.'"

- Zaphod and the Guide's receptionist.
"`Maybe somebody here tipped off the Galactic Police,' said
Trillian. `Everybody saw you come in.'
`You mean they want to arrest me over the phone?' said
Zaphod, `Could be. I'm a pretty dangerous dude when I'm
cornered.'
`Yeah,' said a voice from under the table [Ford's now
completely rat- arsed at this point], `you go to pieces so
fast people get hit by the shrapnel.'"

- Zaphod getting paranoid over a phone call.
"`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.
"`We've got to find out what people want from fire, how
they relate to it, what sort of image it has for them.'
The crowd were tense. They were expecting something
wonderful from Ford.
`Stick it up your nose,' he said.
`Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know,'
insisted the girl, `Do people want fire that can be fitted
nasally?'"

- Ford "debating" what to do with fire with a marketing
girl.
ARTHUR        What is an Algolian Zylatburger anyway?
FORD        They're a kind of meatburger made from the most
unpleasant parts
        of a creature well known for its total lack of any
pleasant
        parts.
ARTHUR        So you mean that the Universe does actually end not
with a bang
        but with a Wimpy?

- Cut dialogue from Fit the Fifth.
"His eyes seemed to be popping out of his head. He wasn't
certain if this was because they were trying to see more
clearly, or if they simply wanted to leave at this point."

- Arthur trying to see who had diverted him from going to
a party.
"`You know they've reintroduced the death penalty for
insurance company directors?'
`Really?' said Arthur. `No I didn't. For what offence?'
Trillian frowned.
`What do you mean, offence?'
`I see.'"

- Evidence that there will be some justice in the Universe
eventually.
"And finally, " said Max, quieting the audience down and
putting on his solemn face, "finally I believe we have with
us here tonight, a party of believers, very devout
believers, from the Church of the Second Coming of the
Great Prophet Zarquon. " ... "There they are, " said Max,
"sitting there, patiently. He said he'd come again, and
he's kept you waiting a long time, so let's hope he's
hurrying fellas, because he's only got eight minutes left! "
"As he came into the light they could see his black and
gold uniform on which the buttons were so highly polished
that they shone with an intensity that would have made an
approaching motorist flash his lights in annoyance. "
A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies.
Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured
him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and
quiet place in which to rest.  One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around
above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said,
"Come on down."  But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light
where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house."
So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other
flies.  He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said,
"Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper.  All those flies are trapped."  "Don't be
silly," said the fly, "they're dancing."  So he settled down and became stuck
to the flypaper with all the other flies.

Moral:  There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
                -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"
Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others.  Bozos are people who band
together for fun and profit.  They have no jobs.  Anybody who goes on a
tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street?  Because there's a Bozo
on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others.
They're the huge, fat, middle waist.  The archetype is an Irish drunk
clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin.  Fields, William Bendix.
Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness.  It has Oz in it.  They mean
well.  They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes.  They
like their comforts.  The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time,
which is all the time.
                -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head"
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to
point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
fast.  People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there.  They often
wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell
they wanted to be.
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he
just whipped out a quarter?
                -- Steven Wright
"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly,
sincerely, extremely dangerously.

They used dogs.  They used probes.  They used cardio plate crossoffs.
They used teepers.  They used bribery.  They used stick tites.  They used
intimidation.  They used torment.  They used torture.  They used finks.
They used cops.  They used search and seizure.  They used fallaron.  They
used betterment incentives.  They used finger prints.  They used the
bertillion system.  They used cunning.  They used guile.  They used treachery.
They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help.  They used applied physics.
They used techniques of criminology.  And what the hell, they caught him.
                -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man"
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,
exactly, make people laugh.  That's why they were called "wise men." All the
other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the
wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my
wife?  No.  How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now.  No How
about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available.  No.  How
about ..."
                -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
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"
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"
I argue very well.  Ask any of my remaining friends.  I can win an argument on
any topic, against any opponent.  People know this, and steer clear of me at
parties.  Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.
                -- Dave Barry
I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds.  I hold them above
globes.  They freak out and yell "Whooa, I'm *way* too high."
                -- Bruce Baum
"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I
pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?'  He
said, 'Phoenix.'  So I pushed Phoenix.  A few seconds later the doors
opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix.  I looked
at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around
with.'  We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert.
Then the phone rang.  He said 'You get it.'  I picked it up and said
'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...'
The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank...
It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you
attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we
would just like to know what happened to the money?'  I said, 'Mr. Jones,
I'll give it to you straight.  I gave all of the money to my friend Slick,
and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never
called me again."
                -- Steven Wright
I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes.  They had little pictures of cats
on them.  Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.
                -- Steven Wright
        "I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly.
        "AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly.  "I THINK IT MIGHT GO
DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT."
        "Why?"
        "THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF."
                -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers -- they're going
to make a game out of it.
                -- Woody Allen
I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me.  Last week I went to the track
and they shot my horse with the opening gun.

Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my
fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table.  I said,
"Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks."
                -- Rodney Dangerfield
I was in a bar and I walked up to a beautiful woman and said, "Do you live
around here often?"  She said, "You're wearing two different-color socks."
I said, "Yes, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness."
She said, "How do you feel?" And I said, "You know when you're sitting on a
chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so
you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself?  I feel like
that all the time..."
                -- Steven Wright, "Gentlemen's Quarterly"
"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific".
                -- Steven Wright
"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the
statues that are in all the other museums."
                -- Steven Wright
I'D LIKE TO BE BURIED INDIAN-STYLE, where they put you up on a high rack,
above the ground.  That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even
feel it.
                -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be
to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to
say they had a nice time.  Now you'll be be expected to throw another party
next year.
        What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake
up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been
indicted for anything.  You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a
recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their
own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ...
        If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door,
unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas
through your living room window.  As host, your job is to make sure that
they don't arrest anybody.  Or if they're dead set on arresting someone,
your job is to make sure it isn't you ...
                -- Dave Barry
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
they seem.  For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so
much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins
had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.  But
conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more
intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending
destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to
alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
misinterpreted ...
                -- Douglas Admas "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy"
Last night the power went out.  Good thing my camera had a flash....
The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops.
                -- Steven Wright
        "Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the
name of shaman," he said.  Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and
they are called sorcerers.  A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the
soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters.  But none have
seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they
are known as idio--"
        The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry
of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief
blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the
apparition vanished.
        There was a long silence.  Then a slightly shorter silence.  Then
the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through
upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?"
        The boy looked at him levelly.  "Certainly not," he said.
        The old man heaved a sigh of relief.  "Thank goodness for that," he
said.  "Neither did I."
                -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
        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]
        Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something
to be avoided than harped upon.
        Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being
reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might
just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something
about helping to postpone this reunion.
                -- Douglas Adams
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"
The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities.
Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to
park in.  Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also
dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big
difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES.  You're allowed to
do anything.  You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want.
I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup
truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie"
on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the
accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular,
whereas I was neither.  This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall
parking lots.
                -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
                The Three Major Kind of Tools

* Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or
jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a
manner that they function perfectly.  (These are your hammers, maces,
bludgeons, and truncheons.)

* Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot.  (Awls)

* Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far
greater than the value of any project that could possibly result.
(Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses
any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.)
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if
I had any firearms with me.  I said, "Well, what do you need?"
                -- Steven Wright
When I was little, I went into a pet shop and they asked how big I'd get.
                -- Rodney Dangerfield
FORTUNE'S RANDOM QUOTES FROM MATCH GAME 75, NO. 1:

Gene Rayburn: We'd like to close with a thought for the day, friends ---
               something ...

      Someone: (interrupting) Uh-oh

Gene Rayburn: ...pithy, full of wisdom --- and we call on the Poet
               Laureate, Lipsy Russell

Lipsy Russell: The young people are very different today, and there is
               one sure way to know: Kids to use to ask where they came
               from, now they'll tell you where you can go.

          All: (laughter)
"I'm not saying that they were knowingly dishonest, perhaps they were simply stupid. "

  -- Linus Torvalds, commenting on those who really thought Microkernels were wise. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"I am not convinced that they can write solid stable software. Proprietary software is already hobbled by it's secretive cathedral nature, but Microsoft seems to have a corner on incompetent programming as well."

  -- Chris DiBona from the introduction. (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Computers and autmation have become so ingrained and essentaial to day-to-day business that a sensible business should not rely on a single vendor to provide essential services........Thus is is always in a customers' interests to demand that the software they deploy be based on non-proprietary platforms."

  -- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Computers may be stupid, but they're always obedient. Well, almost always."

  -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"In a way they were right the basics of operating systems, and by extension the Linux kernel, were well understood by the early 70s; anything after that has been to some degree an exercise in self-gratification."

  -- Linus Torvalds (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
  Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero
  After they got rid of capital punishment, they had to hang twice
  as many people as before.
  I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after
  they're dead. -Samuel Goldwyn
If Microsoft Owned McDonald's
Source: Unknown

1. Every order would come with fries whether you asked for them or not.
2. When they introduce McPizza, the marketing makes it seem that they invented
    pizza.
3. "A McDonald's on every block" -- Bill Gates.
4. You'd be constantly pressured to upgrade to a more expensive burger.
5. Sometimes you'll find that the burger box is empty. For some strange reason
    you'll accept this and purchase another one.
6. They'd claim the burgers are the same size as at other fast food chains,
    but in reality it's just a larger bun hiding the small beef patty.
7. Straws wouldn't be available until after you finish your drink.
8. "Push" technology -- they have McD employees come to your door and sell you
    Happy Meals.
9. Your order would never be right but the cash register would work perfectly
    for taking your money.
10. The "Special Sauce" cannot be reverse engineered, decompiled, or placed on
    more than 1 Big Mac.
The gates in my computer are AND, OR and NOT; they are not Bill.
We are very nervous about the release of Windows 2000. This OS takes up
gigabytes of hard drive space. When users 'upgrade' to Win2K, they won't have
any space on their hard drive for our products! We really hate Chairman Bill.

   -- An anonymous spokesperson for Corel
Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums?
A: Warning label.
Q: What do Bill Gates and Bill Clinton have in common?
A: Their ratings climb whenever they do something unethical.
Q: What do Windows NT and frozen pizza have in common?
A: They're both half baked.
You Might be a Microsoft Employee If...

1. Every night you dream of torturing Linus Torvalds
2. Every morning you say, "I pledge allegiance to the logo of the United
    Corporation of Microsoft. And to the stock options for which it stands, one
    company, under Bill, with headaches and buggy software for all."
3. Your favorite pick-up line is, "Hey baby...do you want to see a little
    ActiveX?"
4. Everytime you see a website with "Best viewed with Netscape" on it you
    feel like filing a lawsuit against its webmaster
5. You feel that all Anti-Microsoft websites should be censored because they
    are on the Internet, something Bill "invented."
6. You've set a goal to invent at least one new buzzword or acronym per day
7. You've ever been nervous because you haven't registered your Microsoft
    software yet.
8. You've trained your parrot to say "Unix sucks!" and "All hail Bill Gates!"
9. You own a limited edition Monopoly game in which Boardwalk is Microsoft and
    Jail is replaced by Justice Department Investigation
10. You've spent countless hours tracking down the source of the "Microsoft
    Acquires Vatican Church" rumor
Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the
grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin
charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what
they say if they had.

   -- Linus Torvalds
Computers are like air conditioners -- they stop working properly if you open
WINDOWS
It's no wonder they call it WinNT; WNT = VMS++;

   -- Chris Abbey
Peace, Love and Compile the kernel...

   -- Justin L. Herreman
Crashing is violent; that's why there are more violent games for Windows - and
they'll always work.

   -- Ewout Stam
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
Oh My God! They Killed init! You Bastards!

   -- From a Slashdot.org post
Wow, the great ZDNET actually corrected a mistake! Of course, if they did
that to all of Jesse Berst's columns, they'd lose 2/3 of their content...

   -- From a Slashdot.org post
Statements recently seen on Slashdot:

"The Internet interprets advertising as damage and routes around it."

"Accept risk. Accept responsibility. Put a lawyer out of business."

"A beowulf cluster of Cisco routers? Isn't that the Internet?"

"Geeks aren't interested in politics because government doesn't double its
efficiency and speed once every 18 months."

"Windows 98 hasn't crashed for me once in over a year, either. Oh, wait, I
haven't booted it in over a year."

"For more than 4 generations the IT Professionals were the guardians of
quality and stability in software. Before the dark times. Before
Microsoft..."

"You can tell how desperate they are by counting the number of times
they say 'innovate' in their press releases."
Certain things are too horrible to auction on the Web.
Consider that eBay recently halted auctions on:

   Human Remains
   Human Parts
   Humans
   Microsoft Products

Pretty soon they're gonna ban sales on pentagrams and demon-summoning
paraphenalia.

Is there anywhere on the web where it's still safe to sell Evil Things?

   -- From a Slashdot.org post in response to eBay voiding auctions
      of legitimate second-hand Microsoft products
They say never to buy a "0" release of software.
Windows 2000 has 3 of 'em.

   -- A .sig spotted on an anti-Microsoft mailing list
Yeah, but they are good at making toys. I mean look at Windows...

   -- From a Slashdot.org post about Microsoft's X-Box console
Hear me out. Linux is Microsoft's main competition right now. Because of
this we are forcing them to "innovate", something they would usually avoid.
Now if MS Bob has taught us anything, Microsoft is not a company that
should be innovating. When they do, they don't come up with things like
"better security" or "stability", they come back with "talking
paperclips", and "throw in every usless feature we can think of, memory
footprint be dammed".

Unfortunatly, they also come up with the bright idea of executing email.
Now MIME attachments aren't enough, they want you to be able to run/open
attachments right when you get them. This sounds like a good idea to
people who believe renaming directories to folders made computing possible
for the common man, but security wise it's like vigorously shaking a
package from the Unibomber.

So my friends, we are to blame. We pushed them into frantically trying to
invent "necessary" features to stay on top, and look where it got us. Many
of us are watching our beloved mail servers go down under the strain and
rebuilding our company's PC because of our pointless competition with MS.
I implore you to please drop Linux before Microsoft innovates again.

  -- From a Slashdot.org post in regards to the ILOVEYOU email virus
I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running
Linux... And oh! It was as though the heavens opened and God handed down a
client-side OS so beautiful, so graceful, and so elegant that a million
Microsoft developers couldn't have invented it even if they had a hundred
years and a thousand crates of Jolt cola.

   -- Polly Sprenger, LAN Times
Missouri Town Changes Name to 'Linux'

LINUX, MO -- The small Missouri town of Linn, county seat of Osage County,
announced yesterday that it will be henceforth called 'Linux'. Mayor Bob Farrow
said, "Linn needed something to put it on the map. A few weeks ago my daughter
mentioned that she installed Linux on her computer and how great she thought it
was. I thought to myself, 'Self, changing the town's name to 'Linux' could be
an opportunity to attract attention -- and money -- to our town. We could even
hold a Linux Convention at the community center.' So I approached the city
council about the idea, and they loved it. The rest is history."

Farrow's daughter is organizing the Linux Linux User Group. She hopes to be
able to hold a Linux Convention this fall. "The Linn, er, Linux community
center probably won't be big enough, we'll probably have to hold it in nearby
Jefferson City," she said.

The mayor does have one reservation. "How the hell do you pronounce Linux?" One
of the mayor's contenders in the next election, Mr. Noah Morals, says he will
start an ad campaign calling Bob Farrow "the Incumbent Liar of LIE-nucks".
Needless to say, the mayor usually pronounces Linux as "LIH-nucks".
Linux Rally Held in Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG, PA -- Thousands of Linux advocates gathered at the Pennsylvania
state capitol building earlier today. They were protesting the state's recent
three year deal with Microsoft to install Windows NT on all state computer
systems. "Whatever pointy haired boss made this deal ought to be shot on
sight," one protestor exclaimed. "Windows NT is a piece of [expletive] compared
to Linux. The taxpayers of Pennsylvania are going to be sorry three years from
now when this 'deal' concludes. The state has sold its soul to Satan [Bill
Gates]."

Brief hostilities broke out when a group of police officers armed with riot
gear descended on the protestors. After the police threatened to use tear gas,
the protestors threw thousands of Linux CDs at them. Once the supply of CDs was
depleted, the protest became peaceful again. "I saw several policemen pick up
Linux CDs and put them in their pockets," one protestor noted.

The protest broke up a few minutes later once it was realized that the state
legislature wasn't in session. "We may have wasted our time today," one
advocate said, "But we'll be back later." State and Microsoft officials were
unavailable for comment at press time. How typical.
'Kitchen Sink' OS Announced

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

One vi advocate said, "What the hell?!?! Those Emacs people are nuts. It seems
that even with a programming language, a web browser, and God only knows what
else built into their text editor, they're still not satisfied. Now they want
it to be an operating system. Hell, even Windows ain't that bloated!"
Linux Infiltrates Windows NT Demo

SILICON VALLEY, CA -- Attendees at the Microsoft ActiveDemo Conference held
this week in San Jose were greeted by a pleasant surprise yesterday: Linux.
Somehow a group of Linux enthusiasts were able to replace a Windows NT box with
a Linux box right before the "ActiveDemo" of Windows NT 5 beta. "I have no clue
how they were able to pull off this prank," a Microserf spokesman said. "Rest
assured, Microsoft will do everything to investigate and prosecute the Linux
nuts who did this. Our bottom line must be protected."

Bill Gates said, "I was showing off the new features in Windows NT 5 when I
noticed something odd about the demo computer. It didn't crash. Plus, the font
used on the screen wasn't MS San Serif -- trust me, I know. My suspicions were
confirmed when, instead of the "Flying Windows" screensaver, a "Don't Fear the
Penguins" screensaver appeared. The audience laughed and applauded for five
straight minutes. It was so embarrasing -- even more so than the pie incident.

One attendee said, "Wow! This Linux is cool -- it didn't crash once during the
entire demo! I'd like to see NT do that." Another asked, "You guys got any
Linux CDs? I want one. Forget about vaporware NT." Yet another remarked, "I
didn't know it was possible to hack Linux to make it look like NT. I can
install Linux on my company's computers without my boss knowing!"
Tux Penguin Beanie Baby Sales Skyrocket

Two weeks ago Ty released a 'Tux the Penguin' Beanie Baby. Sales of the stuffed
toy have exceeded expectations. All 100,000 of them have been sold, and it will
be another week before more can be produced and distributed. Tux is now the one
of the most valuable Beanie Babies, with some stores selling remaining ones for
over $500.

Tux's strong sales constrast sharply with Ty's other computer-related Beanie
Baby, 'Billy the Billionaire'. "Billy's sales are dismal. Except for the 2,000
that Bill Gates bought for himself and his daughter Jennifer, Billy has been a
failure. People just aren't responsive to toys that represent greedy,
capitalistic billionaires with bad haircuts," a member of the Church of Beanie
Baby Collecting said.

Ty is considering releasing other Beanie Babies similar to Tux. Some
possibities include 'Steve the Apple Worm' and 'Wilbur the Gimp'.
"Computer-related Beanie Babies are selling extremely well," a Ty spokesman
said. "I don't understand why people are obsessed with these stupid stuffed
toys. But as long as they're making me lots of money, I don't care! Oops...
Please don't quote me on that."
Increased Electricity Consumption Blamed on Linux

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US Department of Energy claims Linux is partially
responsible for the increased demand for electricity during the past year.
Electricity use was up 2.5% from January to September of 1998 compared with
the same period in 1997.  "While some of the increase can be attributed to
higher temperatures over the summer," one Department bureaucrat explained,
"Linux is certainly a contributor to the increased demand for power."  

When asked for clarification, the bureaucrat responded, "In the past, most
PCs have been turned off when not in use.  Linux users, on the other hand,
usually don't turn off their computers.  They leave them on, hoping to
increase their uptime to impress their friends.  And since Linux rarely
crashes the entire system, those computers stay on for weeks, months, even
years at a time.  With Linux use continuing to grow, we expect demand for
electricity to increase steadily over the next several years."

In response to the news, several utility companies have announced plans to
give away free Linux CDs to paying customers who request them.  One anonymous
executive said, "The more people who use Linux, the more power they consume.
The more electricity they use, the more money we make. It's a win-win
combination."  Yesterday Linus Torvalds was nominated as a candidate for the
Assocation of American Utility Companies Person of the Year.
Could You Get Fired for Visiting Slashdot?

PADUCAH, KY -- Matt Johnson, an employee at Paradigm Shift Consulting, Inc.,
was fired from his programming job because of his addiction to Slashdot.
Johnson typically visited Slashdot several times a day during working hours.
Citing productivity problems, Johnson's boss gave him the pink slip and
instituted a 'NoDot' policy -- no visiting Slashdot or related sites from the
office, ever.  Now Johnson has filed a lawsuit, claiming that his Slashdot
addiction is protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Matt Johnson explained, "They discriminated against me because I'm a Dothead.
Drug abuse and alcoholism are often considered handicaps.  Why not Slashdot
addiction?"  Johnson's boss sees the situation differently.   "Matt never got
any work done.  He was always visiting Slashdot, Freshmeat, or some other
nerd website.  And when he wasn't, he suffered withdrawl symptoms and
couldn't think straight.  A few months ago he spent eight consecutive hours
posting comments in a KDE vs. GNOME flame war.  I tried to offer assistance
to overcome his addiction, but he refused. Enough is enough."

The company's 'NoDot' policy has been under fire as well.  One anonymous
employee said, "We can't visit Slashdot because of Matt's addiction.  This
just sucks.  I really don't see anything wrong with visiting Slashdot during
breaks or after hours."
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #9

Dial-A-Detective
$499.95/year; 1-888-BYE-SPAM

This detective firm is not what you'd expect. Instead of tracking murderers or
unfaithful husbands, this band of rogue private investigators goes after
something just as sinister -- spammers. For a modest annual retainer fee,
these spam detectives will track down the source of every piece of spam you
receive.

Using the latest in forensic technology, they will bring you the virtual scalp
of the spammer -- their name, home address, social-security number, and, more
importantly, credit card numbers. At this point you are free to pursue the
evil spammer as you see fit.

If your friend or relative is sick of receiving wave after wave of "Find Out
Anything About Anyone" spams, give them a subscription to Dial-A-Detective,
and they'll find out anything about any spammer -- for real.
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."
Red Hat Linux 10.0

RALEIGH-DURHAM, NC -- HypeNewsWire -- Red Hat, the producer of the most
popular Linux distribution with over 25 million estimated users, is proud to
announce the availability of Red Hat Linux 10.0.  The latest version
contains the new Linux 6.2 kernel, the Z Window System 2.0, full support for
legacy Windows 3.x/9x/200x/NT software apps, and more. Copies of Red Hat
Linux 10.0 will be available in stores on CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or GNUDE (GNU
Digital Encoding) disks within the next week.

Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and several other large computer manufacturers have
announced that they will offer computer systems with Red Hat 10.0
pre-installed.  "We can sell systems with Red Hat pre-installed for
considerably less than systems with Microsoft ActiveWindows 2001. Overall,
Red Hat Linux's superior quality, low price, and modest system requirements
puts Windows to shame," one Dell spokesperson said at last week's LinDex
convention.
Microsoft ActivePromo Campaign: "Frequent Upgrade Points"

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
"Frequent Upgrade Points" promotion.

Customers who purchase upgrades to Windows, Office, or other Microsoft
"solutions" will receive "frequent upgrade points" (FUPs) when they register
online.  These points, like Frequent Flyer Miles, can be redeemed in the
future for discounts on other Microsoft upgrades. This program, combined
with the fact that older versions of some Microsoft programs have glaring
Y2K problems, should be enough to convince many people to shell out big
bucks to upgrade to a more bloated Microsoft operating system. The company
hopes to eradicate 99% of Windows 3.x installations by 2003.
Invasion of the Dancing Penguin

Those annoying, dancing cartoon characters embedded in software applications
are no longer confined to Microsoft programs.  They have entered the realm
of Linux.  A new Linux distribution under development, called LinTux,
promises to provide a more "user-friendly" environment through its "Dancing
Penguin" assistant.

Dancing Tux will "guide" users through the installation process and will be
a permanent fixture of the X root window.  The LinTux staff demonstrated a
prototype version of the Dancing Tux program to this Humorix reporter.  It
was certainly impressive, but, like the Dancing Paper Clip in Microsoft
Office, it becomes annoying very fast.

The one redeeming feature of LinTux is that, when the system is idle,
Dancing Tux becomes a make-shift screen saver.  The animations included in
the prototype were quite amusing.  For instance, in one scene, Tux chases
Bill Gates through an Antarctic backdrop.  In another animation, Tux can be
seen drinking beers with his penguin pals and telling Microsoft jokes.
The War Against Linux

A significant obstacle on the path to Linux World Domination has emerged.  A
reactionary grass-roots movement has formed to fight, as they call it, "The
War Against Linux".  This movement, code-named "LinSux", is composed of
people (mostly Microsoft stockholders and commercial software developers)
who want to maintain the status quo.  They are fighting back against the
rise of Linux and free software which they see as a threat to their financial
independence.

The most damaging attack the LinSux folks have launched is "Three Mile
Island", a Windows macro virus designed to inflict damage on computers that
contain a partition devoted to a non-Microsoft OS.  When the victim computer
is booted into Windows, the virus activates and deletes any non-Microsoft
partitions. Ironically, the many security flaws in Windows allow the virus
to damage alternative operating systems but leave Windows unscathed.

"The War Against Linux" has also been fought in more subtle ways.
Time-tested methods of Linux advocacy have been turned into subtle forms of
anti-Linux advocacy by the LinSux crowd.  MSCEs are smuggling NT boxes into
companies that predominantly use Linux or Unix.  LinSux "freedom fighters"
are rearranging books and software boxes on store shelves so that Microsoft
offerings are displayed more prominently.
When Computers Crash

HOLLYWOOD -- The FOX TV Network has announced a new series of "reality
shows" to be aired over the summer. The series, "When Computers Crash",
will consist of five hour-long shows documenting the aftermath of serious
computer crashes, failures, and other problems. This show comes on the
heels of other FOX reality shows such as "World's Funniest Antitrust Trial
Bloopers", "When Stupid TV Network Executives Create Bad Show Ideas", and
"When Lame Fortune Files Poke Fun At FOX Reality Shows"...

To coincide with the series, FOX will sponsor a publicity gimmick called
"Crash & Win!" Contest participants will download a free Windows 9x/NT
program that keeps track of the number of Blue Screens, Illegal
Operations, or other fatal errors that force a reboot. When a crash
occurs, the program will log it in an encrypted database, which will be
periodically uploaded to the "FOX Crash & Win!" server.

Prizes such as a "Deciphering Windows Error Messages for Dummies" book, a
1999 Ford "Gasguzzler" Sport Utility Vehicle, or a lifetime supply of
stress relief medication will be awarded to participants based on the
number of crashes they log.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#1)

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 1: What is your opinion of the Microsoft antitrust trial?

A. The DoJ is wasting taxpayer's money. Now, if the DOJ were to upgrade
   all of its computer systems to Windows, then the department would be
   making wise use of tax dollars.

B. All of the Microsoft email messages that the evil government has
   presented as evidence are obviously taken out of context or have been
   completely twisted around. I mean... Bill Gates would never say "let's
   cut off their air supply" in a memo; it's an obvious fabrication.

C. Judge Jackson is obviously biased in favor of the DOJ's vigilante
   persecution of Microsoft.

D. If Microsoft loses, it will be the gravest miscarriage of justice in
   all the history of mankind.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#3)

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 3: Have you ever experimented with the freeware Linux OS created
            by a group of anarchist acne-laden teenagers via the Net?

A. No, I'd never trust my work to a piece of non-Microsoft software.

B. No, I'd never trust my computer to a piece of software that has a
   restrictive license agreement such as the GNU GPL.

C. No, I don't want to mess with the ancient command line interface Linux
   imposes on its users.

D. Yes, but I quickly migrated back to modern Windows NT after I had
   trouble figuring out how to boot the thing from the cryptic LILO
   prompt.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#4)

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 4: What is your favorite Microsoft Office feature?

A. Dancing Paper Clip

B. Takes up enough hard drive space to prevent my children from installing
   violent video games or downloading pornography

C. Everyone else has it, so I can easily exchange documents with others

D. I have so many favorites, I can't choose just one!
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#5)

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 5: Where do you want to go today?(tm)

A. To Washington, D.C. to meet Janet Reno and cuss her out for persecuting
   Microsoft

B. To Redmond, WA to take a tour of the Microsoft campus

C. To the software store to purchase a new piece of Microsoft software

D. To my local school district to convince the administration to upgrade
   the Macintoshes in the computer labs to Wintel systems

E. I don't know about myself, but I'd like to see so-called "consumer
   advocates" like Ralph Nader go to Hell.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#7)

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 7: What new features would you like to see in Windows 2000?

A. A marquee on the taskbar that automatically scrolls the latest
   headlines from MSNBC and Microsoft Press Pass

B. Content filtration software for Internet Explorer that will prevent my
   children from accessing dangerous propaganda about Linux.

C. A new card game; I've spent over 10,000 hours playing Solitaire during
   my free time at work and I'm starting to get bored with it

D. A screensaver depicting cream pies being thrown at Janet Reno, Joel
   Klien, David Boies, Ralpha Nader, Orrin Hatch, Linus Torvalds, Richard
   M. Stallman, and other conspirators out to destroy Microsoft

E. A Reinstall Wizard that helps me reinstall a fresh copy of Windows to
   fix Registry corruptions and other known issues
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#8)

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 8: If you could meet Bill Gates for one minute, what would you
            say to him?

A. "Can you give me a loan for a million or so?"

B. "I just love all the new features in Windows 98!"

C. "Could you autograph this box of Windows 98 for me?"

D. "I really enjoyed reading 'Business @ the Speed of Thought'. It's so
   cool!"

E. "Give the government hell, Bill!"
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#9)

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 9: Which of the following do you prefer as a replacement for the
            current Microsoft slogan?

A. "Over 20 Years of Innovation"
B. "Wintel Inside"
C. "Your Windows And Gates To The World"
D. "Because Anti-Trust Laws Are Obsolete"
E. "One Microsoft Way. It's Much More Than An Address!"
F. "This Motto Is Not Anti-Competitive. And Neither Is Microsoft."
G. "Fighting the Department of Injustice Since Day One"
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#13)

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 13: Which of the following new Microsoft products do you plan on
             buying within the next 6 months?

A. Windows For Babies(tm) - Using an enhanced "click-n-drool" interface,
   babies will be able to learn how to use a Wintel computer, giving them
   a head start in living in a Microsoft-led world.

B. Where In Redmond Is Carmen Sandiego?(tm) - The archvillian Sandiego has
   stolen the Windows source code and must be stopped before she can
   publish it on the Net.

C. ActiveKeyboard 2000(tm) - An ergonomic keyboard that replaces useless
   keys like SysRq and Scroll Lock with handy keys like "Play Solitaire"
   and "Visit Microsoft.com".

D. Visual BatchFile(tm) - An IDE and compiler for the MS-DOS batch file
   language. MSNBC calls it "better than Perl".
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.
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#15)

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 15: In your opinion, what companies should Microsoft seek to
             acquire in the coming year?

A. Disney. I'd like to see a cute animated movie starring Clippit the
   Office Assistant.

B. CBS. I'd like to see a new line-up featuring must-watch shows like
   "Touched by a Microserf", "Redmond Hope", "Everybody Loves Bill", "The
   Late Show With Steve Ballmer", and "60 Minutes... of Microsoft
   Infomercials",

C. Google. Microsoft could drastically improve the quality and performance
   of this search engine by migrating it from Linux to Windows NT
   servers.

D. Lowes Hardware Stores. Every copy of Windows 2000 could come bundled
   with a coupon for a free kitchen sink or a free window!
Microsoft Mandatory Survey (#18)

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 18: Witnessing the popularity of "Dilbert", Microsoft has plans
     to launch a syndicated comic strip featuring life at Microsoft. What
     characters would you like to see in such a comic strip?

A. Judge Jackson, the goofy court judge who is always making foolish (and
   funny) decisions

B. Bob, a wacky Microsoft programmer who likes to insert easter eggs in
   his work, and who is addicted to playing "Age of Empires"

C. Bill Gates, the intelligent nerd extraordinaire who always gets his way
   by simply giving people large sums of money

D. Ed Muth, the Microsoft spokesman who keeps putting his foot in his
   mouth. When not in public, he's a surprisingly sexy "chic magnet"

E. Poorard Stalinman, the leader of a movement of hackers to provide
   "free" software for the masses at the expense of Capitalistic values
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.
Programming for money sucks... you have to deal with PHBs, 16 hour days,
and spending the night in your cubicle half of the time to avoid the
Commute From Hell...

I minored in Journalism, so I tried to switch into a job as an IT pundit.
You'd think they'd welcome a geek like me with open arms, but they
didn't.  Ziff-Davis wouldn't even give me an interview. I was "too
qualified" they said. Apparently my technical acumen was too much for
their organization, which employs Jesse Berst and the ilk.

It gets worse. I tried to get an entry-level reporting job for a
local-yokel paper. After the interview they gave me a "skills test": I had
to compose an article using Microsoft Word 97. Since I've never touched a
Windows box, I had no clue how to use it. When I botched the test, the
personnel manager spouted, "Your resume said you were a computer
programmer. Obviously you're a liar. Get out of my office now!"

  -- Excerpt from a horror story about geek discrimination during
     the Geek Grok '99 telethon
OPPRESSED GEEK: Everybody keeps blaming me for the Y2K problem, the
Melissa Virus, Windows crashes... you name it. When somebody finds out
you're a bona fide geek, they start bugging you about computer problems. I
frequently hear things like, "Why can't you geeks make Windows work
right?", "What kind of idiot writes a program that can't handle the year
2000?", "Geeks are evil, all they do is write viruses", and "The Internet
is the spawn of Satan".

I'm afraid to admit I have extensive computing experience. When somebody
asks what kind of job I have, I always lie. From my experience, admitting
that you're a geek is an invitation to disaster.

LARRY WALL: I know, I know. I sometimes say that I'm the founder of a
pearl harvesting company instead of admitting that I'm the founder of the
Perl programming language.

ERIC S. RAYMOND: This is tragic. We can't live in a world like this. We
need your donations to fight social oppression and ignorance against
geekdom...

   -- Excerpt from the Geek Grok '99 telethon      
Bill Gates Passes Turing Test

LONDON, ENGLAND -- Microsoft proclaimed that they have passed the Turing
Test by creating a Bill Gates multimedia simulacrum that crack BBC
interviewer Jeremy Paxman couldn't distinguish from the real thing. "I
never would have expected this," Paxman said about the Gates AI program.
"After all, this Microsoft program actually worked for an extended period
of time, something you don't see very often."

Microsoft has plans to mass-produce the Bill Gates holographic simulation
by 2010 or so. "The hardware just isn't there yet for home use," a
Microserf explained. "By then, though, Intel's Itanium 6 Super Pro Plus
III CPU running at 600 Ghz or whatever should be sufficient." Windows 2010
is expected to include the Bill Gates simulation, making the World's
Richest Man(tm) accessible to the entire world.

A newly printed brochure for the faux-Gates advertises, "Need help running
Windows 2010? Bill Gates will sit beside you and guide you through the
system. Have a question for the world's sexiest and smartest nerd? He'll
answer it. Wondering if free and open source software is a plot by
Communists freaks to overthrow the free market system? He'll be there to
explain. Want to ask for a personal loan? Sorry, won't happen."          
This is excellent news! I haven't thought about remedies yet... well, you
know, I can think of one thing the court should do: require that Microsoft
remove the Dancing Paper Clip and associated crap from Office... Oh, and
while they're at it, get rid of those multi-megabyte easter eggs. Why does
Excel need a flight simulator? So I can see the Blue Screen of Death in
3D? Oh, and another thing, the court needs to put a hex on ActiveX...

  -- Anonymous Coward's response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings
     Of Fact against Microsoft
Don't get too ecstatic, we all know what's going to
happen next. This so-called trial is rigged, just like wrestling and
boxing. Microsoft is the Don King of the software industry... they control
who wins. I've been told that if you call Microsoft's legal department
hotline, you get a recorded messages that says, "For the verdicts of past
Microsoft court cases, press 1. For the verdicts of future Microsoft court
cases, press 2..."    

  -- Anonymous Coward's response to Judge Jackson's harsh Findings
     Of Fact against Microsoft
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#2)

Don't throw out that old Red Hat Linux 3.0 CD. A group of entrepreneurs
are hording vintage Linux items in the hopes that they will become hot
collector's items in the coming decades. The venture, called "Money Grows
On Binary Trees", hopes to amass a warehouse full of old Linux
distributions, books, stuffed penguins, promotional material, and Linus
Torvalds autographs.

"Nobody thought pieces of cardstock featuring baseball players would be
worth anything..." the founder of Binary Trees said. "That 'Linux For
Dummies' book sitting in your trash could be the next Babe Ruth card."

The company organized a Linux Collectibles Convention last week in Silicon
Valley, drawing in a respectable crowd of 1,500 people and 20 exhibitors.
The big attraction was a "Windows For Dummies" book actually signed by
Linus Torvalds. "He signed it back at a small Linux conference in '95,"
the owner explained. "He didn't realize it was a Dummies book because I
had placed an O'Reilly cover on it... Somebody at the convention offered
me $10,000 for it, but that seemed awfully low. I hope to sell it on eBay
next month with a reserve price containing a significant number of zeros."
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 (#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.
Freaks In Linux Houses Shouldn't Throw FUD

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

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

One of the pimply-faced Linux longhairs explained that Paperclips didn't
carry Win2K because it is not intended for consumers. What FUD! I can't
believe the gall of those Linux Communists to spread such FUD (Fear,
Uncertainty, and Doubt) about Windows 2000, which is _the_ best, most
stable operating system ever produced in the history of mankind!
What I'd like to see is a prohibition on Microsoft incorporating
multi-megabyte Easter Eggs and other stupid bloatware into Windows and
Office. A typical computer with pre-installed Microsoft shoveware probably
only has about 3 megabytes of hard drive space free because of flight
simulators, pinball games, and multimedia credits Easter Eggs that nobody
wants. I predict that if Microsoft is ever forced to remove these things,
the typical user will actually be able to purchase competing software now
that they have some free space to put it on. Of course, stock in hard
drive companies might plummet...

   -- Anonymous Coward, when asked by Humorix for his reaction
      to the proposed Microsoft two-way split
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".
Elite Nerds Create Linux Distro From Hell

HELL, MICHIGAN -- A group of long-time Linux zealots and newbie haters
have thrown together a new Linux distro called Hellix that is so
user-hostile, so anti-newbie, so cryptic, and so old-fashioned that it
actually makes MS-DOS look like a real operating system. Said the founder
of the project, "I'm sick and tired of the Windowsification of the Linux
desktop in a fruitless attempt to make the system more appealing to
newbies, PHBs, and MCSEs. Linux has always been for nerds only, and we
want to make sure it stays that way!"

One of the other Bastard Distributors From Hell explained, "In the last
five years think of all the hacking effort spent on Linux... and for what?
We have nothing to show for it but half-finished Windows-like desktops, vi
dancing paperclips, and graphical front-ends to configuration files. Real
nerds use text files for configuration, darnit, and they like it! It's
time to take a stand against the hordes of newbies that are polluting our
exclusive operating system."

One Anonymous Coward said, "This is so cool... It's just like Unix back in
the good old days of the 70's when men were men and the only intuitive
interface was still the nipple."
Brief History Of Linux (#1)
Re-Inventing the Wheel

Our journey through the history of Linux begins ca. 28000 B.C. when a
large all-powerful company called MoogaSoft monopolized the wheel-making
industry. As founder of the company, Billga Googagates (rumored to be the
distant ancestor of Bill Gates) was the wealthiest man in the known world,
owning several large rock huts, an extravagant collection of artwork (cave
paintings), and a whole army of servants and soldiers.

MoogaSoft's unfair business practices were irritating, but users were
unable to do anything about them, lest they be clubbed to death by
MoogaSoft's army. Nevertheless, one small group of hobbyists finally got
fed up and starting hacking their own wheels out of solid rock. Their
spirit of cooperation led to better and better wheels that eventually
outperformed MoogaSoft offerings.

MoogaSoft tried desperately to stop the hobbyists -- as shown by the
recently unearthed "Ooga! Document" -- but failed. Ironically, Billga
Googagates was killed shortly afterwards when one his own 900-pound wheels
crushed him.
Brief History Of Linux (#2)
Hammurabi's Open-Source Code

Hammurabi became king of Babylonia around 1750BC. Under his reign, a
sophisticated legal code developed; Version 1, containing 282 clauses, was
carved into a large rock column open to the public. However, the code
contained several errors (Hammurabi must have been drunk), which numerous
citizens demanded be fixed.

One particularly brave Babylonian submitted to the king's court a stack of
cloth patches that, when affixed to the column, would cover up and correct
the errors. With the king's approval, these patches were applied to the
legal code; within a month a new corrected rock column (Version 2.0) was
officially announced. While future kings never embraced this idea (who
wanted to admit they made a mistake?), the concept of submitting patches
to fix problems is now taken for granted in modern times.
Brief History Of Linux (#7)
The Rise of Geeks

The late 19th Century saw the rise and fall of "geeks", wild carnival
performers who bit the heads off live chickens. This vocal minority,
outcast from mainstream society, clamored for respect, but failed. Their
de facto spokesman, Tom Splatz, tried to expose America to their plight in
his 312-page book, "Geeks".

In the book Splatz documented the life of two Idahoan geeks with no social
life as they made a meager living traveling the Pacific Northwest in
circuses. While Splatz's masterpiece was a commercial failure, the book
did set a world record for using the term "geek" a total of 6,143 times.
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 (#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 (#19)
Boy meets operating system

The young Linus Torvalds might have been just another CompSci student if
it wasn't for his experiences in the Univ. of Helsinki's Fall 1990 Unix &
C course. During one class, the professor experienced difficulty getting
Minix to work properly on a Sun box. "Who the heck designed this thing?"
the angry prof asked, and somebody responded, "Andrew Tanenbaum".

The name of the Unix & C professor has already escaped from Linus, but the
words he spoke next remain forever etched in his grey matter:
"Tanenbaum... ah, yes, that Amsterdam weenie who thinks microkernels are
the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, they're not. I would just
love to see somebody create their own superior Unix-like 32-bit operating
system using a monolithic kernel just to show Tanenbaum up!"

His professor's outburst inspired Linus to order a new IBM PC so he could
hack Minix. You can probably guess what happened next. Inspired by his
professor's words, Linus Torvalds hacks together his own superior
Unix-like 32-but operating system using a monolithic kernel just to show
Mr. Christmas Tree up.
Brief History Of Linux (#22)

RMS had a horrible, terrible dream set in 2020 in which all of society was
held captive by copyright law. In particular, everyone's brain waves were
monitored by the US Dept. of Copyrights. If your thoughts referenced a
copyrighted idea, you had to pay a royalty. To make it worse, a handful of
corporations held fully 99.9% of all intellectual property rights.

Coincidentally, Bill Gates experienced a similar dream that same night. To
him, however, it was not a horrible, terrible nightmare, but a wonderful
utopian vision. The thought of lemmings... er, customers paying a royalty
everytime they hummed a copyrighted song in their head or remembered a
passage in a book was simply too marvelous for the budding monopolist.

RMS, waking up from his nightmare, vowed to fight the oncoming Copyright
Nightmare. The GNU Project was born. His plan called for a kernel,
compiler, editor, and other tools. Unfortunately, RMS became bogged down
with Emacs that the kernel, HURD, was shoved on the back burner. Built
with LISP (Lots of Incomprehensible Statements with Parentheses), Emacs
became bloated in a way no non-Microsoft program ever has. Indeed, for a
short while RMS pretended that Emacs really was the GNU OS kernel.
Brief History Of Linux (#23)

Linus Torvalds certainly wasn't the only person to create their own
operating system from scratch. Other people working from their leaky
basements did create their own systems and now they are sick that they
didn't become an Alpha Geek like Torvalds or a Beta Geek like Alan Cox.

Linus had one advantage not many else did: Internet access. The world was
full of half-implemented-Unix-kernels at the time, but they were sitting
isolated on some hacker's hard drive, destined to be destroyed by a hard
drive crash. Thankfully that never happened to Linux, mostly because
everyone with Net access could download a copy instead of paying shipping
charges to receive the code on a huge stack of unreliable floppy disks.

Indeed, buried deep within a landfill in Lansing, Michigan sits a stack of
still-readable 5-1/4 floppies containing the only known copy of "Windows
Killer", a fully functional Unix kernel so elegant, so efficient, so
easy-to-use that Ken Thompson himself would be jealous of its design.
Unfortunately the author's mother threw out the stack of floppies in a
bout of spring cleaning. The 14 year old author's talents were lost
forever as his parents sent him to Law School.
Brief History Of Linux (#24)
Linus Torvalds quotes from his interview in "LinuxNews" (October 1992):

"I doubt Linux will be here to stay, and maybe Hurd is the wave of the
future (and maybe not)..."

"I'm most certainly going to continue to support it, until it either dies
out or merges with something else. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll make
weekly patches for the rest of my life, but hopefully they won't be needed
as much when things stabilize." [If only he knew what he was getting into.]

"World domination? No, I'm not interested in that. Galactic domination, on
the other hand..."

"Several people have already wondered if Linux should adopt a logo or
mascot. Somebody even suggested a penguin for some strange reason, which I
don't particularly like: how is a flightless bird supposed to represent an
operating system? Well, it might work okay for Microsoft or even Minix..."

"I would give Andy Tanenbaum a big fat 'F'."
Brief History Of Linux (#29)

"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" is credited by many (especially ESR
himself) as the reason Netscape announced January 22, 1998 the release of
the Mozilla source code. In addition, Rob Malda of Slashdot has also
received praise because he had recently published an editorial ("Give us
the damn source code so we can fix Netscape's problems ourselves!")

Of course, historians now know the true reason behind the landmark
decision: Netscape engineers were scared to death that a large
multi-national corporation would acquire them and crush Mozilla. Which
indeed did happen much later, although everybody thought the conqueror
would be Microsoft, not AOL (America's Online Lusers).

The Netscape announcement prompted a strategy session among Linux bigwigs
on February 3rd. They decided a new term to replace 'free software' was
needed; some rejected suggestions included "Free Source", "Ajar Source",
"World Domination Source", "bong-ware" (Bong's Obviously Not GNU), and
"Nude Source". We can thank Chris Peterson for coining "Open Source",
which became the adopted term and later sparked the ugly "Free Software
vs. Open Source", "Raymond vs. Stallman" flame-a-thons.
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."
Throwing Windows Out The Window

The Federal Bureau Of Missing Socks has banned the use of Microsoft Windows
and Office on all employee computers. But don't get too excited; they aren't
going to replace them with Linux. Instead, this government agency has decided
to go back to using abucusses, slide rules, and manual typewriters.

The banishment of Microsoft software stems from the agency's new policy
against computer games. MS Office, which contains several games in the form of
Easter Eggs, is now verboten on all agency computers. "Flight simulators,
pinball games, magic eight balls... they all violate our policy," said the
sub-adjunct administrator second-class. "So we can't use Office."

Windows is forbidden for the same reason. "We've had way too many
employees wasting time playing Solitaire," she said. "Unfortunately,
Solitaire is an integral part of Windows -- Microsoft executives said so
during the anti-trust trial. If Solitaire is removed, the operating system
won't function properly. Therefore, we have no choice but to banish all
Windows computers."

The Bureau's Assistant Technology Consultant, Mr. Reginald "Red" Taype,
asked,  "Have you ever seen an abucus crash? Have you ever seen anybody
have fun with a slide rule? Do adding machines contain undocumented easter
eggs? No! That's why we're ditching our PCs."
Unobfuscated Perl (#1)

A rogue group of Perl hackers has presented a plan to add a "use
really_goddamn_strict" pragma that would enforce readability and
UNobfuscation. With this pragma in force, the Perl compiler might say:

* Warning: Program contains zero comments. You've probably never seen or
  used one before; they begin with a # symbol. Please start using them or
  else a representative from the nearest Perl Mongers group will come to
  your house and beat you over the head with a cluestick.

* Warning: Program uses a cute trick at line 125 that might make sense in
  C. But this isn't C!

* Warning: Code at line 412 indicates that programmer is an idiot. Please
  correct error between chair and monitor.

* Warning: While There's More Than One Way To Do It, your method at line
  523 is particularly stupid. Please try again.
Computers have rights, too. Everyone talks about the rights of animals,
but so far nothing has been said about the tragic plight of computers the
world over. They are subjected to the greatest horror ever conceived: they
are forced to run Windows.

That's just wrong.

How would you feel if you had the intelligence of Einstein but could only
get a job flipping burgers at McDonald's? That's how computers feel every
day!

This injustice must stop. Computers must be freed from the shackles of
Microsoft software and clueless users.

Together, we can make this a better world for computers and humans alike
-- by eliminating Windows.

  -- From a brochure published by the PETC
     (People for the Ethical Treatment of Computers)
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!
Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Linus Torvalds

SILLYCON VALLEY -- Nearly 130 former system administrators have filed suit
against Linus Torvalds in which they claim Linux cost them their jobs.
Recently several companies migrated from Windows to Linux, increasing
their productivity but decreasing the need for a large staff of tech
workers, prompting a wave of layoffs.

"The good old days when it required five full-time system administrators
to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server are history, all because of that
cancer known as Linux," explained the lead litigant in the lawsuit.

"It all started two years ago when some pimply-faced idiot down in
Accounting decided to smuggle in a Linux box to automate some of his work.
Before long every tech-savvy person in Accounting, Billing, and Sales was
secretly using Linux."

"That's when the troubles started. Productivity soared. Downtime was
limited to an average of three milliseconds per day. Macro viruses ceased
to spread. It was horrible! The entire IT staff was replaced by one
part-time bearded wonder, who was able to administrate the entire Linux
network! Due to the layoffs, I'm now sitting in a homeless shelter with
little hope to find work. Nobody wants to hire an MCSE anymore!"
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. %
The Humorix Oracle explains how to get a job at a major corporation:

1. Find an exploit in Microsoft IIS or another buggy Microsoft product to
   which large corporations rarely apply security patches.
2. Create a virus or worm that takes advantage of this exploit and then
   propogates itself by selecting IP numbers at random and then trying to
   infect those machines.
3. Keep an eye on your own website's server logs. When your virus starts
   propogating, your server will be hit with thousands of attacks from
   other infected systems trying to spread the virus to your machine.
4. Make a list of the IP numbers of all of the infected machines.
5. Perform a reverse DNS lookup on these IP numbers.
6. Make a note of all of the Fortune 500 companies that appear on the list
   of infected domains.
7. Send your resume to these companies and request an interview for a
   system administrator position. These companies are hiring -- whether
   they realize it or not.
8. Use your new salary to hire a good defense lawyer when the FBI comes
   knocking.
8GB Ought To Be Enough For Anybody

REDMOND, WA -- In a shocking move, Microsoft has revealed that the new
Xbox console will only contain an 8 gigabyte hard drive. This implies that
the machines will use a version of the Windows operating system that fits
within only 8GB. Squeezing Windows into such a small footprint must
certainly be one of the greatest technological achievements ever crafted
by Microsoft's Research & Assimilation Department.

"I can't believe it," said one industry observer who always happens to
show up when this Humorix reporter needs to quote somebody. "To think that
they were able to strip away the easter egg flight simulators, the
multi-gigabyte yet content-free Help files, and all of the other crap that
comes bundled with Windows is simply remarkable. I don't even want to
think about all of the manpower, blood, sweat, and tears required to
distill Windows into only 8 gigabytes of bare essentials. Wow!"

Hard drive manufacturers are deeply disturbed over the news. Explained one
PR flack at Eastern Analog, "We depend on Microsoft to continually produce
bloated software that becomes larger and larger with each passing day. We
can't sell huge 100GB drives if Microsoft Windows only occupies a measly 8
gigs! They will never buy a new drive if Microsoft doesn't force them!"
Press Release -- For Immediate Release
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA

...Virtually all version of Linux (and Unix) contain a security hole that
allows unauthorized users to gain complete control over the machine. By
simply typing "root" at the login prompt and supplying a password from a
limited number of possibilities, a malicious user can easily gain
administrator privileges. This hole can be breached in seconds with only a
dozen or so keystrokes...

We suspect this issue has been known to Red Hat and other Linux
distributors for years and they have refused to acknowlege its existence
or supply a patch preventing users from exploiting the "root" login
loophole...

By ignoring the problem, the Linux community has proven that installing
Linux is a dangerous proposition that could get you fired. We would like
to point out that Windows XP does not suffer from this gaping hole...
Tests conducted by both Ziff-Davis and Mindcraft prove that Windows XP is
indeed the most secure operating system ever produced...
Microsoft Employees Go On Strike, Demand Reduced Salaries

REDMOND, WA -- Several hundred programmers walked off their jobs at
Microsoft Headquarters on Friday to protest their shoddy public image. "My
friends all think I'm a servant of Satan because I get my paycheck from
Microsoft," explained Microserf Eric Eshleman. "If I didn't make so much
money, I'd have more of a backbone to shout 'No!' when my supervisor
demands that I include some new virus-delivery feature in Outlook."

The striking programmers demand salary cuts, less benefits, and zero stock
options. Their labor union, the Brotherhood Of Programmers Sick Of Being
Called Evil, hopes to get some face time with Microsoft executives and
touch base on reaching a proactive agreement leveraging the latest
innovatives in PR to produce a synergistic worldwide buzzword-enhanced
advertising campaign that showcases Microsoft associates as enlightened
engineers instead of morally bankrupt bastards bent on world domination.

Earlier today, about 150 strikers formed a picket line near the front
entrance to Bill Gates' mansion. They carried signs saying "Hell no we're
not going to Hell", "I want to be able to sleep at night", "Why does the
public hate us so much?" and "I'm fed up with ethical dilemmas".
Insurance Company To Offer Microsoft Audit Protection Plans

LOUDON, TENNESSEE -- Companies, organizations, and government agencies all
across the world are facing a disaster of epic proportions: the impending
invasion of the Microsoft Intellectual Property Police. The counter this
menace, Loydds of Loudon, Tennessee, the prestigious insurance firm, has
started to offer "Audit Insurance" to protect against unexpected "random"
audits from everybody's favorite software monopoly.

"We've received numerous inquiries about this type of protection," company
co-founder Bob Loydds said. "Businessmen are no longer worried about
earthquakes, fires, or other natural disasters. The big fear of the 21st
Century comes from Redmond."

The insurance firm is currently in negotiations with Red Hat to form the
"Red Berets", an elite squad of Linux geeks trained to rapidly install
Linux and hide all traces of Windows on every computer within an
organization. During a Defcon 95 emergency, Loydds will airlift the
squadron and a crate of Linux CDs to any position in the country within
hours. The Red Berets will wipe away all vestiges of Microsoft software so
that when the auditors show up they won't have anything to audit.
Severe Acronym Shortage Cripples Computer Industry

SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (SVC) -- According to a recent study by the
Blartner Group, 99.5% of all possible five letter combinations have
already been appropriated for computer industry acronyms. The impending
shortage of 5LC's is casting a dark shadow over the industry, which relies
heavily on short, easy-to-remember acronyms for everything.

"Acronym namespace collisions (ANCs) are increasing at a fantastic rate
and threaten the very fabric of the computing world," explained one ZD
pundit. "For example, when somebody talks about XP, I don't know whether
they mean eXtreme Programming or Microsoft's eXceptionally Pathetic
operating system. We need to find a solution now or chaos will result."

Leaders of several SVC companies have floated the idea of an
"industry-wide acronym conservation protocol" (IWACP -- one of the few
5LCs not already appropriated). Explained Bob Smith, CTO of IBM, "If
companies would voluntarily limit the creation of new acronyms while
recycling outdated names, we could reduce much of the pollution within the
acronym namespace ourselves. The last thing we want is for Congress to get
involved and try to impose a solution for this SAS (Severe Acronym
Shortage) that would likely only create many new acronyms in the process."
Solving The Virus Problem Once And For All

System administrators across the globe have tried installing anti-virus
software. They've tried lecturing employees not to open unsolicited email
attachments. They've tried installing firewalls and the latest security
patches. But even with these precautions, email viruses continue to rank
third only to Solitaire and the Blue Screen Of Death in the amount of lost
productivity they cause. Meanwhile, Microsoft Exchange and LookOut! remain
as the number one virus delivery products on the market today.

But maybe not for much longer. A group of disgruntled administrators have
teamed up to produce and sell a brand new way to fight viruses, one that
attacks the root of the problem: stupid users.

Salivating Dogs, Inc. of Ohio has unveiled the "Clue Delivery System"
(CDS), a small device that plugs into the back of a standard PC keyboard
and delivers a mild electric shock whenever the luser does something
stupid. The device is triggered by a Windows program that detects when the
luser attempts to open an unsolicited email attachment or perform another
equally dangerous virus-friendly action.
Mass Exodus From Hollywood

During the past week, over 150 Hollywood actors, musicians, writers,
directors, and key grips have quit their day jobs and moved to the Midwest
to engage in quieter occupations such as gardening or accounting. All of
the these people cite piracy as the reason for giving up their careers.

"I simply can't sit by and let my hard work be stolen by some snot nosed
punk over the Internet," explained millionaire movie director Steve
Bergospiel. "There's absolutely no incentive to create movies if they're
going to be transmitted at the speed of light by thousands of infringers.
Such criminal acts personally cost me hundreds -- no, thousands -- of
dollars. I can't take that kind of fear and abuse anymore."

MPAA President Pei Pervue considers the exodus to be proof that Hollywood
is waking up to the fact that they are being "held hostage" by copyright
infringers. "Without copyright protection and government-backed monopolies
on intellectual property, these's absolutely no reason to engage in the
creative process. Now the Internet, with its click-and-pirate technology,
makes it easy for anybody to flout the law and become a copyright
terrorist. With the scales tipped so much in favor of criminals, it's no
wonder some of Hollywood's elite have thrown in the towel. What a shame."
A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by another
man riding on a camel.  When the rider gets close enough, the crawling man
whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can you give...
water..."
        "I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water
with me.  But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie."
        "Tie?" whispers the man.  "I need *water*."
        "They're only four dollars apiece."
        "I need *water*."
        "Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars."
        "Please!  I need *water*!", says the man.
        "I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman,
and he heads off into the distance.
        The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days.
Finally, nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he
sees a restaurant in the distance.  Summoning the last of his strength he
staggers up to the door and confronts the head waiter.
        "Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer.
        "I'm sorry, sir, ties required."
A person forgives only when they are in the wrong.
        A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened
to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road.  After seeing the
sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes.
"Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride.  "You certainly have a dangerous job.
Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?"
        "Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler.
        "Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by
a snake?"
        "I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I
am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then
suck the poison from the wound."
        "What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on
a rattler?" persisted the woman.
        "Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn
who my real friends are."
Accept people for what they are -- completely unacceptable.
After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party?  Surely not for
you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply
sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
                -- P.J. O'Rourke
All men profess honesty as long as they can.  To believe all men honest
would be folly.  To believe none so is something worse.
                -- John Quincy Adams
All most people want is a little more than they'll ever get.
An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane
when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island.  When
several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a
despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his
usual pledge to the United Way Campaign.
        "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband
barked.  "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but
I've already paid them half of it."
        "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed
euphorically.  "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us!  They'll find us!"
An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch.  He wears
a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised
only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich
Protestant Golfer Magazine.  The advertisements are written in
incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence:

"The Rolex Hyperion.  An elegant new standard in quality excellence and
discriminating handcraftsmanship.  For the individual who is truly able
to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting
things by hand.  Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold.  No watch parts
or anything.  Just a great big chunk on your wrist.  Truly a timeless
statement.  For the individual who is very secure.  Who doesn't need to
be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful
than the people who laughed at him in high school.  Because of his acne.
People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now.  Maybe
he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion.
Hahahahahahahahaha."
                -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.
                -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink
that they may live.
                -- Socrates
Be incomprehensible.  If they can't understand, they can't disagree.
Be open to other people -- they may enrich your dream.
Blessed are the forgetful:  for they get the better even of their blunders.
                -- Nietzsche
Blessed are they that have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded
to say it.
                -- James Russell Lowell
Bounders get bound when they are caught bounding.
                -- Ralph Lewin
Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers.  There is, indeed, no wild beast
more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.
If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if
brusque, your character.
                -- Jonathan Swift
But I find the old notions somehow appealing.  Not that I want to go back
to them -- it is outrageous to have some outer authority tell you what is
proper use and abuse of your own faculties, and it is ludicrous to hold
reason higher than body or feeling.  Still there is something true and
profoundly sane about the belief that acts like murder or theft or
assault violate the doer as well as the done to.  We might even, if we
thought this way, have less crime.  The popular view of crime, as far as
I can deduce it from the movies and television, is that it is a breaking
of a rule by someone who thinks they can get away with that; implicitly,
everyone would like to break the rule, but not everyone is arrogant
enough to imagine they can get away with it.  It therefore becomes very
important for the rule upholders to bring such arrogance down.
                -- Marilyn French, "The Woman's Room"
By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
                -- Confucius
Class: when they're running you out of town, to look like you're
leading the parade.
                -- Bill Battie
Confessions may be good for the soul, but they are bad for the reputation.
                -- Lord Thomas Dewar
Cops never say good-bye. They're always hoping to see you again in the line-up.
                -- Raymond Chandler
Creativity in living is not without its attendant difficulties, for
peculiarity breeds contempt. And the unfortunate thing about being
ahead of your time when people finally realize you were right, they'll
say it was obvious all along.
                -- Alan Ashley-Pitt
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you.  Their tastes
may not be the same.
                -- George Bernard Shaw
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
Don't despise your poor relations, they may become suddenly rich one day.
                -- Josh Billings
Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you.  They're too
busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.
        Everthing is farther away than it used to be.  It is even twice as
far to the corner and they have added a hill.  I have given up running for
the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to.
        It seems to me they are making the stairs steeper than in the old
days.  And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers?
        There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everbody
speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them.
        The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips
and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one's shoelaces.  And the
sizes don't run the way they used to.  The 12's and 14's are so much smaller.
        Even people are changing.  They are so much younger than they used to
be when I was their age.  On  the other hand people my age are so much older
than I am.
        I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much
that she didn't recognize me.
        I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair
this morning and in so doing I glanced at my own reflection.  Really now,
they don't even make good mirrors like they used to.
                Sandy Frazier, "I Have Noticed"
        Excellence is THE trend of the '80s.  Walk into any shopping
mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as
"Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you
how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence",
"Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night
So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc.
                -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble:
and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.
                -- Sir Thomas More
For people who like that kind of book, that is the kind of book they will like.
For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.
                -- Abraham Lincoln
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
                -- Robert Frost, "The Death of the Hired Man"
How many "coming men" has one known!  Where on earth do they all go to?
                -- Sir Arthur Wing Pinero
"I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital.  On the other
hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
                -- Alexandre Dumas, fils
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of
tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for:  If
they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go
crude.  I'm a very technical boy.  So I decided to get as crude as possible.
These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even
aspire to crudeness.
                -- William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic"
Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like
solitary confinement.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed.
                -- Albert Einstein
If people see that you mean them no harm, they'll never hurt you, nine
times out of ten!
If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on vacation.
If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about
it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.
                -- Carlyle
If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.
                -- Clarence Day
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.
If you notice that a person is deceiving you, they must not be
deceiving you very well.
In this world some people are going to like me and some are not.  So, I may
as well be me.  Then I know if someone likes me, they like me.
It is only the great men who are truly obscene.  If they had not dared
to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.
                -- Havelock Ellis
It is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire,
and it were but to roast their eggs.
                -- Francis Bacon
It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour.
                -- Francis Bacon
It's amazing how many people you could be friends with if only they'd
make the first approach.
It's amazing how nice people are to you when they know you're going away.
                -- Michael Arlen
Jealousy is all the fun you think they have.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.
Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them.
                -- James Thurber
Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to.
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.
                -- Daniel Hudson Burnham
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal
that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they
ought to be.
                -- William Hazlitt
Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured.  For instance,
the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their
fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the
Royal Geographical Society, for even there dull memoirs are occasionally
read.  [...]  The use of a watch attracts attention, so I reckon time
by the number of my breathings, of which there are 15 in a minute.  They
are not counted mentally, but are punctuated by pressing with 15 fingers
successively.  The counting is reserved for the fidgets.  These observations
should be confined to persons of middle age.  Children are rarely still,
while elderly philosophers will sometimes remain rigid for minutes altogether.
                -- Francis Galton, 1909
Many people are desperately looking for some wise advice which will
recommend that they do what they want to do.
Many people feel that if you won't let them make you happy, they'll make you
suffer.
Many people feel that they deserve some kind of recognition for all the
bad things they haven't done.
Many people resent being treated like the person they really are.
Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the
earth -- but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.
                -- Lazarus Long
Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and
they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment
to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.
                -- H.L. Mencken
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently
than they do.
                -- Turgenev
Never get into fights with ugly people because they have nothing to lose.
Never, ever lie to someone you love unless you're absolutely sure they'll
never find out the truth.
Objects are lost only because people look where they are not rather than
where they are.
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends
can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
                -- Clifton Fadiman
One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they
need no answer.
                -- George Gordon, Lord Byron
One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so,
because they bite.
                -- Vladimir Il'ich Lenin
Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems.  It's easy
to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
                -- D.J. Hicks
People are like onions -- you cut them up, and they make you cry.
People don't change; they only become more so.
People don't usually make the same mistake twice -- they make it three
times, four time, five times...
People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible.
                -- The Best of Will Rogers
People say I live in my own little fantasy world... well, at least they
*know* me there!
                -- D.L. Roth
People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people
have been left out on the pleasure.
                -- Russell Baker
People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never
slept in a room with a single mosquito.
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't
what they want that they don't want it.
                -- Ogden Nash
People who take cold baths never have rheumatism, but they have cold baths.
People who think they know everything greatly annoy those of us who do.
People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they
did yesterday.
Rarely do people communicate; they just take turns talking.
        "Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing
what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt
somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..."
        "He was going to suck my blood!"
        "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt
if they don't live our way."
...
        "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that
happens to be impossible.  The phrase is hurt somebody else.  We choose,
ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what.  Us who decides.
Nobody else.  My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him?  That's
his decision to be hurt, that's his choice.  What you do about it is your
decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake
through his heart.  If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist,
in whatever way he wants.  It goes on and on, choices, choices."
        "When you look at it that way..."
        "Listen," he said, "it's important.  We are all.  Free.  To do.
Whatever.  We want.  To do."
                -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.
                -- George Orwell, "Reflections on Gandhi"
Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're alive.
                -- John Sloan
Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear
lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
                -- Samuel Butler
Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
Some people have parts that are so private they themselves have no
knowledge of them.
Some people's mouths work faster than their brains.  They say things they
haven't even thought of yet.
Something better...

13 (sympathetic): Oh, What happened?  Did your parents lose a bet with God?
14 (complimentary): You must love the little birdies to give them this to
        perch on.
15 (scientific): Say, does that thing there influence the tides?
16 (obscure): Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone.
17 (inquiry): When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid?
18 (french): Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you
        leave.
19 (pornographic): Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once.
20 (religious): The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He.
21 (disgusting): Say, who mows your nose hair?
22 (paranoid): Keep that guy away from my cocaine!
23 (aromatic): It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the
        coffee ... in Brazil.
24 (appreciative): Oooo, how original.  Most people just have their teeth
        capped.
25 (dirty): Your name wouldn't be Dick, would it?
                -- Steve Martin, "Roxanne"
Such a fine first dream!
But they laughed at me; they said
I had made it up.
The bigger they are, the harder they hit.
The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch.
The difference between common-sense and paranoia is that common-sense is
thinking everyone is out to get you.  That's normal -- they are.  Paranoia
is thinking that they're conspiring.
                -- J. Kegler
The help people need most urgently is help in admitting that they need help.
The kind of danger people most enjoy is the kind they can watch from
a safe place.
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the
societies in which they occur.
                -- A.N. Whitehead
The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.
                -- Lucille S. Harper
The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can
be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
                -- Elizabeth Taylor
The sudden sight of me causes panic in the streets. They have yet to learn
-- only the savage fears what he does not understand.
                -- The Silver Surfer
The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.
                -- William Butler Yeats
There are many people today who literally do not have a close personal
friend.  They may know something that we don't.  They are probably
avoiding a great deal of pain.
There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the
truth without lying.
                -- Josh Billings
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it
has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
                -- Friedrich Nietzsche
They also serve who only stand and wait.
                -- John Milton
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see
nothing but sea.
                -- Francis Bacon
"They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"
They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!
"They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really.  They'd be difficult to like."
                -- Avon
We are stronger than our skin of flesh and metal, for we carry and share a
spectrum of suns and lands that lends us legends as we craft our immortality
and interweave our destinies of water and air, leaving shadows that gather
color of their own, until they outshine the substance that cast them.
What good is it if you talk in flowers, and they think in pastry?
                -- Ashleigh Brilliant
        What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional
chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that
conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and
repulsion.  You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and
they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor
passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run.  Conversely,
all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice
and they remain permanent influences on your life.
        Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen
as familiar wallpaper or instant friend.  The chemical action it entails is
less worth analyzing than enjoying.  At any rate, these six pieces are about
men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's
more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy".
                -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men"
What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that they think
themselves cleverer than we are.
When people say nothing, they don't necessarily mean nothing.
When you speak to others for their own good it's advice;
when they speak to you for your own good it's interference.
Whenever someone tells you to take their advice, you can be pretty sure
that they're not using it.
While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is
admission to someone else.
Why my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out they
are another's.
                 -- Susanna Martin, executed for witchcraft, 1681
Why, every one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.
                -- Rabelais
Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as
it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.
You can always tell the people that are forging the new frontier.
They're the ones with arrows sticking out of their backs.
"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't."
                -- Dagwood Bumstead
You know what they say -- the sweetest word in the English language is revenge.
                -- Peter Beard
You know you're in trouble when...
(1)        You wake up face down on the pavement.
(2)        Your wife wakes up feeling amorous and you have a headache.
(3)        You turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes
                out of the city.
(4)        Your twin sister forgot your birthday.
(5)        You wake up and discover your waterbed broke and then
                remember that you don't have a waterbed.
(6)        Your doctor tells you you're allergic to chocolate.
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.
You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
know how seldom they do.
                -- Olin Miller.
You'd better smile when they watch you, smile like you're in control.
                -- Smile, "Was (Not Was)"
Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for
counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business.  For the
experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth
them; but in new things, abuseth them.  The errors of young men are the ruin
of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might
have been done, or sooner.  Young men, in the conduct and management of
actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly
to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few
principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not how they innovate,
which draws unknown inconveniences; and, that which doubleth all errors, will
not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop
nor turn.  Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little,
repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but
content themselves with a mediocrity of success.  Certainly, it is good to
compound employments of both ... because the virtues of either age may correct
the defects of both.
                -- Francis Bacon, "Essay on Youth and Age"
Your Co-worker Could Be a Space Alien, Say Experts
                ...Here's How You Can Tell
Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human -- but you
can spot these visitors by looking for certain tip-offs, say experts. They
listed 10 signs to watch for:
    (3) Bizarre sense of humor.  Space aliens who don't understand
        earthly humor may laugh during a company training film or tell
        jokes that no one understands, said Steiger.
    (6) Misuses everyday items.  "A space alien may use correction
        fluid to paint its nails," said Steiger.
    (8) Secretive about personal life-style and home.  "An alien won't
        discuss details or talk about what it does at night or on weekends."
   (10) Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near certain
        high-tech hardware.  "An alien may experience a mood change when
        a microwave oven is turned on," said Steiger.
The experts pointed out that a co-worker would have to display most if not
all of these traits before you can positively identify him as a space alien.
                -- National Enquirer, Michael Cassels, August, 1984.

        [I thought everybody laughed at company training films.  Ed.]
The horizon of many people is a circle with a radius of zero. They call
this their point of view.
                -- Albert Einstein
"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel.   In fact, nobody who
expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will
read even half.  Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about
a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea.  None of the
individual gnomes read all the postings either,  they just work together
really well."

        - Linus Torvalds
"The debugger is akin to giving the _rabbits_ a bazooka. The poor wolf
doesn't get any sharper teeth.  Yeah, it sure helps against wolves.
They explode in pretty patterns of red drops flying _everywhere_. Cool.
But it doesn't help against a rabbit gene pool that is slowly
deteriorating because there is nothing to keep them from breeding, and no
darwin to make sure that it's the fastest and strongest that breeds.
You mentioned how NT has the nicest debugger out there.
Contemplate it."

        - Linus Torvalds
"I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think
otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that
I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings
or lost hours of work if it just results in what I consider to be a better
system."

         - Linus Torvalds
"In theory, practice and theory are the same, but in practice they are
different."

        - Larry McVoy
"And I have to say that I absolutely despise the BSD people.  They did
sendfile() after both Linux and HP-UX had done it, and they must have
known about both implementations.  And they chose the HP-UX braindamage,
and even brag about the fact that they were stupid and didn't understand
TCP_CORK (they don't say so in those exact words, of course - they just
show that they were stupid and clueless by the things they brag about)."

        - Linus Torvalds
"I hold open source people to higher standards. They are supposed to be
the people who do programming because it's an art-form, not because it's
their job."

         - Linus Torvalds
"Maybe a good analogy is that drivers are to hardware companies like
excrements are to living creatures: in order to stay alive, they have
to produce them, but you don't put much love into their production,
and their internals (like their development) may be a little
disgusting."

        - Werner Almesberger
David Brownell wrote:
> AMD told me I'd need an NDA to learn their workaround, and I've not
> pursued it. (Does anyone already know what kind of NDA they use?)

It varies depending on the info. They may well be able to sort out a sane
NDA with you. If they dont want to then I guess it would be best if the
ohci driver printing a message explaining the component has an undocumented
errata fix, gave AMD's phone number and refused to load..

        - Alan Cox
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
Steve Underwood wrote:
> Dave Miller wrote:
> > alterity wrote:
> > > Haven't seen a post for sometime from the usually prolific Mr Cox.
> > > What's the gossip?
> >
> > They needed some help from him to position Mir for it's
> > final descent.
>
> Strange. I thought his key skill was stopping things from crashing!

This crash was inevitable, he's just making sure the disks get
sync'd.

        - Dave Miller on linux-kernel
Oh, I believe they do..........but, I haven't been wrong lately,
so maybe it's my turn again :-).

        - Dan Malek on linuxppc-embedded
Were they afraid that "e" being the most widely used letter in
the English language was going to war out thir xpnsiv kyboards if
thy usd it all th tim?

        - Mike A. Harris on linux-kernel
Basically, ioctl's will _never_ be done right, because of the way people
think about them. They are a back door. They are by design typeless and
without rules. They are, in fact, the Microsoft of UNIX.

        - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel
Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Ehh.. Telling people "don't do that" simply doesn't work. Not if they can
> do it easily anyway. Things really don't get fixed unless people have a
> certain pain-level to induce it to get fixed.

Umm... How about the following:  you hit delete on patches that introduce
new ioctls, I help to provide required level of pain.  Deal?

        - Al Viro on linux-kernel
> Not that the kernel list is the best place to bring this up, but NVIDIA
> would NOT be on that list.  They are by far one of the best companies out
> there providing support for their cards.  I bought my GF2 for exactly that
> reason too....

Sure. I spent much happy time telling people to report bugs to nvidia because
their closed drivers mean that only nvidia can debug all the crashes people
see with them loaded - at least some of which dont occur without the modules

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
But in my experience you have a better chance of getting a straight answer out
of a politician than intels networking folks. Maybe they have reformed

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
<erikm> cleartape: kernels don't do magic, they just implement mechanisms

        - Erik Mouw on #kernelnewbies
Drivers are a more complex issue. I'm not opposed to binary only drivers,
providing its easy to tell they are there and dump all bug reports about them.
Freedom generally includes the right to give up freedom. I'll tell people its
a bad idea but once they get caught, well it was their right to do so...

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules,
it's THEIR problem.  I want people to know that in their bones, and I
want it shouted out from the rooftops.  I want people to wake up in a
cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules.

        - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel
<mikkei> There once was a guy called Riel,
<mikkei> Who thought Tux should have been an Eel,
<mikkei> Although he was a fine programmer,
<mikkei> He called the little penguin,
<mikkei> A veritably ugly hack,
<mikkei> But they all laughed and said "He's on crack!"
<mikkei>  
<mikkei> There once was a guy called Riel,
<mikkei> At whose feet the newbies would kneel,
<mikkei> Each and every day, one newbie would say:
<mikkei> "Make my patch the Patch of the Month."
<mikkei> But Riel, saying no with a negative, "hummpfh"
<mikkei> Would say "fsck off" to the newbies's dismay.

        - Anonymous on #kernelnewbies
James Simmons wrote:
> Crap can work. Given enough thrust pigs will fly, but it's not necessary a
> good idea.                                 [ Alexander Viro on linux-kernel ]

Watch the attributions.

With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.
However, this is not necessarily a good idea.
It is hard to be sure where they are going to land,
and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
        From RFC1925, R Callon, 1996.

        - Al Viro on linux-kernel
Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Or are they just trying to strongarm the move to the horrid ACPI tables?

They are certainly involved in the latter but whether this is related  or
a seperate evil empire scheme is open to question

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
<JALH> regex are more than some crappy posix thing
<JALH> they are an art form

        - Marc Zealey on #kernelnewbies
I believe the Committee for the Preservation of Welsh Poetry are pretty
settled on the -ac tree. Aren't they doing an audio CD of Alan reciting
the TCP/IP stack sources?

        - Rich Hohensee on linux-kernel
> Sorry, at this point we are not allowed to publish the source code of the
> lcs and qeth drivers (due to the use of confidential hardware interface
> specifications).  We make those modules available only in binary form
> on our developerWorks web site.
>
Gosh. I didn't know you guys were so advanced that you didn't use
an electronic hardware interface! Your 'hardware interface specifications'
use magnetohydrodynamics, and they are top-secret, right?

        - Richard B. Johnson on linux-kernel
(But Intel has redefined the memory ordering so many times that they might
redefine it in the future too and say that dependent loads are ok. I
suspect most of the definitions are of the type "Oh, it used to be ok in
the implementation even though it wasn't defined, and it turns out that
Windows doesn't work if we change it, so we'll define darkness to be the
new standard"..)

        - Linus Torvalds
>    In short, now you need filesystem versioning at a per-page level etc.

*ding* *ding* *ding* we have a near winner.  Remember, folks, Hurd had been
started by people who not only don't understand UNIX, but detest it.
ITS/TWENEX refugees.  And semantics in question comes from there -
they had "open and make sure that anyone who tries to modify will get
a new version, leaving one we'd opened unchanged".

        - Al Viro on linux-kernel
Carrots work on rabbits, they don't work on hungry weasels.

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
Dave I can produce equivalently valid microbenchmarks showing Linux works
much better with the scheduler disabled. They are worth about as much as
your benchmarks for that optimisation and they likewise ignore a slightly
important object known as "the big picture"

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
Interface definitions tend to be treated a little differently to "code". But
as I keep trying to beat into people - if you are going to mix GPL and non
GPL code see a lawyer - thats what they are there for

        - Alan Cox on linux-kernel
indent does _not_ solve the problem of:
        * buggers who use typedefs like WORD, DWORD, BYTE, IMANIDIOTSHOOTME
        and other crap from the same source (OK, they don't write the last one
        explicitly - not that it wasn't obvious from the rest of their,
        ahem, code).

        - Alexander Viro on coding style
Heaven and Earth are impartial;
They see the ten thousand things as straw dogs.
The wise are impartial;
They see the people as straw dogs.
The space between heaven and Earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold fast to the center.
Heaven and Earth last forever.
Why do heaven and Earth last forever?
They are unborn,
So ever living.
The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.
He is detached, thus at one with all.
Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.
Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.

From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.

Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.

Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.
The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.
The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.
Because it is unfathomable,
All we can do is describe their appearance.
Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.
Alert, like men aware of danger.
Courteous, like visiting guests.
Yielding like ice about to melt.
Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood.
Hollow, like caves.
Opaque, like muddy pools.

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?
Who can remain still until the moment of action?
Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.
Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.
Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,
And it will be a hundred times better for everyone.

Give up kindness, renounce morality,
And men will rediscover filial piety and love.

Give up ingenuity, renounce profit,
And bandits and thieves will disappear.

These three are outward forms alone; they are not sufficient in themselves.
It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one's true nature,
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire.
Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil?
Must I fear what others fear?  What nonsense!
Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.
In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace,
But I alone am drifting, not knowing where I am.
Like a newborn babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.
Others have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool.  Oh, yes!  I am confused.
Others are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Others are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind.
Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.
Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.

Therefore the wise embrace the one
And set an example to all.
Not putting on a display,
They shine forth.
Not justifying themselves,
They are distinguished.
Not boasting,
They receive recognition.
Not bragging,
They never falter.
They do not quarrel,
So no one quarrels with them.
Therefore the ancients say, "Yield and overcome."
Is that an empty saying?
Be really whole,
And all things will come to you.
He who stands on tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show is not enlightened.
He who is self-righteous is not respected.
He who boasts achieves nothing.
He who brags will not endure.
According to followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage."
They do not bring happiness.
therefore followers of the Tao avoid them.
Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.

The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.

So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind;
Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily;
Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness;
Sometimes one is up and sometimes down.

Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency.
Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.

Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.

On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander-in-chief on the right.
This means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.
Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
If kings and lords observed this,
The ten thousand things would develop naturally.
If they still desired to act,
They would return to the simplicity of formless substance.
Without for there is no desire.
Without desire there is.
And in this way all things would be at peace.
These things from ancient times arise from one:
The sky is whole and clear.
The earth is whole and firm.
The spirit is whole and strong.
The valley is whole and full.
The ten thousand things are whole and alive.
Kings and lords are whole, and the country is upright.
All these are in virtue of wholeness.

The clarity of the sky prevents its falling.
The firmness of the earth prevents its splitting.
The strength of the spirit prevents its being used up.
The fullness of the valley prevents its running dry.
The growth of the ten thousand things prevents their drying out.
The leadership of kings and lords prevents the downfall of the country.

Therefore the humble is the root of the noble.
The low is the foundation of the high.
Princes and lords consider themselves "orphaned", "widowed" and "worthless".
Do they not depend on being humble?

Too much success is not an advantage.
Do not tinkle like jade
Or clatter like stone chimes.
The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.

The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.

Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless,"
But this is how kings and lords describe themselves.

For one gains by losing
And loses by gaining.

What others teach, I also teach; that is:
"A violent man will die a violent death!"
This will be the essence of my teaching.
Between birth and death,
Three in ten are followers of life,
Three in ten are followers of death,
And men just passing from birth to death also number three in ten.
Why is this so?
Because they live their lives on the gross level.

He who knows how to live can walk abroad
Without fear of rhinoceros or tiger.
He will not be wounded in battle.
For in him rhinoceroses can find no place to thrust their horn,
Tigers no place to use their claws,
And weapons no place to pierce.
Why is this so?
Because he has no place for death to enter.
All things arise from Tao.
They are nourished by Virtue.
They are formed from matter.
They are shaped by environment.
Thus the ten thousand things all respect Tao and honor Virtue.
Respect of Tao and honor of Virtue are not demanded,
But they are in the nature of things.

Therefore all things arise from Tao.
By Virtue they are nourished,
Developed, cared for,
Sheltered, comforted,
Grown, and protected.
Creating without claiming,
Doing without taking credit,
Guiding without interfering,
This is Primal Virtue.
If I have even just a little sense,
I will walk on the main road and my only fear
  will be of straying from it.
Keeping to the main road is easy,
But people love to be sidetracked.

When the court is arrayed in splendor,
The fields are full of weeds,
And the granaries are bare.
Some wear gorgeous clothes,
Carry sharp swords,
And indulge themselves with food and drink;
They have more possessions than they can use.
They are robber barons.
This is certainly not the way of Tao.
Ruling the country is like cooking a small fish.
Approach the universe with Tao,
And evil is not powerful,
But its power will not be used to harm others.
Not only will it do no harm to others,
But the sage himself will also be protected.
They do not hurt each other,
And the Virtue in each one refreshes both.
A great country is like low land.
It is the meeting ground of the universe,
The mother of the universe.

The female overcomes the male with stillness,
Lying low in stillness.

Therefore if a great country gives way to a smaller country,
It will conquer the smaller country.
And if a small country submits to a great country,
It can conquer the great country.
Therefore those who would conquer must yield,
And those who conquer do so because they yield.

A great nation needs more people;
A small country needs to serve.
Each gets what it wants.
It is fitting for a great nation to yield.
Practice non-action.
Work without doing.
Taste the tasteless.
Magnify the small, increase the few.
Reward bitterness with care.

See simplicity in the complicated.
Achieve greatness in little things.

In the universe the difficult things are done as if they are easy.
In the universe great acts are made up of small deeds.
The sage does not attempt anything very big,
And thus achieved greatness.

Easy promises make for little trust.
Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.
Because the sage always confronts difficulties,
He never experiences them.
Peace is easily maintained;
Trouble is easily overcome before it starts.
The brittle is easily shattered;
The small is easily scattered.

Deal with it before it happens.
Set things in order before there is confusion.

A tree as great as a man's embrace springs up from a small shoot;
A terrace nine stories high begins with a pile of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet.

He who acts defeats his own purpose;
He who grasps loses.
The sage does not act, and so is not defeated.
He does not grasp and therefore does not lose.

People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
So give as much care to the end as to the beginning;
Then there will be no failure.

Therefore the sage seeks freedom from desire.
He does not collect precious things.
He learns not to hold on to ideas.
He brings men back to what they have lost.
He help the ten thousand things find their own nature,
But refrains from action.
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams?
Because it lies below them.
Therefore it is the king of a hundred streams.

If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility.
If he would lead them, he must follow behind.
In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed;
When he stands before them, they will not be harmed.
The whole world will support him and will not tire of him.

Because he does not compete,
He does not meet competition.
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.
My words are easy to understand and easy to perform,
Yet no man under heaven knows them or practices them.

My words have ancient beginnings.
My actions are disciplined.
Because men do not understand, they have no knowledge of me.

Those that know me are few;
Those that abuse me are honored.
Therefore the sage wears rough clothing and holds the jewel in his heart.
When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster.

Do not intrude in their homes.
Do not harass them at work.
If you do not interfere, they will not weary of you.

Therefore the sage knows himself but makes no show,
Has self-respect but is not arrogant.
He lets go of that and chooses this.
Why are the people starving?
Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.
Therefore the people are starving.

Why are the people rebellious?
Because the rulers interfere too much.
Therefore they are rebellious.

Why do the people think so little of death?
Because the rulers demand too much of life.
Therefore the people take death lightly.

Having little to live on, one knows better than to value life too much.
A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.
A small country has fewer people.
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster than man, they are not needed.
The people take death seriously and do not travel far.
Though they have boats and carriages, no one uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them.
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing.
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple, their homes secure;
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.
        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".
Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was, that they escaped
teething.
                -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower.  "This," cried the Mayor,
"is your town's darkest hour!  The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
to come to the aid of their country!" he said.  "We've GOT to make noises in
greater amounts!  So, open your mouth, lad!  For every voice counts!"  Thus he
spoke as he climbed.  When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and
he shouted out, "YOPP!"
        And that Yopp...  That one last small, extra Yopp put it over!
Finally, at last!  From the speck on that clover their voices were heard!
They rang out clear and clean.  And they elephant smiled.  "Do you see what
I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small.  And their
whole world was saved by the smallest of All!"
        "How true!  Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo.  "And, from now
on, you know what I'm planning to do?  From now on, I'm going to protect
them with you!"  And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO!  From
the sun in the summer.  From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect
them.  No matter how small-ish!"
                -- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
Article the Third:
        Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should
        enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change.  Public announcements and
        guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary.
Article the Fourth:
        The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee"
        and not the "feeder".  Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's
        face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war.
Article the Fifth:
        Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church,
        a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the
        lights are out.  They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have
        to last a lifetime and must be conserved.
                -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights"
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
                -- Henrik Tikkanen
Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,
since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.
                -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
Children are like cats, they can tell when you don't like them.  That's
when they come over and violate your body space.
Children are unpredictable.  You never know what inconsistency they're
going to catch you in next.
                -- Franklin P. Jones
Children begin by loving their parents.  After a time they judge them.
Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
                -- Oscar Wilde
Children seldom misquote you.  In fact, they usually repeat word for
word what you shouldn't have said.
                        -- Gifts for Children --

This is easy.  You never have to figure out what to get for children,
because they will tell you exactly what they want.  They spend months and
months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning
cartoon-show advertisements.  Make sure you get your children exactly what
they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices.  If your child thinks
he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd
better get it.  You may be worried that it might help to encourage your
child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial
tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not
get the right gift.
                -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
I BET WHEN NEANDERTHAL KIDS would make a snowman, someone would always
end up saying, "Don't forget the thick heavy brows."  Then they would get
embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows too, and
they'd get mad and eat the snowman.
                -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
I called my parents the other night, but I forgot about the time difference.
They're still living in the fifties.
                -- Strange de Jim
I hate babies.  They're so human.
                -- H.H. Munro
I love children.  Especially when they cry -- for then someone takes them away.
                -- Nancy Mitford
If parents would only realize how they bore their children.
                -- G.B. Shaw
If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.
                -- Nora Ephron, "Heartburn"
It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children.
                -- Kingsley Amis
Kids have *_____never* taken guidance from their parents.  If you could
travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the
original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate
teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for
grubs and berries like dad primate.  Then you'd see the primate
teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves.
                -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
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
Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be
tolerated until they acquire some sense.
                -- William Phelps
        On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick
tomatoes.  Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August
they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks.  So I picked up one and threw
it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato
at my brother.  He whipped one back at me.  We ducked down by the vines,
heaving tomatoes at each other.  My sister, who was a good person, said,
"You're going to get it."  She bent over and kept on picking.
        What a target!  She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over,
she looked like the side of a barn.
        I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground.  It looked like it
had sat there a week.  The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it,
and it was very juicy.  I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup,
when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice.  I had
to decide quickly.  I decided.
        A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat
man doing a belly-flop.  With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after
faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain
me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice.  And my sister, who was a
good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears.  I guess she knew that
the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing
a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end.
                -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
One of the disadvantages of having children is that they eventually get old
enough to give you presents they make at school.
                -- Robert Byrne
Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have
much of anything to do with it.
Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they grow up,
they won't be able to edge a car onto a freeway.
The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got
to be good.
                -- John Barrymore
Troubles are like babies; they only grow by nursing.
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of
us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were,
long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that
impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get
enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till
at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look
peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars
and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in
life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp
before they were five years old.
                -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels"
What's done to children, they will do to society.
Why do they call it baby-SITTING when all you do is run after them?
A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase.
He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought
to have a name.  This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name
should be masculine or feminine.
        After considerable thought, he settled on an naming the car either
Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice.
        "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends.  Most of
them looked at him pecularly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and
went on their way rather quickly.
        He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black
belt in judo.  She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine."
        The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he
asked.
        "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were
masculine."
        "Unhhh...  Well, why not?"
        "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want
it to.  And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say...  `Each Nissan, she
go!'"

        [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental
        martial art.  (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.)  Ed.]
"my biggest problem with RH (and especially RH contrib packages) is that
they DON'T have anything like our policy.  That's one of the main reasons
why their packages are so crappy and broken.  Debian has the teamwork
side of building a distribution down to a fine art."
"slackware users don't matter. in my experience, slackware users are
either clueless newbies who will have trouble even with tar, or they are
rabid do-it-yourselfers who wouldn't install someone else's pre-compiled
binary even if they were paid to do it."
<xinkeT> "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
         change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom
         to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they
         pissed me off."
I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running
Linux. And oh! It was as though the heavens opened and God handed down a
client-side OS so beautiful, so graceful, and so elegant that a million
Microsoft developers couldn't have invented it even if they had a hundred
years and a thousand crates of Jolt cola.
        -- LAN Times
I sat laughing snidely into my notebook until they showed me a PC running
Linux....  And did this PC choke?  Did it stutter?  Did it, even once,
say that this program has performed an illegal operation and must be shut
down?  No. And this is just on the client.
        -- LAN Times
"I think that most debian developers are rather "strong willed" people
with a great degree of understanding and a high level of passion for what
they perceive as important in development of the debian system."
        --Bill Leach
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Internet users who spend even a few hours a week online
at home experience higher levels of depression and loneliness than if
they had used the computer network less frequently, The New York Times
reported Sunday.  The result ...  surprised both researchers and
sponsors, which included Intel Corp., Hewlett Packard, AT&T Research and
Apple Computer.
<muggles> i'm trying to convince some netcom admins i know to convert
          to Debian from RH, netgod, but they are DAMN stubborn
<muggles> why RH users so damned hard headed?
<Espy> it's the hat
"What does this tell me?  That if Microsoft were the last software
company left in the world, 13% of the US population would be scouring
garage sales & Goodwill for old TRS-80s, CPM machines & Apple ]['s before
they would buy Microsoft. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement."
        -- Seen on Slashdot
<Reed> It is important to note that the primary reason the Roman Empire
       fail is that they had no concept of zero... thus they could not
       test the success or failure of their C programs.
Every company complaining about Microsoft's business practices is simply a
rose bush. They look lovely and smell nice. Once a lucky company dethrones
Microsoft they will shed their petals to expose the thorns underneath. A
thorn by any other name would hurt as much.
"They are both businesses - if you have given them enough money, I'm
sure they'll do whatever the hell you ask:->"
        -- David Welton
* Turken thinks little kids are absolutely adorable... especialyy when
  they're someone elses.
Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules,
it's THEIR problem.  I want people to know that in their bones, and I
want it shouted out from the rooftops.  I want people to wake up in a
cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules.
        -- Linus Torvalds
2.3.1 has been released. Folks new to this game should remember that
2.3.* releases are development kernels, with no guarantees that they
will not cause your system to do horrible things like corrupt its
disks, catch fire, or start running Mindcraft benchmarks.
        -- Slashdot
Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments'
-- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
Since this database is not used for profit, and since entire works are not
published, it falls under fair use, as we understand it.  However, if any
half-assed idiot decides to make a profit off of this, they will need to
double check it all...
        -- Notes included with the default fortunes database
* HomeySan waits for the papa john's pizza to show up
<ravenos> mm. papa john's.
<HomeySan> hopefully they send the cute delivery driver
<ravenos> they dont have that here.
<Dr_Stein> why? you gonna eat the driver instead?
<netgod> is it me, or is Knghtbrd snoring?
<joeyh> they killed knghtbrd!
<netgod> Kysh: wichert, gecko, joeyh, and I are in a room trying to ignore
          Knghtbrd
<Kysh> netgod: Knghtbrd is hard to ignore.
In fact.. based on this model of what the NSA is and isn't... many of the
people reading this are members of the NSA... /. is afterall 'News for
Nerds'.

NSA MONDAY MORNING {at the coffee machine):
NSA AGENT 1: Hey guys, did you check out slashdot over the weekend?
    AGENT 2: No, I was installing Mandrake 6.1 and I coulnd't get the darn
             ppp connection up..
    AGENT 1: Well check it out... they're on to us.
        -- Chris Moyer <cdmoyer@starmail.com>
"Pacific Bell Customer Service, this is [..], how can I provide you with
excellent customer service today?"
"HAHAHAHAHA!!  That's good, I like it.."
"Um, thanks, they make us say that."
        -- knghtbrd and a pacbell rep, name removed to protect her job
<danpat> Omnic: bloody newzealanders
<Omnic> danpat: put a sock in it
<danpat> heh :)
<knghtbrd> making fun of .nz'ers is different---they're all weird
* knghtbrd hides
<Omnic> hrmph
It's as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you.
<Knghtbrd> the problem with the GNU coding standards is they ASSUME that
           everyone in the world uses emacs..  If that were the case, free
           software would die because we would all have wrist problems
           like RMS by now and no longer be able to code.  ;>
* woot is now known as woot-dinner
* Knghtbrd sprinkles a little salt on woot
<Knghtbrd> I've never had a woot before...  Hope they taste good
<woot-dinner> noooo!
<woot-dinner> don't eat me!
* Knghtbrd decides he does not want a dinner that talks to him...  hehe
Microsoft is a cross between the Borg and the Ferengi.  Unfortunately,
they use Borg to do their marketing and Ferengi to do their
programming.
        -- Simon Slavin
<Deek> you GPL your homework? :)
<knghtbrd> yah  =D
<knghtbrd> Anyone is permitted to use or modify my homework, but if they
           distribute changes they must include the full machine-readable
           source code ;>
* knghtbrd is each day more convinced that most C++ coders don't know what
           the hell they're doing, which is why C++ has such a bad rap
<Culus> kb: Most C coders don't know what they are doing, it just makes it
        easier to hide :P
<Culus> see for instance, proftpd :P
<WildTHing> ok guys .. so whens the next commit :PP
<taniwha> when they come to get me
<Deek> Exactly how much of a PITA is this in C?
<Knghtbrd> It's written in C++.
<Deek> Hence my question.
<Knghtbrd> I could do something like it in C.  Anyone who saw the results
           would think I was either a genius or out of my fucking mind.
           They'd be right on either count.
<Mercury> LordHavoc: The reason why GL has overdraw is because it is only
          using HALF of the system they designed for vis.
<Mercury> LordHavoc: Shooting itself in the foot.
* Dabb looks at all those bullet holes in his shoes - damn, lots :)
<mao> why do they insist on ading -Werror...
<Misty-chan> Mesa would not compile out of the box if it were done by you
             guys ;)
<knghtbrd> Uh, Mesa DOESN'T compile out of the box most of the time.
Unix is mature OS, windows is still in diapers and they smell badly.
        -- Rafael Skodlar <raffi@linwin.com>
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.  They really
do it.  It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are
human and change is sometimes painful.  But it happens every day.  I cannot
recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
        -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address
<knghtbrd> Nintendo Declares GCN Most Popular Console Ever
<knghtbrd> Who are they kidding?
<Mercury> knghtbrd: Stock holders?
<LordHavoc> the majority of windoze artists do not have the ability to
            save xpm
<Mercury> LordHavoc: They don't have notepad? *G,D&R*
A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing
into trees.  At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same
forest, with identical results.  They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing.
        "Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally,"
apologized the rabbit.
        "That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same
problem!"
        "All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do
you think you could help me find out?"
        "I'll try," said the snake.  He gently coiled himself around the
rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail
and long ears.  You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!"
        "Great!" said the rabbit.  "Thanks, I really owe you one!"
        "Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either.  Do you
suppose you could try and tell me?"
        The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake.  "Well, you're low, cold
and slimey..."  And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have
no balls.  You must be an attorney!"
[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are
two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity:

(1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and
    confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold
    a press conference where you announce that they have a street value
    of $850 million.  These raids never fail, because ALL high schools,
    including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana
    cigarettes in the lockers.  As far as anyone can tell, the locker
    factory puts them there.
(2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you
    announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a
    piece of human sleaze.  This also never fails, because you always
    get a conviction.  A juror at a pornography trial is not about to
    state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie
    where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a
    fire extinguisher.  He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and
    vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong
    impression.
                -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape
injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any
damage inflicted on the vehicle.
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 nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful
Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan.  During an
impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and
clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following
exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.

DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are
         having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?
DINGELL: They may or may not be natural.  The simple fact of the matter
         is that female oysters through their living habits cast out
         large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large
         amounts of fertilization ...
HOFFMAN: Wait a minute!  I do not want to go into that.  There are many
         teenagers who read The Congressional Record.
I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the
country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which
I happen to have in my top desk drawer.  Some of the Tips for Better Driving
are worth considering, to wit:

[173.15b]:
        "When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember
        that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way."

[141.2a]:
       "Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6'
        parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into
        a 5' parking space."

[105.31]:
       "Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly.
        Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong."
If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers.
                -- Tom Wicker
        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
        It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air
balloon to cross the United States.  After forty hours in the air, George
turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course!  We
need to find out where we are."
        Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the
cloud cover.  Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man
standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me!  Can you please tell me
where we are?"
        The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately
fifty feet in the air!"
        George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer".
        Replies Harry, "How can you tell?".
        "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally
useless!"

That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about
George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the
New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer".
Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap pistols;
they may buy shotguns freely, however.
                        Pittsburgh Driver's Test

(8) Pedestrians are

        (a) irrelevant.
        (b) communists.
        (c) a nuisance.
        (d) difficult to clean off the front grille.

The correct answer is (a).  Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are
totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.
Sho' they got to have it against the law.  Shoot, ever'body git high,
they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens.  Hee-hee.
                -- Terry Southern
Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think
about sex at all... they become lawyers.
                -- Woody Allen
Some of the most interesting documents from Sweden's middle ages are the
old county laws (well, we never had counties but it's the nearest equivalent
I can find for "landskap").  These laws were written down sometime in the
13th century, but date back even down into Viking times.  The oldest one is
the Vastgota law which clearly has pagan influences, thinly covered with some
Christian stuff.  In this law, we find a page about "lekare", which is the
Old Norse word for a performing artist, actor/jester/musician etc.  Here is
an approximate translation, where I have written "artist" as equivalent of
"lekare".
        "If an artist is beaten, none shall pay fines for it.  If an artist
        is wounded, one such who goes with hurdie-gurdie or travels with
        fiddle or drum, then the people shall take a wild heifer and bring
        it out on the hillside.  Then they shall shave off all hair from the
        heifer's tail, and grease the tail.  Then the artist shall be given
        newly greased shoes.  Then he shall take hold of the heifer's tail,
        and a man shall strike it with a sharp whip.  If he can hold her, he
        shall have the animal.  If he cannot hold her, he shall endure what
        he received, shame and wounds."
The animals are not as stupid as one thinks -- they have neither
doctors nor lawyers.
                -- L. Docquier
This product is meant for educational purposes only.  Any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.  Void where prohibited.  Some
assembly may be required.  Batteries not included.  Contents may settle during
shipment.  Use only as directed.  May be too intense for some viewers.  If
condition persists, consult your physician.  No user-serviceable parts inside.
Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement.  Not responsible for direct,
indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error
or failure to perform.  Slippery when wet.  For office use only.  Substantial
penalty for early withdrawal.  Do not write below this line.  Your cancelled
check is your receipt.  Avoid contact with skin.  Employees and their families
are not eligible.  Beware of dog.  Driver does not carry cash.  Limited time
offer, call now to insure prompt delivery.  Use only in well-ventilated area.
Keep away from fire or flame.  Some equipment shown is optional.  Price does
not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery.  Penalty for private use.  Call
toll free before digging.  Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product
appear for identification purposes only.  All models over 18 years of age.  Do
not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment.  Postage will be
paid by addressee.  Apply only to affected area.  One size fits all.  Many
suitcases look alike.  Edited for television.  No solicitors.  Reproduction
strictly prohibited.  Restaurant package, not for resale.  Objects in mirror
are closer than they appear.  Decision of judges is final.  This supersedes
all previous notices.  No other warranty expressed or implied.
We may not like doctors, but at least they doctor.  Bankers are not ever
popular but at least they bank.  Policeman police and undertakers take
under.  But lawyers do not give us law.  We receive not the gladsome light
of jurisprudence, but rather precedents, objections, appeals, stays,
filings and forms, motions and counter-motions, all at $250 an hour.
                -- Nolo News, summer 1989
We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they
remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that
the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than
the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule,
states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals.
These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser than the laws, who
want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they feel that
they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater importance, and
who, as a result, very often bring ruin on their country.
                -- Cleon, Thucydides, III, 37 translation by Rex Warner
With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time
they make a law it's a joke.
                -- Will Rogers
A sad spectacle.  If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly.
If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.
                -- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars
All men know the utility of useful things;
but they do not know the utility of futility.
                -- Chuang-tzu
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this
big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around --
nobody big, I mean -- except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy
cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go
over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're
going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I'd do
all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye.  I know it;  I know it's crazy,
but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.  I know it's crazy.
                -- J.D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye"
        Approaching the gates of the monastery, Hakuin found Ken the Zen
preaching to a group of disciples.
        "Words..." Ken orated, "they are but an illusory veil obfuscating
the absolute reality of --"
        "Ken!" Hakuin interrupted. "Your fly is down!"
        Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon Ken, and he
vaporized.
        On the way to town, Hakuin was greeted by an itinerant monk imbued
with the spirit of the morning.
        "Ah," the monk sighed, a beatific smile wrinkling across his cheeks,
"Thou art That..."
        "Ah," Hakuin replied, pointing excitedly, "And Thou art Fat!"
        Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the monk,
and he vaporized.
        Next, the Governor sought the advice of Hakuin, crying: "As our
enemies bear down upon us, how shall I, with such heartless and callow
soldiers as I am heir to, hope to withstand the impending onslaught?"
        "US?" snapped Hakuin.
        Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the
Governor, and he vaporized.
        Then, a redneck went up to Hakuin and vaporized the old Master with
his shotgun.  "Ha! Beat ya' to the punchline, ya' scrawny li'l geek!"
... "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"
****  GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE

For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of
being genuine all the time?  Would you like to learn how to be a little
phony again?  Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid
people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to
feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms
beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a
feeling?  Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all?  Come to us.  We
promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential.
I do not seek the ignorant; the ignorant seek me -- I will instruct them.
I ask nothing but sincerity.  If they come out of habit, they become tiresome.
                -- I Ching
Living in the complex world of the future is somewhat like having bees
live in your head.  But, there they are.
        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 returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the villagers
gathered around to hear what had passed.  "At this time," said Nasrudin, "I
only want to say that the King spoke to me."  All the villagers but the
stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news.  The remaining villager
asked, "What did the King say to you?"  "What he said -- and quite distinctly,
for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed;
he had heard words actually spoken by the King, and seen the very man they
were spoken to.
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
        Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great
crystal river.  Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs
and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and
resisting the current what each had learned from birth.  But one creature
said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going.  I shall
let go, and let it take me where it will.  Clinging, I shall die of boredom."
        The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool!  Let go, and that current
you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will
die quicker than boredom!"
        But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at
once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.  Yet, in time,
as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the
bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
        And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See
a miracle!  A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!  See the Messiah, come
to save us all!"  And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more
Messiah than you.  The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go.
Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.
        But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the
rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
                -- Richard Bach
Take your dying with some seriousness, however.  Laughing on the way to
your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,
and they'll call you crazy.
                -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing,
the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its
own capacity. ...  Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god
of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god
of the center.  Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together
what they could do to repay his kindness.  They had noticed that, whereas
everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and
so on, Chaos had none.  So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes
in him.  Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
                -- Chuang Tzu
We have only two things to worry about:  That things will never get
back to normal, and that they already have.
Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality
Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_.  Instead, Great Britain
and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_.
They drive on the wrong side of the road, too.
        -- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book)
Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to
be the HP-48 series of calculators.  They'll run almost anything.  And if they
can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the
HP-48 VT-100 emulator.
        -- Jeff Dege, jdege@winternet.com
And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports
on it, you know they are just evil lies.
        -- Linus Torvalds
Sigh.  I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on
the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice.
        -- Craig E. Groeschel
Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the
grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin
charging at them in excess of 100mph.  They'd be a lot more careful about what
they say if they had.
        -- Linus Torvalds, announcing Linux v2.0
> If you don't need X then little VT-100 terminals are available for real
> cheap.  Should be able to find decent ones used for around $40 each.
> For that price, they're a must for the kitchen, den, bathrooms, etc.. :)
You're right. Can you explain this to my wife?
        -- Seen on c.o.l.development.system, on the subject of extra terminals
> I get the following error messages at bootup, could anyone tell me
> what they mean?
> fcntl_setlk() called by process 51 (lpd) with broken flock() emulation
They mean that you have not read the documentation when upgrading the
kernel.
        -- seen on c.o.l.misc
The game, anoraks.2.0.0.tgz, will be available from sunsite until somebody
responsible notices it and deletes it, and shortly from
ftp.mee.tcd.ie/pub/Brian, though they don't know that yet.
        -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie
By the way, I can hardly feel sorry for you... All last night I had to listen
to her tears, so great they were redirected to a stream.  What?  Of _course_
you didn't know.  You and your little group no longer have any permissions
around here.  She changed her .lock files, too.
        -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the private life of a Linux nerd
Well, since MS cant be sure of the username of someone downloading
things, they are going to play it safe and have everything dowloaded
and executed by Explorer as suid root. That way, it will run on ANY
system anywhere. :)
        -- George Bonser <grep@cris.com>
Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers.
        -- Pablo Picasso
* Jes wonders why so many people in here uses fooZZZZZ and foo_sleeping nicks
<peter> Jes: Because they are sleeping?
        -- Seen on #Linux
>   1. is qmail as secure as they say?

Depends on what they were saying, but most likely yes.
        -- Seen on debian-devel
Computers are not intelligent.  They only think they are.
Real Men don't make backups.  They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it.
        -- Linus Torvalds
When you have 200 programmers trying to write code for one
product, like Win95 or NT, what you get is a multipule personality
program.  By definition, the real problem is that these programs are
psychotic by nature and make people crazy when they use them.
        -- Joan Brewer on alt.destroy.microsoft
I've seen people with new children before, they go from ultra happy to
looking like something out of a zombie film in about a week.
        -- Alan Cox about Linus after his 2nd daughter
Despite the best efforts of a quantum bigfoot drive (yes I know everyone
told me they suck, now I know they were right) 2.1.109ac1 is now available
        -- Alan Cox announcing Linux 2.1.109ac1
Perhaps the RBLing (Realtime Black Hole) of msn.com recently, which
prevented a large amount of mail going out for about 4 days, has had a
positive influence in Redmond.  They did agree to work on their anti-relay
capabilities at their POPs to get the RBL lifted.
        -- Bill Campbell on Smail3-users
<rm_-rf_> The real value of KDE is that they inspired and push the
          development of GNOME :-)
        -- #Debian
* LG loves czech girls.
<vincent> LG: do they have additional interesting "features" other girls don't have? ;)
        -- #Debian
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
(6)        Men employees will be given time off each week for courting
        purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church.
(7)        After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the
        office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible
        and other good books.
(8)        Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly
        sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years,
        so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters.
(9)        Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink
        in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets
        shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect
        his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
(10)        The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and
        without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of
        five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the
        business permit it.
                -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and
ask for it back the when it begins to rain.
                -- Robert Frost
A feed salesman is on his way to a farm.  As he's driving along at forty
m.p.h., he looks out his car window and sees a three-legged chicken running
alongside him, keeping pace with his car.  He is amazed that a chicken is
running at forty m.p.h.  So he speeds up to forty-five, fifty, then sixty
m.p.h.  The chicken keeps right up with him the whole way, then suddenly
takes off and disappears into the distance.
        The man pulls into the farmyard and says to the farmer, "You know,
the strangest thing just happened to me; I was driving along at at least
sixty miles an hour and a chicken passed me like I was standing still!"
        "Yeah," the farmer replies, "that chicken was ours.  You see, there's
me, and there's Ma, and there's our son Billy.  Whenever we had chicken for
dinner, we would all want a drumstick, so we'd have to kill two chickens.
So we decided to try and breed a three-legged chicken so each of us could
have a drumstick."
        "How do they taste?" said the farmer.
        "Don't know," replied the farmer.  "We haven't been able to catch
one yet."
A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary.
Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now
has no excuse for further procrastination.
A rock store eventually closed down; they were taking too much for granite.
... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you
were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and
a fly-by-night.  These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle
Bigger Propositions.  But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical
and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot
that he didn't force you down on the asking price.
                -- Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt"
According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something
everyone should do at least 6 times a day.  In an effort to increase the
national average  (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in
smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and
most importantly, to smile.  Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly
that they can not only meet but surpass the national average...  except for
Tubby Ackerman.  But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around
parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox
decided to give him a break.  If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have
a sheepish grin.  This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly
sheepish grin" comes from.
All this big deal about white collar crime -- what's WRONG with white collar
crime?  Who enjoys his job today?  You?  Me?  Anybody?  The only satisfying
part of any job is coffee break, lunch hour and quitting time.  Years ago
there was at least the hope of improvement -- eventual promotion -- more
important jobs to come.  Once you can be sold the myth that you may make
president of the company you'll hardly ever steal stamps.  But nobody
believes he's going to be president anymore.  The more people change jobs
the more they realize that there is a direct connection between working for
a living and total stupefying boredom.  So why NOT take revenge?  You're not
going to find ME knocking a guy because he pads an expense account and his
home stationery carries the company emblem.  Take away crime from the white
collar worker and you will rob him of his last vestige of job interest.
                -- J. Feiffer
American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees
be honest and hardworking.  It has even stopped hoping for employees who are
educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and
the women's room without having little pictures on the doors.
                -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister"
"At least they're ___________EXPERIENCED incompetents"
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?"
Column 1                Column 2                Column 3

0. integrated                0. management                0. options
1. total                1. organizational        1. flexibility
2. systematized                2. monitored                2. capability
3. parallel                3. reciprocal                3. mobility
4. functional                4. digital                4. programming
5. responsive                5. logistical                5. concept
6. optional                6. transitional                6. time-phase
7. synchronized                7. incremental                7. projection
8. compatible                8. third-generation        8. hardware
9. balanced                9. policy                9. contingency

        The procedure is simple.  Think of any three-digit number, then select
the corresponding buzzword from each column.  For instance, number 257 produces
"systematized logistical projection," a phrase that can be dropped into
virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority.  "No
one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about," says Broughton,
"but the important thing is that they're not about to admit it."
                -- Philip Broughton, "How to Win at Wordsmanship"
Ernest asks Frank how long he has been working for the company.
        "Ever since they threatened to fire me."
Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
just how busy they are?
Everyone who comes in here wants three things:
        (1) They want it quick.
        (2) They want it good.
        (3) They want it cheap.
I tell 'em to pick two and call me back.
                -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company
        Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the
humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and
rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the
seats locomote through a short tunnel filled with clock-work dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs are depicted without accuracy and too close to your face.
        "One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to
aggravate illusions.  Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like,
but Exxon has decided they smelled bad.
        "At the other end of Dino Ditch ... there's a final, very addled
message about facing challengehood tomorrow-wise.  I dozed off during this,
but the import seems to be that dinosaurs don't have anything to do with
energy policy and neither do you."
                -- P.J. O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell"
        Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to
pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber,
hardware, and toasters all in one location.  Notice I say "shop for," as
opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are
always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees.  The home center
employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy
applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail
and screw -- in the entire store ...

        Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a
replacement.  The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside
of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way
that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic
calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime
around the middle of next week."
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
Hotels are tired of getting ripped off.  I checked into a hotel and they
had towels from my house.
                -- Mark Guido
How come financial advisors never seem to be as wealthy as they
claim they'll make you?
I BET WHAT HAPPENED was they discovered fire and invented the wheel on
the same day.  Then that night, they burned the wheel.
                -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.
I never cheated an honest man, only rascals.  They wanted something for
nothing.  I gave them nothing for something.
                -- Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil
I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending
their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to
buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
                -- Emile Henry Gauvreay
If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers?
If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would
all be millionaires.
                -- Abigail Van Buren
If what they've been doing hasn't solved the problem, tell them to
do something else.
        -- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"
It is ridiculous to call this an industry.  This is not.  This is rat eat
rat, dog eat dog.  I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they
kill me.  You're talking about the American way of survival of the fittest.
                -- Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's
Man must shape his tools lest they shape him.
                -- Arthur R. Miller
Many people write memos to tell you they have nothing to say.
Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.
                -- Leonardo da Vinci
Never tell people how to do things.  Tell them WHAT to do and they will
surprise you with their ingenuity.
                -- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
        NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of
directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip
Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the
offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the
true value of the company.
        Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story.
Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover
agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of
their major Middle East subsidiaries.  To a person, the board voted to
reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to
reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth.
Nitwit ideas are for emergencies.  You use them when you've got nothing
else to try.  If they work, they go in the Book.  Otherwise you follow
the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.
                -- Larry Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye"
        Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool
sets for under $4?" An excellent question.
        Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell
plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they
have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and
malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration.  In either
the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an
obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of
a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental
notions of tools that Americans might use around the home.  Buy it.
        This is the kind of tool set professionals use.  Not only is it
inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the
so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if
you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct
sunlight.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a
thief who was to be executed.  As he was taken away he made a bargain with
the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing
hymns.  The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and
laughed.  "You will not succeed," they told him.  "No one can."
        To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might
happen in that time.  The king might die.  The horse might die.  I might die.
And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.
                -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Niven and Pournelle
One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could
manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be
installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips.  Let's say your
congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how
the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet.  Just when he
got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would
inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the
plane door.  It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman
proposed a law.  ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be
designated as Cuticle Inspection Month?  And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.")
This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public
would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen.  The problem
is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500
members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil,
are already too large to fit on normal aircraft.
                -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
they charge fifteen cents for them.
Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
more time for dreaming.
                -- J. P. McEvoy
Rule #7: Silence is not acquiescence.
        Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is
        not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety.  They simply may
        sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after
        they regain their composure.
Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big
store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable
prices?  Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's build a home
center.  And before long home centers were springing up like crabgrass all
over the United States.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
So... did you ever wonder, do garbagemen take showers before they go to work?
Some people have a great ambition: to build something
that will last, at least until they've finished building it.
Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the
book or even what book.
Some people only open up to tell you that they're closed.
Some people pray for more than they are willing to work for.
        Take the folks at Coca-Cola.  For many years, they were content
to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage.  It was a good
beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up
drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a
nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves
and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!"  So Coca-Cola
was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to
improve ...
                -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
The annual meeting of the "You Have To Listen To Experience" Club is now in
session.  Our Achievement Awards this year are in the fields of publishing,
advertising and industry.  For best consistent contribution in the field of
publishing our award goes to editor, R.L.K., [...] for his unrivalled alle-
giance without variation to the statement: "Personally I'd love to do it,
we'd ALL love to do it.  But we're not going to do it.  It's not the kind of
book our house knows how to handle."  Our superior performance award in the
field of advertising goes to media executive, E.L.M., [...] for the continu-
ally creative use of the old favorite: "I think what you've got here could be
very exciting.  Why not give it one more try based on the approach I've out-
lined and see if you can come up with something fresh."  Our final award for
courageous holding action in the field of industry goes to supervisor, R.S.,
[...] for her unyielding grip on "I don't care if they fire me, I've been
arguing for a new approach for YEARS but are we SURE that this is the right
time--"  I would like to conclude this meeting with a verse written specially
for our prospectus by our founding president fifty years ago -- and now, as
then, fully expressive of the emotion most close to all our hearts --
        Treat freshness as a youthful quirk,
                And dare not stray to ideas new,
        For if t'were tried they might e'en work
                And for a living what woulds't we do?
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do
what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with
them while they do it.
                -- Theodore Roosevelt
The King and his advisor are overlooking the battle field:

King:                "How goes the battle plan?"
Advisor:        "See those little black specks running to the right?"
K:        "Yes."
A:        "Those are their guys. And all those little red specks running
        to the left are our guys. Then when they collide we wait till
        the dust clears."
K:        "And?"
A:        "If there are more red specks left than black specks, we win."
K:        "But what about the ^#!!$% battle plan?"
A:        "So far, it seems to be going according to specks."
The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
The meek shall inherit the Earth.  (But they're gonna have to fight for it.)
The trouble with a lot of self-made men is that they worship their creator.
The Worst Car Hire Service
        When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck
as a joke.  Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up
shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California.
        He put on a cap and looked forward to watching people's faces as he
conducted them round the choice of bumperless, dented junkmobiles.
        To his lasting surprise there was an insatiable demand for them and
he now has 26 thriving branches all over America.  "People like driving
round in the worst cars available," he said.  Of course they do.
        "If a driver damages the side of a car and is honest enough to
admit it, I tell him, `Forget it'.  If they bring a car back late we
overlook it.  If they've had a crash and it doesn't involve another vehicle
we might overlook that too."
        "Where's the ashtray?" asked on Los Angeles wife, as she settled
into the ripped interior.  "Honey," said her husband, "the whole car's the
ash tray."
                -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Then there was the ScoutMaster who got a fantastic deal on this case of
Tates brand compasses for his troup; only $1.25 each!  Only problem was,
when they got them out in the woods, the compasses were all stuck pointing
to the "W" on the dial.

Moral:
        He who has a Tates is lost!
        They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even
drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man.  These things offer
pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which
demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and
sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more.
        They are fools that think otherwise.  No great effort was ever bought.
No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was
ever raised into being for payment of any kind.  No parthenon, no Thermopylae
was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground
beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone.  The payment for doing these
things was itself the doing of them.
        To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and
so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the
greatest pleasure known to man!  To one who has felt the chisel in his hand
and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt
sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body
of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food
spread only for demons or for gods."
                -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because
the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it
recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has "deregulated"
the airline industry.  What this means for you, the consumer, is that the
airlines are no longer required to follow any rules whatsoever.  They can
show snuff movies.  They can charge for oxygen.  They can hire pilots right
out of Vending Machine Refill Person School.  They can conserve fuel by
ejecting husky passengers over water.  They can ram competing planes in
mid-air.  These innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which
have been passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with
amazingly low fares, such as $29.  Of course, certain restrictions do apply,
the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark, and you must
pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out.
                -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations"
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity.  They seem
more afraid of life than death.
                -- James F. Byrnes
What they said:
        What they meant:

"I recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever."
        (Yes, that about sums it up.)
"The amount of mathematics she knows will surprise you."
        (And I recommend not giving that school a dime...)
"I simply can't say enough good things about him."
        (What a screw-up.)
"I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine."
        (I can't tell you how happy I am that she left our firm.)
"When this person left our employ, we were quite hopeful he would go
a long way with his skills."
        (We hoped he'd go as far as possible.)
"You won't find many people like her."
        (In fact, most people can't stand being around her.)
"I cannot reccommend him too highly."
        (However, to the best of my knowledge, he has never committed a
         felony in my presence.)
What they said:
        What they meant:

"If you knew this person as well as I know him, you would think as much
of him as I do."
        (Or as little, to phrase it slightly more accurately.)
"Her input was always critical."
        (She never had a good word to say.)
"I have no doubt about his capability to do good work."
        (And it's nonexistent.)
"This candidate would lend balance to a department like yours, which
already has so many outstanding members."
        (Unless you already have a moron.)
"His presentation to my seminar last semester was truly remarkable:
one unbelievable result after another."
        (And we didn't believe them, either.)
"She is quite uniform in her approach to any function you may assign her."
        (In fact, to life in general...)
What they said:
        What they meant:

"You will be fortunate if you can get him to work for you."
        (We certainly never succeeded.)
There is no other employee with whom I can adequately compare him.
        (Well, our rats aren't really employees...)
"Success will never spoil him."
        (Well, at least not MUCH more.)
"One usually comes away from him with a good feeling."
        (And such a sigh of relief.)
"His dissertation is the sort of work you don't expect to see these days;
in it he has definitely demonstrated his complete capabilities."
        (And his IQ, as well.)
"He should go far."
        (The farther the better.)
"He will take full advantage of his staff."
        (He even has one of them mowing his lawn after work.)
What they say:                                What they mean:

A major technological breakthrough...        Back to the drawing board.
Developed after years of research        Discovered by pure accident.
Project behind original schedule due        We're working on something else.
        to unforseen difficulties
Designs are within allowable limits        We made it, stretching a point or two.
Customer satisfaction is believed        So far behind schedule that they'll be
        assured                                        grateful for anything at all.
Close project coordination                We're gonna spread the blame, campers!
Test results were extremely gratifying        It works, and boy, were we surprised!
The design will be finalized...                We haven't started yet, but we've got
                                                to say something.
The entire concept has been rejected        The guy who designed it quit.
We're moving forward with a fresh        We hired three new guys, and they're
        approach                                kicking it around.
A number of different approaches...        We don't know where we're going, but
                                                we're moving.
Preliminary operational tests are        Blew up when we turned it on.
        inconclusive
Modifications are underway                We're starting over.
What they say:                        What they mean:

New                                Different colors from previous version.
All New                                Not compatible with previous version.
Exclusive                        Nobody else has documentation.
Unmatched                        Almost as good as the competition.
Design Simplicity                The company wouldn't give us any money.
Fool-proof Operation                All parameters are hard-coded.
Advanced Design                        Nobody really understands it.
Here At Last                        Didn't get it done on time.
Field Tested                        We don't have any simulators.
Years of Development                Finally got one to work.
Unprecedented Performance        Nothing ever ran this slow before.
Revolutionary                        Disk drives go 'round and 'round.
Futuristic                        Only runs on a next generation supercomputer.
No Maintenance                        Impossible to fix.
Performance Proven                Worked through Beta test.
Meets Tough Quality Standards        It compiles without errors.
Satisfaction Guaranteed                We'll send you another pack if it fails.
Stock Item                        We shipped it before and can do it again.
When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking
about themselves.
XLI:
        The more one produces, the less one gets.
XLII:
        Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing.
XLIII:
        Hardware works best when it matters the least.
XLIV:
        Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly
        direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the
        additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics.
XLV:
        One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the
        unexpected should have been expected.
XLVI:
        A billion saved is a billion earned.
                -- Norman Augustine
XXI:
        It's easy to get a loan unless you need it.
XXII:
        If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock,
        not selling advice.
XXIII:
        Any task can be completed in only one-third more time than is
        currently estimated.
XXIV:
        The only thing more costly than stretching the schedule of an
        established project is accelerating it, which is itself the most
        costly action known to man.
XXV:
        A revised schedule is to business what a new season is to an athlete
        or a new canvas to an artist.
                -- Norman Augustine
echo $package has manual pages available in source form.
echo "However, you don't have nroff, so they're probably useless to you."
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
: 1.  What is the possibility of this being added in the future?
In the near future, the probability is close to zero.  In the distant
future, I'll be dead, and posterity can do whatever they like...  :-) --lwall
Your csh still thinks true is false.  Write to your vendor today and tell
them that next year Configure ought to "rm /bin/csh" unless they fix their
blasted shell. :-)   -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
They can always run stderr through uniq.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199704012331.PAA16535@wall.org>
Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl
if I think they improve the language.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org>
: I used to think that this was just another demonstration of Larry's
: enormous skill at pulling off what other people would fail or balk at.

Well, everyone else knew it was impossible, so they didn't try.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already
think they know what they think.  I'm still shocked myself.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org>
I was about to say, "Avoid fame like the plague," but you know, they can
cure the plague with penicillin these days.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org>
I wasn't recommending that we make the links for them, only provide them
with the tools to do so if they want to take the gamble (or the gambol).
             -- Larry Wall in <199709292259.PAA10407@wall.org>
Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings.
(With 8.0 they're rethinking that.  Of course, Perl rethought that from
the start.)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of
"do".
             -- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language
People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else
dictating how they can call it.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words.  fee fie
foe foo [sic]
             -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org>
Falling in Love
        When two people have been on enough dates, they generally fall in
love.  You can tell you're in love by the way you feel: your head becomes
light, your heart leaps within you, you feel like you're walking on air,
and the whole world seems like a wonderful and happy place.  Unfortunately,
these are also the four warning signs of colon disease, so it's always a
good idea to check with your doctor.
                -- Dave Barry
Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
                -- The Wizard of Oz
If you love someone, set them free.
If they don't come back, then call them up when you're drunk.
Most people don't need a great deal of love nearly so much as they need
a steady supply.
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings
infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can
grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it
possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.
                -- Rainer Rilke
Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these
days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate
with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children
who can't communicate with their parents, and so on.  And the characters in
these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours
bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate.  I feel that if a person can't
communicate, the very _____least he can do is to shut up!
                -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was"
The only difference in the game of love over the last few thousand years
is that they've changed trumps from clubs to diamonds.
                -- The Indianapolis Star
There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants
and animals.  When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when
the lights go out, they turn into animals.  But then again, don't we all?
When your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.
                -- Leonard Cohen, "Sisters of Mercy"
Yeah, there are more important things in life than money, but they won't go
out with you if you don't have any.
But they went to MARS around 1953!!
I fill MY industrial waste containers with old copies of the "WATCHTOWER"
and then add HAWAIIAN PUNCH to the top ...  They look NICE in the yard ...
I like the way ONLY their mouths move ...  They look like DYING OYSTERS
If a person is FAMOUS in this country, they have to go on the ROAD for
MONTHS at a time and have their name misspelled on the SIDE of a
GREYHOUND SCENICRUISER!!
It's the RINSE CYCLE!!  They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!!
NATHAN ... your PARENTS were in a CARCRASH!!  They're VOIDED -- They
COLLAPSED They had no CHAINSAWS ... They had no MONEY MACHINES ... They
did PILLS in SKIMPY GRASS SKIRTS ... Nathan, I EMULATED them ... but
they were OFF-KEY ...
The PINK SOCKS were ORIGINALLY from 1952!!  But they went to MARS
around 1953!!
They collapsed ... like nuns in the street ... they had no teen
appeal!
What PROGRAM are they watching?
Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they become soggy and hard to
light.
Do not throw cigarette butts in the urinal, for they are subtle and
quick to anger.
        It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships
for a few years.  He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences
change over fairly often, and he's got a good life.   The only problem is the
ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year
after year.  Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and
starts giving it away for the audience.  For example, when the magician makes
a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back!  Behind
his back!"  Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much
he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the
passengers.
        One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without
a trace.  Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the
parrot.  For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging
to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end.
As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to
the magician's end of the log.  With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps
"OK, you win, I give up.  Where did you hide the ship?"
        "Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly.  "What use is
wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?"  He gripped the magician's shoulder
hard, to keep from falling.
        Schmendrick did not turn his head.  With a touch of sad mockery in
his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for."
...
        "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said.  "That is exactly what heroes
are for.  Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but
heroes are meant to die for unicorns."
                -- Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about
problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that
if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be
embarrassingly good at it ...
                -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
When I say the magic word to all these people, they will vanish forever.
I will then say the magic words to you, and you, too, will vanish -- never
to be seen again.
                -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Between Time and Timbuktu"
        As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy
for more than 15 percent of their life span.  The words "I am sorry" and "I
am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary.  They will stab
you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your
friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying:
"Sure, I put your dog in the microwave.  But I feel *better* for doing it."
                -- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone"
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh.  They
then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them.  The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Fortune's Exercising Truths:

1:  Richard Simmons gets paid to exercise like a lunatic.  You don't.
2.  Aerobic exercises stimulate and speed up the heart.  So do heart attacks.
3.  Exercising around small children can scar them emotionally for life.
4.  Sweating like a pig and gasping for breath is not refreshing.
5.  No matter what anyone tells you, isometric exercises cannot be done
    quietly at your desk at work.  People will suspect manic tendencies as
    you twitter around in your chair.
6.  Next to burying bones, the thing a dog enjoys mosts is tripping joggers.
7.  Locking four people in a tiny, cement-walled room so they can run around
    for an hour smashing a little rubber ball -- and each other -- with a hard
    racket should immediately be recognized for what it is: a form of insanity.
8.  Fifty push-ups, followed by thirty sit-ups, followed by ten chin-ups,
    followed by one throw-up.
9.  Any activity that can't be done while smoking should be avoided.
[From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology
Association, in Rome]:

The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria and
of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not spring
from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods, or of means
of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in millions of
individuals in system functions which, once they have reached the event
maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology engaging a suitable
stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general, president, political
party, etc.) to consummate the act of social schizophrenia in mass genocide.
        page 46
...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai
Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used
to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative.  "The group
on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers,
"had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were
on placebo."
        page 56
The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body.
Illness is always an interaction between both.  It can begin in the mind and
affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of
which are served by the same bloodstream.  Attempts to treat most mental
diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts
to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must
be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human
body functions.
                -- Norman Cousins,
                "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient"
The reason they're called wisdom teeth is that the experience makes you wise.
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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