doing : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. "Hello?" his friend answers. "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! I'm doing great! How are you?" "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves."
A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. -- Michael Winner, British film director
Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam dancing. -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83
My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO! The WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a small but appreciative crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded OK. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead
"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
The Great Movie Posters: A Giggle Gurgling Gulp of Glee With Pretty Girls, Peppy Scenes, and Gorgeous Revues -- plus a good story. -- Tea with a Kick (1924) Whoopie! Let's go!... Hand-picked Beauties doing cute tricks! GET IN THE KNOW FOR THE HEY-HEY WHOOPIE! -- The Wild Party (1929) YOU HEAR HIM MAKE LOVE! DIX -- the dashing soldier! DIX -- the bold adventurer! DIX -- the throbbing lover! -- The Wheel of Life (1929) SEE CHARLES BUTTERWORTH DRIVE A STREETCAR AND SING LOVE SONGS TO HIS MARE "MITZIE"! -- The Night is Young (1934)
Why are you doing this to me? Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before there is change. -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29
There's no use in having a dog and doing your own barking.
> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF > being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that > it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it > happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does > mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid > reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing > negative so far). > > Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: > I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented > that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. > If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me > on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so > far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something > better of it (). > > Linus > > () Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does > somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. (Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux)
We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. [...] I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...] "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget. "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee." The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day. -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition
You see, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"
A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked.
Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking?
"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with computers altogether?" -- Jehan Shuman
If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, paper folding, or something. -- C. Philip Wood
In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work, the answer may be obtained by inspection.
In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do you close your eyes?" "So that the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the equipment of a certain major manufacturer] (and in doing so have sold their soul to the devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of their data processing systems. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing. -- E. Dijkstra
My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again.
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.]
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn
"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"
I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself, "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well that would be enough immortality for me.
Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth. -- Max Beerbohm, "Mainly on the Air"
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
Doing gets it done.
Given sufficient time, what you put off doing today will get done by itself.
If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. -- Leonard Levinson
Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.
Time sure flies when you don't know what you're doing.
If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
A lot of the stuff I do is so minimal, and it's designed to be minimal. The smallness of it is what's attractive. It's weird, 'cause it's so intellectually lame. It's hard to see me doing that for the rest of my life. But at the same time, it's what I do best. - Chris Elliot, writer and performer on "Late Night with David Letterman"
"The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." -- Walt West
"Trust me. I know what I'm doing." -- Sledge Hammer
"Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2) Advising the President. 3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin." -- 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
...and before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the typewriter and threw it around the room and made it beg for mercy. At this point the typewriter pleaded for me to dress him in feminine attire but instead I pressed his margin release over and over again until the typewriter lost consciousness. Presently, I regained consciousness and realized with shame what I had done. My shame is gone and now I am looking for a submissive typewriter, any color, or model. No electric typewriters please! --Rick Kleiner
"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
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"
"Remember, if it's being done correctly, here or abroad, it's ___not the U.S. Army doing it!" -- Good Morning VietNam
Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that never comes again. San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost ___see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. -- Hunter S. Thompson
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 time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to grey and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And, as some of the men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought." -- Alistair Cooke
Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease. -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"
Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked. -- Robert D. Sprecht, Rand Corp.
We the unwilling, led by the ungrateful, are doing the impossible. We've done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do something with nothing.
bug, n: An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect. The activity of "debugging", or removing bugs from a program, ends when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed. -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984
Clarke's Conclusion: Never let your sense of morals interfere with doing the right thing.
Cohn's Law: The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time reporting on the nothing you are doing.
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.
design, v.: What you regret not doing later on.
Egotism, n: Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen. Egotist, n: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
Frobnicate, v.: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a frob." See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.
Gordon's first law: If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.
Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing.
The Official MBA Handbook on doing company business on an airplane: Do not work openly on top-secret company cost documents unless you have previously ascertained that the passenger next to you is blind, a rock musician on mood-ameliorating drugs, or the unfortunate possessor of a forty-seventh chromosome.
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.
[ ] Safeguard this message - it is an important historical document. [ ] Delete after reading -- Subversive Literature. [ ] Ignore and go back to what you were doing.
A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer, carries it to the bathroom and dumps it into a urinal. Over the course of the next few hours, he goes back to the bar and repeats this sequence -- several times. Finally the bartender got so curious that he leaned over the bar and asked him what he was doing. Replied the customer, "Avoiding the middleman."
Not drinking, chasing women, or doing drugs won't make you live longer -- it just seems that way.
Sam: What's new, Norm? Norm: Most of my wife. -- Cheers, The Spy Who Came in for a Cold One Coach: Beer, Norm? Norm: Naah, I'd probably just drink it. -- Cheers, Now Pitching, Sam Malone Coach: What's doing, Norm? Norm: Well, science is seeking a cure for thirst. I happen to be the guinea pig. -- Cheers, Let Me Count the Ways
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 Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
"If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything." -- A. L.
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.
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
The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking. -- Christopher Morley
If I were to walk on water, the press would say I'm only doing it because I can't swim. -- Bob Stanfield
All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking.
An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile." -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
If in any problem you find yourself doing an immense amount of work, the answer can be obtained by simple inspection.
"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"
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
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun
The ark lands after The Flood. Noah lets all the animals out. Says he, "Go and multiply." Several months pass. Noah decides to check up on the animals. All are doing fine except a pair of snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah. "Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes. Noah follows their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again. Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how the trees helped?" "Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, and we need logs to multiply."
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. -- E. Hubbard
To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a pint of ice cream nearby. -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"
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.
And if you wonder, What I am doing, As I am heading for the sink. I am spitting out all the bitterness, Along with half of my last drink.
Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields Sold in a market down in New Orleans Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright Hear him whip the women, just around midnight Ah, brown sugar how come you taste so good? Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should Drums beating cold English blood runs hot Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop House boy knows that he's doing alright You should a heard him just around midnight. ... I bet your mama was tent show queen And all her girlfriends were sweet sixteen I'm no school boy but I know what I like You should have heard me just around midnight. -- Rolling Stones, "Brown Sugar"
She stood on the tracks Waving her arms Leading me to that third rail shock Quick as a wink She changed her mind She gave me a night That's all it was What will it take until I stop Kidding myself Wasting my time There's nothing else I can do 'Cause I'm doing it all for Leyna I don't want anyone new 'Cause I'm living it all for Leyna There's nothing in it for you 'Cause I'm giving it all to Leyna -- Billy Joel, "All for Leyna" (Glass Houses)
Since I hurt my pendulum My life is all erratic. My parrot who was cordial Is now transmitting static. The carpet died, a palm collapsed, The cat keeps doing poo. The only thing that keeps me sane Is talking to my shoe. -- My Shoe
to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting. -- e.e. cummings
When users see one GUI as beautiful, other user interfaces become ugly. When users see some programs as winners, other programs become lossage. Pointers and NULLs reference each other. High level and assembler depend on each other. Double and float cast to each other. High-endian and low-endian define each other. While and until follow each other. Therefore the Guru programs without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Warnings arise and he lets them come; processes are swapped and he lets them go. He has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When his work is done, he deletes it. That is why it lasts forever.
Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be misinterpreted by somebody.
A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endagered species list?" Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag, which contained twelve more loons. "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked. "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage." "What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?" "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan."
Accidentally Shot Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago, in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead. -- Sacramento Daily Union, April 20, 1861
"`... then I decided that I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.' Arthur cleared his throat, and then did it again. `Where,' he said, `did you...?' `Find a gin and tonic?' said Ford brightly. `I found a small lake that thought it was a gin and tonic, and jumped in and out of that. At least, I think it thought it was a gin and tonic.' `I may,' he addded with a grin which would have sent sane men scampering into the trees, `have been imagining it.'" - Ford updating Arthur about what he's been doing for the past four years.
What are YOU doing to oppose the Microsoft Juggernaut?
Jargon Coiner (#6) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * STOP MIRAGE: Trying to click on an imaginary Stop button on a program's toolbar after doing something you didn't want to. Usually caused as the result of excessive use of Netscape. * YA-PREFIX: Putting "another" or "yet another" in front of a name or tacking "YA" in front of an acronym. Example: "We could ya-prefix this fortune by titling it 'Yet Another Lame List of Fabricated Jargon'." * DOMAINEERING: Using a service like Netcraft to determine what operating system and webserver a particular domain is running. * NOT-A-SALTINE EXPLANATION: The canned response given to someone who uses the term "hacker" instead of "cracker".
Excerpts From The First Annual Nerd Bowl (#4) BRYANT DUMBELL: Welcome back. After Round 1, the Mad Hatters are ahead 15 to 12. Round 2, the Caffeine Craziness event, is now underway. JOHN SPLADDEN: This is my favorite part of the Nerdbowl. Each player tries to consume as many gallons of caffeinated beverages within one minute, and then points are awarded based on the redness of their eyes. DUMBELL: I like this event too... I must admit, it's much better than the "Crash It" event that was played in the Zeroth Annual Nerdbowl last year. Players were each seated in front of a PC running Windows 98... points were awarded based on how fast the player could cause a Blue Screen. SPLADDEN: Ah, yes, I remember that. Everybody complained that the event was too easy. "Where the hell is the challenge?" yelled Chris DiBona while doing a victory dance after the VA Linux Rich Penguins beat the SuSE Cats In The Hats last year 121-96.
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,"
A man pleaded innocent of any wrong doing when caught by the police during a raid at the home of a mobster, excusing himself by claiming that he was making a bolt for the door.
A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason.
All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky, to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing. -- Yoda
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you.
Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you are doing.
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"
I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you.
If you cannot in the long run tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing was worthless. -- Edwim Schrodinger
If you don't do the things that are not worth doing, who will?
In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing. -- Alan Kay
Largest Number of Driving Test Failures By April 1970 Mrs. Miriam Hargrave had failed her test thirty-nine times. In the eight preceding years she had received two hundred and twelve driving lessons at a cost of L300. She set the new record while driving triumphantly through a set of red traffic lights in Wakefield, Yorkshire. Disappointingly, she passed at the fortieth attempt (3 August 1970) but eight years later she showed some of her old magic when she was reported as saying that she still didn't like doing right-hand turns. -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Most people have two reasons for doing anything -- a good reason, and the real reason.
"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"
We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. -- Thucydides
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. -- Sydney Harris
You never learn anything by doing it right.
Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you from enjoying it.
"Innovation, innovate, and the concept of doing what everyone else did 20 years ago are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other buzzwords, euphemisms, and blatant lies are trademarks of their respective owners." - James Simmons
Understatement of the century: "Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones" - Linus Torvalds, August 1991
"This, btw, is not something I would suggest you do in your living room. Getting a penguin to pee on demand is _messy_. We're talking yellow spots on the walls, on the ceiling, yea verily even behind the fridge. However. I would also advice against doing this outside - it may be a lot easier to clean up, but you're likely to get reported and arrested for public lewdness Never mind that you had a perfectly good explanation for it all." - Linus Torvalds on sprinkling holy penguin pee
You know, if you really do not understand the implications of running everything with permissions equivalent to root - get the hell out of any UNIX-related programming until you learn. - Al Viro explaining the merits of doing everything as root
The executive, Irving Wladawsky- Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said, "If we thought this was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you know, we have a lot of lawyers." - from a New York Times article about Microsoft vs GPL licensing
What the guy was doing was having a bad case of optical rectitus. That would be typical of a "reseller" (AKA Salesman). Most would not even have a CLUE that the cards were based on the tulip chipset / driver. - Michael Warf on linux-kernel
Q: I like to dynamically load buggy drivers into the kernel because that is what kernel developers like me do for fun, how can I better avoid data corruption when doing this and using ReiserFS? A: Do sync before insmod. (Alan Cox's good suggestion.) - Hans Reiser on linux-kernel
Most EULA's are not legal contracts. In civilised countries the right to disassemble is enshrined in law (ironically it comes in Europe from trying to keep car manufacturers from running monopolistic scams not from the software people doing the same) In the USA its a lot less clear. You can find laws explicitly claiming both, and since US law is primarily about who has loads of money, its a bit irrelevant - Alan Cox explaining EULA's on linux-kernel
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
Well, I have done sparc assembly in my time (remember Dave Sitsky and I did a port of the kernel to the ultrasparc running in 32-bit mode before you did the sparc64 port) but the stuff you're doing in there isn't just assembly, it's magic assembly. ;) - Paul Mackerras admiring Dave Miller's assembly on linux-kernel
Catastrophic failure of the IDE cable???. What are you doing to the poor thing, jumping on it? - Beau Kuiper on linux-kernel
From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Subject: Re: Yet another design for /proc. Or actually /kernel. > Here's my go at a new design for /proc. I designed it from a userland > point of view and tried not to drown myself into details. Did you have to change the subject line. It makes it harder to kill file when people keep doing that
Tim Schmielau wrote: > the appended patch enables 32 bit linux boxes to display more than > 497.1 days of uptime. No user land application changes are needed. Thank you for doing this labor of love - I will let you know how it goes sometime after March 23, 2003 - - J Sloan on linux-kernel
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other: High and low rest upon each other; Voice and sound harmonize each other; Front and back follow one another. Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not. Working, yet not taking credit. Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts forever.
A truly good man is not aware of his goodness, And is therefore good. A foolish man tries to be good, And is therefore not good. A truly good man does nothing, Yet leaves nothing undone. A foolish man is always doing, Yet much remains to be done. When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone. When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done. When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds, He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion. Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of Tao. It is the beginning of folly. Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real and not what is on the surface, On the fruit and not the flower. Therefore accept the one and reject the other.
The softest thing in the universe Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe. That without substance can enter where there is no room. Hence I know the value of non-action. Teaching without words and work without doing Are understood by very few.
Without going outside, you may know the whole world. Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus the sage knows without traveling; He sees without looking; He works without doing.
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.
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.
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Do as I say, not as I do. Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. What did you do this time? If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. When I was your age... I won't love you if you keep doing that. Think of all the starving children in India. If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. I'm going to kill you. Way to go, clumsy. If you don't like it, you can lump it.
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Good children always obey. Quit acting so childish. Boys don't cry. If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. Why do you have to know so much? This hurts me more than it hurts you. Why? Because I'm bigger than you. Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? Oh, grow up. I'm only doing this because I love you.
Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... When are you going to grow up? I'm only doing this for your own good. Why are you crying? Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about. What's wrong with you? Someday you'll thank me for this. You'd lose your head if it weren't attached. Don't you have any sense at all? If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off. Why? Because I said so. I hope you have a kid just like yourself.
If your mother knew what you're doing, she'd probably hang her head and cry.
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"
<dark> Culus: Building a five-meter-high replica of the Empire State Building with paperclips is impressive. Doing it blindfolded is eleet.
* Overfiend ponders doing an NMU of asclock, in which he simply changes the extended description to "If you bend over and put your head between your legs, you can read the time off your assclock." <doogie> Overfiend: go to bed.
> Ok, I see you know what you're doing :-) Either that or I've gotten pretty good at faking it.
<Teller> where am I and what am I doing in this handbasket?
<Knghtbrd> Trust us, we know what we're doing... We may have no idea HOW we're doing it, but we know WHAT we're doing.
* 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
<Endy> knghtbrd: QW's netcode is doing strange things to me. :P <knghtbrd> This is unusual? ;> <Endy> Not really. :P
* wolfie ponders how many debianites it takes to screw in a lightbulb <Viiru> wolfie: Somewhere around 600? One screw's the bulb, and the rest flame him for doing it wrong. <part> wolfie: is the bulb free software? <Tv> Can we vote on whether to screw it or not?
Isn't it embarrassing when you have to go to the drugstore for some "special items", and when you're checking out, the cashier looks at you like, "oh, I know what YOU'RE doing tonight..." Yep, that cashier read all the signs... canned chicken soup, TheraFlu, Halls, NyQuil, the bigass bottles of OJ and grapefruit juice... he knew and I knew that I had a date with the teevee and a down comforter. Awww yeah. -- Elizabeth Kirkindall
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32: Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now? A: I will be three months November 8th. Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th? A: Yes. Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time?
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37: Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears? A: No. Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears? A: Picking them up in the air. Q: Where was the dog at this time? A: Attached to the ears.
A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed. -- Goethe
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers change. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
> The day people think linux would be better served by somebody else (FSF > being the natural alternative), I'll "abdicate". I don't think that > it's something people have to worry about right now - I don't see it > happening in the near future. I enjoy doing linux, even though it does > mean some work, and I haven't gotten any complaints (some almost timid > reminders about a patch I have forgotten or ignored, but nothing > negative so far). > > Don't take the above to mean that I'll stop the day somebody complains: > I'm thick-skinned (Lasu, who is reading this over my shoulder commented > that "thick-HEADED is closer to the truth") enough to take some abuse. > If I weren't, I'd have stopped developing linux the day ast ridiculed me > on c.o.minix. What I mean is just that while linux has been my baby so > far, I don't want to stand in the way if people want to make something > better of it (). > > Linus > > () Hey, maybe I could apply for a saint-hood from the Pope. Does > somebody know what his email-address is? I'm so nice it makes you puke. -- Taken from Linus's reply to someone worried about the future of Linux
It's a bird.. It's a plane.. No, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue. Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat.. -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27
Sorry for mailing this article, I've obviously made a typo (168!=186) that's the price for being up all night and doing some "quick" checks before you go to bed .... -- Herbert Rosmanith <herp@wildsau.idv.uni-linz.ac.at>
I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it. -- Sven Rudolph <sr1@os.inf.tu-dresden.de>
The most effective has probably been Linux/8086 - that was a joke that got out of hand. So far out of hand in fact its almost approaching usability because other folks thought it worth doing - Alistair Riddoch especially. -- Alan Cox
I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' is a good rationale for doing something. -- Andrew Suffield in <20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley
"Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" "I've never done anything illegal before." "I thought you said you were an accountant!"
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 a thing's worth doing, it is worth doing badly. -- G.K. Chesterton
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
If what they've been doing hasn't solved the problem, tell them to do something else. -- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?" Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This article can help you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
It's been a business doing pleasure with you.
Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active. -- Leonardo da Vinci
Never let someone who says it cannot be done interrupt the person who is doing it.
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 most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting. -- T.H. White
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing.
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"
We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why you are so tired. There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over 60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do.
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
XLVII: Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters. XLVIII: The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about. Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing. XLIX: Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds. L: The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times as long as the official's who created it. LI: By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more government workers than there are workers. LII: People working in the private sector should try to save money. There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again. -- Norman Augustine
XXVI: If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance. XXVII: Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank. XXVIII: It is better to be the reorganizer than the reorganizee. XXIX: Executives who do not produce successful results hold on to their jobs only about five years. Those who produce effective results hang on about half a decade. XXX: By the time the people asking the questions are ready for the answers, the people doing the work have lost track of the questions. -- Norman Augustine
You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.
"And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose)." -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul3.191825.14435@netlabs.com>
The computer should be doing the hard work. That's what it's paid to do, after all. -- Larry Wall in <199709012312.QAA08121@wall.org>
Boss: You forgot to assign the result of your map! Hacker: Dang, I'm always forgetting my assignations... Boss: And what's that "goto" doing there?!? Hacker: Er, I guess my finger slipped when I was typing "getservbyport"... Boss: Ah well, accidents will happen. Maybe we should have picked APL. -- Larry Wall in <199710311732.JAA19169@wall.org>
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling."
Why I Can't Go Out With You: I'd LOVE to, but... -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. -- I've been scheduled for a karma transplant. -- I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture. -- It's my parakeet's bowling night. -- I'm building a plant from a kit. -- There's a disturbance in the Force. -- I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling. -- I'm teaching my ferret to yodel. -- My crayons all melted together.
I guess you guys got BIG MUSCLES from doing too much STUDYING!
I'm pretending I'm pulling in a TROUT! Am I doing it correctly??
There's a little picture of ED MCMAHON doing BAD THINGS to JOAN RIVERS in a $200,000 MALIBU BEACH HOUSE!!
A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent disability you may have experienced. 5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be explained in terms that you would understand. 6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMANTAL TREATMENT READILY. Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting research paper will surely be of widespread interest.
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"