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Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) by Linux fortune

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 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"
Decemba, n:        The 12th month of the year.
erra, n:        A mistake.
faa, n:                To, from, or at considerable distance.
Linder, n:        A female name.
memba, n:        To recall to the mind; think of again.
New Hampsha, n:        A state in the northeast United States.
New Yaak, n:        Another state in the northeast United States.
Novemba, n:        The 11th month of the year.
Octoba, n:        The 10th month of the year.
ova, n:                Location above or across a specified position.  What the
                        season is when the Knicks quit playing.
                -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary
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
A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and
B is for biff, which reads all your mail.
C is for cc, as hackers recall, while
D is for dd, the command that does all.
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and
F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees.
G is for grep, a clever detective, while
H is for halt, which may seem defective.
I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and
J is for join, which nobody uses.
K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while
L is for lex, which is missing from DOS.
M is for more, from which less was begot, and
N is for nice, which it really is not.
O is for od, which prints out things nice, while
P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice.
Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and
R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table.
S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while
T is for true, which does very little.
U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and
V is for vi, which is hard to abort.
W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while
X is, well, X, of dubious fame.
Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
Z is for zcat, which handles compression.
                -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX
In high school in Brooklyn
I was the baseball manager,
proud as I could be
I chased baseballs,
gathered thrown bats
handed out the towels                        Eventually, I bought my own
It was very important work                but it was dark blue while
for a small spastic kid,                the official ones were green
but I was a team member                        Nobody ever said anything
When the team got                        to me about my blue jacket;
their warm-up jackets                        the guys were my friends
I didn't get one                        Yet it hurt me all year
Only the regular team                        to wear that blue jacket
got these jackets, and                        among all those green ones
surely not a manager                        Even now, forty years after,
                                        I still recall that jacket
                                        and the memory goes on hurting.
                -- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"
Picking up the pieces of my sweet shattered dream,
I wonder how the old folks are tonight,
Her name was Ann, and I'll be damned if I recall her face,
She left me not knowing what to do.

Carefree Highway, let me slip away on you,
Carefree Highway, you seen better days,
The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes,
Carefree Highway, let me slip away, slip away, on you...

Turning back the pages to the times I love best,
I wonder if she'll ever do the same,
Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied,
With knowing I got noone left to blame.
Carefree Highway, I got to see you, my old flame...

Searching through the fragments of my dream shattered sleep,
I wonder if the years have closed her mind,
I guess it must be wanderlust or tryin' to get free,
From the good old faithful feelin' we once knew.
                -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway"
There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed.
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still recall.
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I've loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compared with you,
All these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I'll love you more.
                -- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965
Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail,
        And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail;
I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues,
        I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.

If you think that it's nice that you get what you C,
        Then go : illogical statement with your whole family,
'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views.
        I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.

On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze,
        But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze.
Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse,
        I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
                -- Core Dumped Blues
Jargon Coiner (#3)

An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon
that we've just made up.

* LILOSPLAININ': Arduous process of explaining why there's now a LILO boot
  prompt on the office computer.

  Example: "John had some lilosplainin' to do after his boss turned on the
  computer and the Windows splash screen didn't appear."

* UPTIME DOWNER: Depression that strikes a Linux sysadmin after his uptime
  is ruined. Can be caused by an extended power outtage, a pet chewing
  through the power cord, a lightning bolt striking the power line, or an
  urgent need to reboot into Windows to read a stupid Word document.

* OSTR (Off-Switch Total Recall): The sudden recollection of something
  terribly important you need to do online that occurs exactly 0.157
  seconds after you've shut down your computer.
If I'm over the hill, why is it I don't recall ever being on top?
                -- Jerry Muscha
I recall hearing that highly-classified data must be destroyed by
physically shredding the medium.  Yes, throw your disk drive in the
shredder!  (Just imagine the class of machinery required to digest an RA81
HDA.)

        - Mark Wood on linux-kernel
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
As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp
the meaning of existence.  Both make one feel like a baby clutching at
a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.
                -- Joseph Brodsky
No guarantee of accuracy or completeness!
©TU Chemnitz, 2006-2024
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