Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds was unavailable for comment ... (rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk (Robert Manners), in comp.os.linux.setup) | |
"Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are thousands of underground publications, a legal independent Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor. There is literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of its "glasnost." This difference has been maintained at great cost by the Poles since 1944. -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network) to Poland | |
The human instinct to censor thrives, as it always will, living in irrepressible conflict with the human instinct to speak. Outrage, self-righteousness, and paranoia feed the maw of censorship. Squelching speech, however, never reduces society's net paranoia quotient; it simply redirects it, drives it underground, where it festers into more dangerous hysterias. In the words of Justice Brandeis, "Men feared witches and burned women." -- Rodney Smolla, "Free Speech in an Open Society", p. 43. | |
Black Dens: Where Black Holes live; often unheated warehouses with Day-Glo spray painting, mutilated mannequins, Elvis references, dozens of overflowing ashtrays, mirror sculptures, and Velvet Underground music playing in background. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
HOGAN'S HEROES DRINKING GAME -- Take a shot every time: -- Sergeant Schultz says, "I knoooooowww nooooothing!" -- General Burkhalter or Major Hochstetter intimidate/insult Colonel Klink. -- Colonel Klink falls for Colonel Hogan's flattery. -- One of the prisoners sneaks out of camp (one shot for each prisoner to go). -- Colonel Klink snaps to attention after answering the phone (two shots if it's one of our heroes on the other end). -- One of the Germans is threatened with being sent to the Russian front. -- Corporal Newkirk calls up a German in his phoney German accent, and tricks him (two shots if it's Colonel Klink). -- Hogan has a romantic interlude with a beautiful girl from the underground. -- Colonel Klink relates how he's never had an escape from Stalag 13. -- Sergeant Schultz gives up a secret (two shots if he's bribed with food). -- The prisoners listen to the Germans' conversation by a hidden transmitter. -- Sergeant Schultz "captures" one of the prisoners after an escape. -- Lebeau pronounces "colonel" as "cuh-loh-`nell". -- Carter builds some kind of device (two shots if it's not explosive). -- Lebeau wears his apron. -- Hogan says "We've got no choice" when someone claims that the plan is impossible. -- The prisoners capture an important German, and sneak him out the tunnel. | |
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 | |
It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum competence will be quite enough. -- The Underground Grammarian | |
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. | |
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list -- I've got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. -- Koko, "The Mikado" | |
He heard there oft the flying sound Of feet as light as linden-leaves, Of music welling underground, In hidden hollows quavering. Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, And one by one with sighing sound Whispering fell the beechen leaves In the wintry woodland wavering. He sought her ever, wandering far Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, By light of moon and ray of star In frosty heavens shivering. Her mantle glinted in the moon, As on a hill-top high and far She danced, and at her feet was strewn A mist of silver quivering. When winter passed, she came again, And her song released the sudden spring, Like rising lark, and falling rain, And melting water bubbling. He saw the elven-flowers spring About her feet, and healed again He longed by her to dance and sing Upon the grass untroubling. -- J. R. R. Tolkien | |
Linux World Domination: Not A Joke! WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator Fattecat (R-WA) is pushing for a ban on Finnish-produced software. His chief of staff, Ms. Dee Septive, has published a 200-page report revealing "the Helsinkian Underground", a Finnish world domination plot hatched in 1943. The Fattecat expose describes Finland's recent scheme involving free software. "Linux, originally called Freix (FREIX Retrieves Electronic Intelligence X), is a scheme to infiltrate the Western world with a 'free' operating system with nasty backdoors hidden within its obfuscated source code. IRC (Intelligence Relaying Code) is another Finnish innovation designed for spying purposes." Linus Torvalds plays a prominent role in the conspiracy. "That old story about Linus developing a Unix clone in his spare time while at University is a lark," the report states. "Indeed, the name Linux ("Line X") was coined because the kernel can extract any arbitrary line of intelligence from any document it has access to." | |
A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create destruction and chaos - just to gain his point... and if all this could in turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man would deliberately go mad to prove his point. -- Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground" | |
Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds was unavailable for comment ... -- Robert Manners, rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk, in comp.os.linux.setup |