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- !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH
- %
- (1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
- (2) Great generals are forewarned.
- (3) Forewarned is forearmed.
- (4) Four is an even number.
- (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
- (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
- Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.
- %
- (1) Everything depends.
- (2) Nothing is always.
- (3) Everything is sometimes.
- %
- 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
- the law!
- %
- 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
- %
- 100 buckets of bits on the bus
- 100 buckets of bits
- Take one down, short it to ground
- FF buckets of bits on the bus
- FF buckets of bits on the bus
- FF buckets of bits
- Take one down, short it to ground
- FE buckets of bits on the bus
- ad infinitum...
- %
- $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
- which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- %
- 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR
- (1) Scarecrow for centipedes
- (2) Dead cat brush
- (3) Hair barrettes
- (4) Cleats
- (5) Self-piercing earrings
- (6) Fungus trellis
- (7) False eyelashes
- (8) Prosthetic dog claws
- .
- .
- .
- (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors)
- (100) Killer velcro
- (101) Currency
- %
- 186,282 miles per second:
- It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!
- %
- 2180, U.S. History question:
- What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what
- office did he later hold?
- %
- $3,000,000
- %
- 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible
- simulation!
- %
- 3 syncs represent the trinity -- init, the child and the eternal zombie
- process. In doing 3, you're paying homage to each and I think such
- traditions are important in this shallow, mercurial business we find
- ourselves in.
- -- Jordan K. Hubbard
- %
- 43rd Law of Computing:
- Anything that can go wr
- fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
- %
- 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant
- ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme
- --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife
- ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working
- ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the
- ---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to
- --- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex.
- Nine in the second place means:
- The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune.
- Six in the third place means:
- In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue
- Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble!
- %
- 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
- The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National
- Redwood Forest.
- %
- 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
- The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the
- Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.
- %
- 99 blocks of crud on the disk,
- 99 blocks of crud!
- You patch a bug, and dump it again:
- 100 blocks of crud on the disk!
- 100 blocks of crud on the disk,
- 100 blocks of crud!
- You patch a bug, and dump it again:
- 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...
- %
- A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
- "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
- -- Mahatma Gandhi
- %
- A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.
- Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific
- game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have
- traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there,
- preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass.
- -- Donald A. Metz
- %
- A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and
- placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or
- rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results
- from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball
- and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the
- ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical
- phenomena.
- -- Donald A. Metz
- %
- A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
- responsibility at the other.
- %
- A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
- -- Carl Sandburg
- %
- A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out
- of a divorce.
- -- Don Quinn
- %
- A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
- and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
- adds up to be real money.
- -- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
- %
- A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
- %
- A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
- %
- A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.
- %
- ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you
- have turned into a pile of dust.
- %
- A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
- enlightened him with ours.
- %
- A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
- as afterward.
- %
- A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the
- poor to protect them from each other.
- %
- A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
- %
- A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not
- mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty
- trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.
- -- Dave Barry
- %
- A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
- %
- A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon.
- Avoid him. He's a Commie.
- %
- A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
- won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
- -- Bill Vaughan
- %
- A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.
- -- Herbert Prochnow
- %
- A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
- wants to read.
- -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature"
- %
- A closed mouth gathers no foot.
- %
- A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
- %
- A CONS is an object which cares.
- -- Bernie Greenberg
- %
- A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
- is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.
- %
- A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
- -- Dyer
- %
- A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the
- damned things is ample.
- -- Rebecca West
- %
- A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
- -- Ben Franklin
- %
- A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen
- lantern.
- -- Edgar A. Shoaff
- %
- A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?
- %
- A day without sunshine is like night.
- %
- A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur
- coat.
- %
- A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
- you will look forward to the trip.
- %
- A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was
- eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality
- test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
- Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into
- the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".
- %
- A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ...
- %
- 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 had listened to all of this said,
- "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
- %
- A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a
- Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser.
- Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network
- with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the
- Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly
- pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while
- simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick
- Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.
- %
- A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
- subject.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- A fool must now and then be right by chance.
- %
- A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
- superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
- -- G. B. Shaw
- %
- A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block
- of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an
- elephant.
- %
- A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
- -- D. Gries
- %
- A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
- dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension.
- -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
- %
- A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
- -- Adlai Stevenson
- %
- A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than
- he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men
- favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter
- facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
- ducks.
- -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
- %
- A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
- A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
- But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *____that ___had __to ____mean _________something*.
- -- S. Morgenstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"
- %
- A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort
- of).
- %
- A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened
- into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the
- hope of greening the landscape of idea.
- -- John Ciardi
- %
- A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
- rearranging their prejudices.
- -- William James
- %
- A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest
- man a century.
- %
- A hypothetical paradox:
- What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security
- team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of
- Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?
- -- Tom Galloway
- %
- A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
- C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh.
- E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech.
- G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug.
- I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake.
- K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks.
- M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of ennui.
- O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl
- Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
- S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits.
- U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
- W is for Winnie, embedded in ice, X is for Xerxes, devoured by mice.
- Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.
- -- Edward Gorey "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"
- %
- A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
- %
- A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
- -- Robert Frost
- %
- A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
- %
- A lady with one of her ears applied
- To an open keyhole heard, inside,
- Two female gossips in converse free --
- The subject engaging them was she.
- "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
- That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
- As soon as no more of it she could hear
- The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
- "I will not stay," she said with a pout,
- "To hear my character lied about!"
- -- Gopete Sherany
- %
- A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
- not worth knowing.
- %
- A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
- in than some that do.
- -- Dennis M. Ritchie
- %
- A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work
- by being declared to work.
- -- Anatol Holt
- %
- A Law of Computer Programming:
- Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
- will find the programmers cannot write in English.
- %
- A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
- nothing.
- -- Alan Perlis
- %
- A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
- -- H. H. Munroe, "Saki"
- %
- A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.
- %
- A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any
- price.
- %
- A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in
- his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and
- exceptional ability in that particular field."
- %
- A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
- -- Steve Wright
- %
- A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
- believe everything positively stinks.
- -- Lew Col
- %
- A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The
- first thing he notices is that the arms are too long.
- "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow
- and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine."
- "But the collar is up around my ears!"
- "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a
- little more ... that's it."
- "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation.
- "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you
- go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly."
- So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the
- street. Reba and Florence see him go by.
- "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!"
- "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"
- "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a
- sense of obligation."
- -- Stephen Crane
- %
- A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.
- %
- A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his
- novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how
- insignificant," said the master.
- "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
- "It is," came the reply.
- "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
- "It is even in a video game," said the master.
- "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
- The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The
- lesson is over for today," he said.
- -- "The Tao of Programming"
- %
- A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
- %
- 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.
- -- Audubon Society Magazine
- [From the BBC, 2001-02-02:
- For five weeks, a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
- monitored 1,000 king penguins on the island of South Georgia as Lynx
- helicopters passed overhead.
- "Not one king penguin fell over when the helicopters came over,"
- said team leader Dr. Richard Stone.
- "As the aircraft approached, the birds went quiet and stopped
- calling to each other, and adolescent birds that were not associated
- with nests began walking away from the noise. Pure animal instinct,
- really."
- The conclusion, said Dr. Stone, is that flights over 305 metres
- (1,000 feet) caused "only minor and transitory ecological effects" on
- king penguins.]
- %
- A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at
- the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the
- pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite
- nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..."
- "If what?" asked the composer.
- "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"
- %
- A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out
- on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed
- loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom
- do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"
- %
- A new koan:
- If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you.
- If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.
- It is an ice cream koan.
- %
- 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 New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies
- insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the
- right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.
- %
- A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the
- rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion.
- %
- A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which
- removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to
- doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous
- amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware
- limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the
- larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient
- power-down sequence.
- An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the
- building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has
- bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer
- cool.
- %
- 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 can not 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.
- %
- A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.
- %
- A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
- -- Gloria Steinem
- %
- A penny saved is ridiculous.
- %
- A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
- %
- A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
- -- George Wald
- %
- 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"
- %
- 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.
- %
- A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!
- -- The Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra"
- %
- A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
- And the Master answered:
- It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
- It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
- It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City
- upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come
- to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
- And that is Fate? said the priest.
- Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
- That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was
- too.
- -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- %
- A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came
- upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope.
- "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow
- man".
- As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well,
- he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."
- %
- A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
- %
- A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis
- of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite
- series of incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric
- precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from
- inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical
- accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality
- for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly
- defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the
- information in the first place.
- -- IEEE Grid news magazine
- %
- A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that
- your wife will give you for free.
- %
- A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
- too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
- was intended for her preservation.
- -- Colton
- %
- A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as
- "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if
- the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants
- to make a travesty of the game.
- -- Donald A. Metz
- %
- A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked
- out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon.
- -- Steel City News
- %
- A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives.
- %
- A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
- Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying,
- "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny
- bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the
- lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and
- breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the
- Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of
- the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt
- thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then
- proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being
- the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand
- Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight,
- shall snuff it."
- -- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
- %
- A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
- that the system works.
- %
- A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
- the real reason.
- %
- A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
- objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
- scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added
- concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three
- dimensional objects ...
- %
- A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
- not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized
- rosewater.
- %
- A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
- contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
- -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- %
- A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will
- keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those
- that are worth committing.
- -- Samuel Butler
- %
- A Severe Strain on the Credulity
- As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest
- parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket
- is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one
- considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one
- begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really
- starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor
- maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.
- Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing
- of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to
- re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum
- against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the
- knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
- -- New York Times Editorial, 1920
- %
- A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard.
- -- Prof. Steiner
- %
- ... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
- was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
- -- O'Henry
- %
- A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
- bad measures.
- -- Daniel Webster
- %
- A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an
- exam.
- %
- 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.
- %
- A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something
- undreamed of by its author.
- -- S. C. Johnson
- %
- A system admin's life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over
- Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the
- other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing
- new versions of their own innards!
- -- Michael O'Brien
- %
- A tautology is a thing which is tautological.
- %
- A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
- and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
- blowing first.
- %
- A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene
- triangle.
- %
- A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
- %
- A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
- in students.
- -- John Ciardi
- %
- A University without students is like an ointment without a fly.
- -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin
- %
- A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature
- replaces it with.
- -- Tennessee Williams
- %
- A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
- getting nervous.
- %
- A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
- people's attention.
- %
- A witty saying proves nothing.
- -- Voltaire
- %
- A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to
- admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact
- remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one
- reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It
- is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of
- using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these
- matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times.
- -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII
- %
- A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
- %
- A.A.A.A.A.:
- An organization for drunks who drive
- %
- AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!
- You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!
- %
- Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
- %
- About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
- -- Herbert Hoover
- %
- Absence makes the heart go wander.
- %
- Absent, adj.:
- Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;
- slandered.
- %
- Absentee, n.:
- A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove
- himself from the sphere of exaction.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Abstainer, n.:
- A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
- pleasure.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Absurdity, n.:
- A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own
- opinion.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
- because the stakes are so low.
- -- Wallace Sayre
- %
- Accident, n.:
- A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of
- body is better.
- -- Foolish Dictionary
- %
- Accidents cause History.
- If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the
- Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not
- have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil
- could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and
- the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person
- shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than
- fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening
- of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of
- the returns."
- %
- According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least
- once a year.
- %
- According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
- -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo
- %
- According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are
- totally worthless.
- %
- According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never
- dies.
- %
- According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to
- live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came
- in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much.
- Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime.
- -- David Letterman
- %
- Accordion, n.:
- A bagpipe with pleats.
- %
- Accuracy, n.:
- The vice of being right.
- %
- ACHTUNG!!!
- Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy
- schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit
- spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das
- rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und
- vatch das blinkenlights!!!
- %
- Acid -- better living through chemistry.
- %
- Acid absorbs 47 times its weight in excess Reality.
- %
- Acquaintance, n.:
- A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well
- enough to lend to.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing.
- %
- Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had
- everyone glued in their seats!"
- Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of
- it!"
- %
- Actor: So what do you do for a living?
- Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
- dishes for Chinese restaurants.
- -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
- %
- Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
- %
- ADA, n.:
- Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in
- Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA
- awareness."
- -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984
- %
- Admiration, n.:
- Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Adolescence, n.:
- The stage between puberty and adultery.
- %
- Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look
- like you ...
- -- Gilda Radner
- %
- Adore, v.:
- To venerate expectantly.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Adult, n.:
- One old enough to know better.
- %
- Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest
- way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
- -- Sinclair Lewis
- %
- Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic,
- then at least be aseptic.
- %
- After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose
- names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary
- Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted
- many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi
- Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two
- different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current
- developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer
- attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led
- to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,
- skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously
- injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it
- hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact
- that it sinks like a stone.
- -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
- %
- 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"
- %
- After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
- %
- ... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known
- quotations.
- -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare
- %
- 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
- %
- After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found
- on the bench.
- %
- After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from
- Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought,
- and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon
- to be created."
- "This is true," He replied.
- "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
- "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the
- right to make his laws?"
- "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to
- make his own."
- It was so granted.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of
- the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the
- cost to others, to win advancement.
- -- Norman Thomas
- %
- After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?
- %
- After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe
- everything. Just in case.
- %
- After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
- cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
- removed.
- %
- Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a
- change.
- %
- Afternoon, n.:
- That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the
- morning.
- %
- Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- Age, n.:
- That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we
- still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise
- to commit.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
- %
- Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
- there's the rub.
- For all dreams are not equal,
- some exit to nightmare
- most end with the dreamer
- But at least one must be lived ... and died.
- %
- 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.
- -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic
- %
- Air is water with holes in it.
- %
- Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
- -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
- %
- 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."
- %
- Alden's Laws:
- (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause
- of pregnancy.
- (2) Always be backlit.
- (3) Sit down whenever possible.
- %
- Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
- Aleph-null bottles of beer,
- You take one down, and pass it around,
- Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
- %
- Alex Haley was adopted!
- %
- Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
- for a dial tone.
- %
- Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of
- them keeps paying for it.
- -- Peggy Joyce
- %
- All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent
- upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a
- visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is
- informing, stimulating and ennobling.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely
- than others.
- -- Alan Truscott
- %
- All extremists should be taken out and shot.
- %
- All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
- without thinking.
- %
- "All flesh is grass"
- -- Isaiah
- Smoke a friend today.
- %
- All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
- %
- All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own
- importance.
- %
- All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled
- by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...
- %
- All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power.
- -- Ashleigh Brilliant
- %
- All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are
- Socrates.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane.
- %
- All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more
- specific.
- -- Jane Wagner
- %
- All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
- -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
- %
- All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of
- the United States.
- -- Vic Gold
- %
- All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
- %
- All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
- %
- All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of
- every organism to live beyond its income.
- -- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks"
- %
- All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
- -- Ernest Rutherford
- %
- All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
- hands.
- -- Saint Patrick
- %
- All syllogisms have three parts; therefore this is not a syllogism.
- %
- All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can,
- too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you
- subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you
- can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S.
- Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax
- decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What
- if it rains?"
- -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
- %
- ... all the modern inconveniences ...
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most
- ridiculous ones.
- -- La Rochefoucauld
- %
- All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by
- the government in less than a second.
- -- Jim Fiebig
- %
- All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
- -- Sean O'Casey
- %
- 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
- %
- All theoretical chemistry is really physics;
- and all theoretical chemists know it.
- -- Richard P. Feynman
- %
- All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door.
- %
- All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for
- fun. Money's just the way we keep score.
- -- Henry Tyroon
- %
- All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.
- %
- All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes
- infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
- which he was born.
- -- Francois Fenelon
- %
- 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"
- %
- Alone, adj.:
- In bad company.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight
- Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
- -- Dave Barry
- %
- Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
- %
- Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios,
- mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have
- any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place
- to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,
- Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a
- serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the
- same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely
- that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A
- penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job
- running the post office.
- -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
- %
- Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been
- reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the
- day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable
- interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on
- pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,
- and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
- Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
- material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the
- management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion
- the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical
- Gamekeeping."
- -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)
- %
- Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid
- back.
- %
- Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
- %
- Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing
- that way.
- %
- Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.
- %
- AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
- If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end
- across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.
- %
- AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
- There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it
- would completely cover the Sahara Desert.
- %
- Ambidextrous, adj.:
- Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
- -- Charlie McCarthy
- %
- America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism
- to decadence without touching civilization.
- -- John O'Hara
- %
- America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,
- until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and
- changed its name to "America".
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- 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"
- %
- Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it.
- %
- An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
- people refuse to see it.
- -- James Michener, "Space"
- %
- An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but
- is always polite to traffic cops.
- %
- 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
- %
- An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away.
- %
- 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"
- %
- An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it.
- %
- An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree
- murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's
- mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border.
- Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the
- suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* a
- murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..."
- %
- An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
- really care to know.
- %
- An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
- %
- An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.
- %
- An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded
- summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your
- arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey
- responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!"
- %
- An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
- -- A. P. Herbert
- %
- 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"
- %
- An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future.
- %
- ... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often
- picturesque liar.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these
- eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as
- possible.
- -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"
- %
- An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.
- %
- An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity
- in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him.
- "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if
- you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like
- an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an
- hour seems like a minute."
- The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a
- moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge.
- %
- Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no
- government at all.
- %
- And as we stand on the edge of darkness
- Let our chant fill the void
- That others may know
- In the land of the night
- The ship of the sun
- Is drawn by
- The grateful dead.
- -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC.
- %
- ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
- %
- And I heard Jeff exclaim,
- As they strolled out of sight,
- "Merry Christmas to all --
- You take credit cards, right?"
- -- "Outsiders" comic
- %
- ... And malt does more than Milton can
- To justify God's ways to man
- -- A. E. Housman
- %
- And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.
- %
- ... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of
- your own.
- -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter
- Preposterous Words
- %
- And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and
- fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it
- looking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One
- approach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin
- is turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but then
- of course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insides
- gradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So this
- procedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whom
- youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor and
- Orson Welles.
- -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
- %
- ...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a
- courtesy detail.
- %
- And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a
- horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical
- columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory,
- ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the
- world.
- -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
- %
- "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"
- asked the father of his little son.
- "Diet."
- %
- 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"
- %
- Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
- Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes.
- -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
- %
- Angels we have heard on High
- Tell us to go out and Buy.
- -- Tom Lehrer
- %
- Ankh if you love Isis.
- %
- Anoint, v.:
- To grease a king or other great functionary already
- sufficiently slippery.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Another Glitch in the Call
- ------- ------ -- --- ----
- (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)
- We don't need no indirection
- We don't need no flow control
- No data typing or declarations
- Did you leave the lists alone?
- Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
- Chorus:
- All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
- All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
- %
- Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Answers to Last Fortune's Questions:
- (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark).
- (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle.
- (3) I don't know.
- (4) Who cares?
- (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk,
- Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5.
- (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my
- book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and
- bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of
- Papyrus Books).
- %
- Anthony's Law of Force:
- Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
- %
- Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
- Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible
- corner of the workshop.
- Corollary:
- On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike
- your toes.
- %
- Antonym, n.:
- The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.
- %
- Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
- -- Charles McCabe
- %
- Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a
- representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a
- representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone
- capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously.
- -- Richard Schickel
- %
- Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
- -- Aesop
- %
- Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that
- this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a
- whole week.
- %
- Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to
- sell it.
- %
- Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche
- -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance,
- my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off
- the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was
- undoubtedly true.
- -- Solomon Short
- %
- Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there.
- -- Sydney J. Harris
- %
- Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger
- object.
- %
- Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to
- exactly the point of most pressure.
- -- Milt Barber
- %
- Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
- -- Rich Kulawiec
- %
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
- demo.
- %
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- -- Arthur C. Clarke
- %
- Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
- something.
- %
- Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
- -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
- %
- Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.
- %
- Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is
- probably parked.
- %
- Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
- %
- Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is
- supposed to be doing at the moment.
- -- Robert Benchley
- %
- Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
- -- Publius Syrus
- %
- Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with
- none.
- %
- Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
- is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
- make messes in the house.
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- %
- Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
- -- Samuel Goldwyn
- %
- Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad.
- -- W. C. Fields
- %
- Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
- account be allowed to do the job.
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never
- tried taking candy from a baby.
- -- Robin Hood
- %
- Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
- %
- Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.
- %
- Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the
- price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW"
- means the price went way up.
- %
- Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate.
- %
- Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.
- %
- Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution.
- %
- Aphorism, n.:
- A concise, clever statement.
- Afterism, n.:
- A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late.
- -- James Alexander Thom
- %
- APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of
- the future for the problems of the past: it creates a new generation of
- coding bums.
- %
- APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I
- can't read any of them.
- -- Roy Keir
- %
- Aquadextrous, adj.:
- Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off
- with your toes.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
- You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive.
- You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to
- be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same
- mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.
- %
- Arbitrary systems, pl.n.:
- Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing
- general can be said."
- %
- ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE --
- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE
- %
- Are you a turtle?
- %
- Arguments with furniture are rarely productive.
- -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- %
- ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
- You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You
- are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are
- not very nice.
- %
- Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your
- shoes.
- -- Mickey Mouse
- %
- Armadillo:
- To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle
- %
- Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
- (1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
- (2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
- (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
- first two laws.
- %
- Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to
- measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you
- imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- Art is anything you can get away with.
- -- Marshall McLuhan
- %
- Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
- -- Paul Gauguin
- %
- Arthur's Laws of Love:
- (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you
- remind them of someone else.
- (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be
- delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of
- yourself in person.
- %
- Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum.
- %
- As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are
- interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick
- perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask,
- "that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?"
- -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
- %
- As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
- certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I
- became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can
- meet girls.
- -- Matt Cartmill
- %
- 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
- %
- As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
- -- Weisert
- %
- As I was going up Punch Card Hill,
- Feeling worse and worser,
- There I met a C.R.T.
- And it drop't me a cursor.
- C.R.T., C.R.T.,
- Phosphors light on you!
- If I had fifty hours a day
- I'd spend them all at you.
- -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
- %
- As I was passing Project MAC,
- I met a Quux with seven hacks.
- Every hack had seven bugs;
- Every bug had seven manifestations;
- Every manifestation had seven symptoms.
- Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks,
- How many losses at Project MAC?
- %
- As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
- industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free
- speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to
- myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a
- real American talk like that.
- -- Frank Hague (1896-1956)
- %
- As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
- %
- As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
- fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
- popular.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.
- %
- As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500
- programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging.
- -- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new
- computer system.
- %
- As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it
- wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had
- to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized
- that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in
- finding mistakes in my own programs.
- -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949
- %
- As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's
- so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there
- is always a future in Computer Maintenance.
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such thing as a free
- variable."
- %
- As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple
- memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time
- to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A,
- E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.
- -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion"
- %
- As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would
- interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the
- Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure
- out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on
- Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual
- organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result,
- birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never
- see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and
- stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations
- with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are
- talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both
- highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
- Teen Should Know"
- %
- As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull
- your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you.
- The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along
- with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall
- from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all
- over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of
- a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the
- spider is suing you for damages.
- %
- As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself."
- %
- ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS.
- %
- Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if
- one went to Harvard).
- -- Edgar R. Fiedler
- %
- Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
- %
- Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the
- Station-to-Station rate.
- %
- Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the
- bathtub, it tolls for thee.
- %
- Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell"
- for an answer.
- %
- Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old
- woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,
- she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.'
- -- David Letterman
- %
- Ass, n.:
- The masculine of "lass".
- %
- Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve.
- Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be
- strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum.
- Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check
- and dying broke.
- -- Stanley Walker
- %
- At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los
- Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head
- under the exhaust of a bus until he revived.
- %
- At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is
- not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where
- it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.
- -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow
- %
- At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
- challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
- -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985
- %
- ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand.
- -- J. B. White
- %
- At least they're ___________EXPERIENCED incompetents
- %
- At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his
- thumb with a hammer.
- -- Marshall Lumsden
- %
- At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will
- find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on
- the computer.
- %
- Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole
- or street lamp.
- %
- Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever
- depths they were once able to plumb.
- -- Stanley Kaufman
- %
- Automobile, n.:
- A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians.
- %
- Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep.
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- Avoid reality at all costs.
- %
- Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but
- we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you.
- -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a student entering
- school in the fall after the Kent State shootings
- %
- Bacchus, n.:
- A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for
- getting drunk.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Bagbiter:
- 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually
- intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This
- bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on
- obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the
- bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS,
- CHOMPER, CHOMPING.
- %
- Bagdikian's Observation:
- Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American
- newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a
- ukulele.
- %
- Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry:
- A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides
- by governors.
- %
- Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
- %
- Banectomy, n.:
- The removal of bruises on a banana.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.
- %
- Barach's Rule:
- An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician.
- %
- Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the
- floor -- especially in the dark.
- %
- Barometer, n.:
- An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we
- are having.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Barth's Distinction:
- There are two types of people: those who divide people into two
- types, and those who don't.
- %
- Baruch's Observation:
- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- %
- Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high
- taxes.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- Basic is a high level languish.
- APL is a high level anguish.
- %
- BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'.
- %
- BASIC, n.:
- A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in
- that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
- %
- Bathquake, n.:
- The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water
- faucet is turned on to a certain point.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your
- door.
- %
- BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...)
- %
- Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely
- get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your
- face.
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
- %
- Be careful of reading health books. You might die of a misprint.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Be different: conform.
- %
- Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so
- get used to it.
- %
- Be security conscious -- National Defense is at stake.
- %
- Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and
- miss
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- %
- Bees are very busy souls
- They have no time for birth controls
- And that is why in times like these
- There are so many Sons of Bees.
- %
- Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
- took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his
- followers.
- One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and
- there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
- "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his
- commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your
- Purpose in Life, anyway?"
- Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The
- Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
- Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
- Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
- -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
- %
- Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego.
- %
- Begathon, n.:
- A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so
- you won't have to watch commercials.
- %
- Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh
- away.
- %
- Beifeld's Principle:
- The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and
- receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is
- already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better
- looking and richer male friend.
- %
- "Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
- %
- Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
- %
- Bennett's Laws of Horticulture:
- (1) Houses are for people to live in.
- (2) Gardens are for plants to live in.
- (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.
- %
- Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence.
- -- Time Bandits
- %
- Besides the device, the box should contain:
- * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
- * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
- club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.
- YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram
- cable.
- IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your
- spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car
- that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King
- without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's
- why."
- WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
- -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
- %
- Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon.
- %
- better !pout !cry
- better watchout
- lpr why
- santa claus <north pole >town
- cat /etc/passwd >list
- ncheck list
- ncheck list
- cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
- cat list | grep nice >giftlist
- santa claus <north pole > town
- who | grep sleeping
- who | grep awake
- who | egrep 'bad|good'
- for (goodness sake) {
- be good
- }
- %
- Better dead than mellow.
- %
- Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
- Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
- Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
- great effort pushing boulders into a single word.
- It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.
- Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin
- equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the
- destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass
- both Parliament and Party.
- It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other
- planets, this may be the first message received from us.
- -- The Realist, November, 1964
- %
- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
- tried it.
- -- Donald Knuth
- %
- Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!
- %
- Beware of low-flying butterflies.
- %
- Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
- -- Leonard Brandwein
- %
- Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a
- drip under pressure.
- %
- Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and
- finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of
- murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by
- their ignorance the hard way.
- -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
- %
- Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but
- nothing of interest is easy.
- %
- Binary, adj.:
- Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
- %
- Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same
- thing as division.
- %
- Bipolar, adj.:
- Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,
- New York
- %
- Birth, n.:
- The first and direst of all disasters.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic.
- %
- Bizoos, n.:
- The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a
- basketball.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- ... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...
- %
- Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
- -- Herbert Hoover
- %
- Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles,
- for they Shall be Known as Wheels.
- %
- BLISS is ignorance.
- %
- Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
- %
- Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.
- %
- Blore's Razor:
- Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is
- funnier.
- %
- Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in
- plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has
- it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was
- arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept
- throwing up on them.
- %
- Boling's postulate:
- If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
- %
- Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
- Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
- vividly manifests their lack of progress.
- %
- Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
- Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
- %
- BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!
- %
- Boob's Law:
- You always find something in the last place you look.
- %
- Bore, n.:
- A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.
- -- Walter Winchell
- %
- Bore, n.:
- A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Boren's Laws:
- (1) When in charge, ponder.
- (2) When in trouble, delegate.
- (3) When in doubt, mumble.
- %
- Boss, n.:
- According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages
- the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss,
- in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an
- ornamental stud."
- %
- Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry
- that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation
- straightened out for a crowbar.
- -- O. W. Holmes
- %
- Boston, n.:
- Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for
- finishing second in the Irish jig competition.
- %
- Boy, life takes a long time to live.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- Boy, n.:
- A noise with dirt on it.
- %
- Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least
- when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
- -- James Thurber
- %
- Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
- -- Kim Hubbard
- %
- Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the
- unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only
- (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend
- to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.'
- -- Mike Padlipsky, Foreword to "Elements of Networking Style"
- %
- Bradley's Bromide:
- If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a
- committee -- that will do them in.
- %
- Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
- When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
- easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have
- handled this?"
- %
- Brain fried -- Core dumped
- %
- Brain, n.:
- The apparatus with which we think that we think.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]:
- To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of
- error in an opponent.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- 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"
- %
- Bride, n.:
- A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
- revitalize the corner saloon.
- %
- British Israelites:
- The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of
- Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by
- Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further
- believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the
- Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in
- the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your
- head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- Broad-mindedness, n.:
- The result of flattening high-mindedness out.
- %
- 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
- %
- Brook's Law:
- Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
- %
- Brooke's Law:
- Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
- discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it
- beyond recognition.
- %
- Bubble Memory, n.:
- A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's
- intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".
- %
- Bucy's Law:
- Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
- %
- Bug, n.:
- An aspect of a computer program which exists because the
- programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he
- wrote the program.
- Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed.
- -- Ray Simard
- %
- Bugs, pl. n.:
- Small living things that small living boys throw on small
- living girls.
- %
- BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the
- outfit."
- GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?"
- BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive."
- -- Jay Ward
- %
- Bumper sticker:
- All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British
- manufacture.
- %
- Bureaucrat, n.:
- A person who cuts red tape sideways.
- -- J. McCabe
- %
- Bureaucrat, n.:
- A politician who has tenure.
- %
- Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.
- %
- Burn's Hog Weighing Method:
- (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a
- sawhorse.
- (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.
- (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again
- perfectly balanced.
- (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
- -- Robert Burns
- %
- But as records of courts and 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, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations paws.
- %
- But I don't like Spam!!!!
- %
- But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human
- intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
- we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
- that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
- of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard
- example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --
- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
- whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
- finite or an infinite number.
- -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
- %
- But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the
- system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,
- analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
- -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing
- Compilers"
- %
- But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast
- to the nearest gas station.
- %
- But scientists, who ought to know
- Assure us that it must be so.
- Oh, let us never, never doubt
- What nobody is sure about.
- -- Hilaire Belloc
- %
- But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
- Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
- But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
- -- Mark "The Bard" Twain
- %
- 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?"
- %
- But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad
- place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.
- Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a
- kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs,
- poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I
- explained yet about the bytes?
- %
- ... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
- -- Virginia Masters
- %
- But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable
- computers?
- %
- 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.
- %
- By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
- completely overwhelm you.
- %
- By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact,
- it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to
- invent.
- -- R. Emerson
- -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program
- (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.")
- [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to
- misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"]
- %
- By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
- to suspect 'Hungry' ...
- -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
- %
- By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I
- mean.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- 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"
- %
- C, n.:
- A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more
- like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or
- anything else. It is either the best language available to the art
- today, or it isn't.
- -- Ray Simard
- %
- Cabbage, n.:
- A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
- a man's head.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception.
- -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
- %
- Cahn's Axiom:
- When all else fails, read the instructions.
- %
- California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
- -- Fred Allen
- %
- California, n.:
- From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or
- Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or
- "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex."
- -- Ed Moran
- %
- Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
- -- Indian proverb
- %
- Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target
- Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept.
- %
- Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle.
- -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
- %
- Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth
- Corner, Vermont.
- -- Clarence Darrow
- %
- Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two
- points.
- -- M. M. Johnston
- %
- Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
- It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
- Supplement:
- A .44 magnum beats four aces.
- %
- Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents
- for postage and 30 cents for storage.
- -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post
- %
- Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
- Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
- A root or two, a torus and a node:
- The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- CANCER (June 21 - July 22)
- You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's
- problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things
- off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare
- recipients are Cancer people.
- %
- Canonical, adj.:
- The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true
- story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some
- annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a
- point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, and
- eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used
- the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking.
- Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!"
- Stallman: "What did he say?"
- Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."
- %
- CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19)
- You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do
- much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any
- importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as
- they take root and become trees.
- %
- Captain Penny's Law:
- You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
- the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
- %
- Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than
- expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to
- complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their
- planning to reduce the time it takes.
- %
- Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and
- trousers that don't match.
- %
- Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.:
- The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a
- dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then
- putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Cat, n.:
- Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.
- %
- Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
- -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson"
- %
- Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.
- %
- CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..
- %
- Cecil, you're my final hope
- Of finding out the true Straight Dope
- For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat
- But none of my cats are at all like that.
- This unusual animal (so it is said)
- Is simultaneously alive and dead!
- What I don't understand is just why he
- Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
- My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
- In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't.
- If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way
- And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
- But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
- Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo.
- -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium
- of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams
- %
- Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
- %
- Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the
- center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation
- works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool.
- -- Kelvin Throop III
- %
- Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so,
- how many?
- %
- Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel.
- Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something
- Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy
- out of it?
- Jaka: Ugh!
- Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy?
- -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret"
- %
- 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"
- %
- Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy,
- But it's very funny--
- Did you ever try buying them without money?
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Chapter 1
- The story so far:
- In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot
- of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
- %
- Character Density, n.:
- The number of very weird people in the office.
- %
- Checkuary, n.:
- The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and
- ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his
- checks.
- %
- Chef, n.:
- Any cook who swears in French.
- %
- Chemicals, n.:
- Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.
- %
- Chemistry is applied theology.
- -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III
- %
- Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.
- %
- Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36:
- Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn
- headgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer".
- -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81
- %
- Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84:
- The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request
- for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will
- cheerfully baste you.
- -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82
- %
- Chicago, n.:
- Where the dead still vote ... early and often!
- %
- Chicken Little only has to be right once.
- %
- Chicken Little was right.
- %
- Chicken Soup, n.:
- An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin,
- cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure
- is neurotic dependence on one's mother.
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every
- effort to teach them good manners.
- %
- Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're
- going to catch you in next.
- -- Franklin P. Jones
- %
- Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
- And that's what parents were created for.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for
- word what you shouldn't have said.
- %
- Chism's Law of Completion:
- The amount of time required to complete a government project is
- precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.
- %
- Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
- When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
- %
- Chivalry, Schmivalry!
- Roger the thief has a
- method he uses for
- sneaky attacks:
- Folks who are reading are
- Characteristically
- Always Forgetting to
- Guard their own bac ...
- %
- Christ:
- A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time.
- %
- Churchill's Commentary on Man:
- Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the
- time he will pick himself up and continue on.
- %
- Cigarette, n.:
- A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in
- between.
- %
- Cinemuck, n.:
- The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which
- covers the floors of movie theaters.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Clairvoyant, n.:
- A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that
- which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like
- shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
- -- Phyllis Diller
- %
- Cleanliness is next to impossible.
- %
- Cleveland still lives. God ____must be dead.
- %
- Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day.
- %
- Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
- %
- Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
- society.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance.
- %
- Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.
- %
- Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --
- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong.
- -- Blair Houghton
- %
- Coincidence, n.:
- You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was
- going on.
- %
- Coincidences are spiritual puns.
- -- G. K. Chesterton
- %
- Cold, adj.:
- When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.
- %
- Cold, adj.:
- When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own
- pockets.
- %
- Collaboration, n.:
- A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the
- other fellow can spell.
- %
- College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the
- faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if
- the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms,
- legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the
- loss to humanity.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- Colvard's Logical Premises:
- All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it
- won't.
- Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary:
- This is especially true when dealing with someone you're
- attracted to.
- Grelb's Commentary
- Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.
- %
- Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
- And every vector dreams of matrices.
- Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
- It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
- Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
- Their indices bedecked from one to _n,
- Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- Command, n.:
- Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in
- such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control.
- %
- COMMENT
- Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
- A medley of extemporanea;
- And love is thing that can never go wrong;
- And I am Marie of Roumania.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- Commitment, n.:
- Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs.
- The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.
- %
- Committee Rules:
- (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
- (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this
- stamps you as being wise.
- (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the
- others.
- (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
- (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you
- popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
- %
- Committee, n.:
- A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group
- decide that nothing can be done.
- -- Fred Allen
- %
- Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
- be appointed to do the work.
- %
- Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at
- different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
- -- Clive James
- %
- Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
- -- Josh Billings
- %
- Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness
- of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule."
- -- David Guaspari
- %
- Computer programmers do it byte by byte.
- %
- Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems
- theory.
- %
- Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
- %
- Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
- -- Pablo Picasso
- %
- Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in
- the world that just don't add up.
- %
- Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more
- than the estimate the job will cost.
- %
- Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
- -- La Rochefoucauld
- %
- Concept, n.:
- Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than
- $25,000.
- %
- ... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this
- business, it probably would be gibberish.
- -- Thom McLeod
- %
- Condense soup, not books!
- %
- Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is
- good for dandruff.
- -- Peter de Vries
- %
- Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
- %
- Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that
- would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that
- you undoubtedly will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer
- maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS
- OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY
- UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED
- IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD
- WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND
- SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS,
- RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS,
- RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE
- FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
- -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
- %
- Connector Conspiracy, n:
- [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the
- KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of
- manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything)
- to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old
- stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive
- interface devices.
- %
- Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.
- -- H. L. Mencken, "A Mencken Chrestomathy"
- %
- Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
- %
- Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you
- wish you weren't.
- %
- Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich.
- -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]
- %
- Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then
- give it back to them.
- %
- "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and
- if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
- technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat.
- %
- Conversation, n.:
- A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
- is called the listener.
- %
- Conway's Law:
- In any organization there will always be one person who knows
- what is going on.
- This person must be fired.
- %
- Coronation, n.:
- The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and
- visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite
- bomb.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Corrupt, adj.:
- In politics, holding an office of trust or profit.
- %
- Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a
- muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can
- make of capitalism.
- -- Walter Lippmann
- %
- Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job
- is to enforce the law and fight crime.
- -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan
- %
- Court, n.:
- A place where they dispense with justice.
- -- Arthur Train
- %
- Coward, n.:
- One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- [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
- %
- Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
- -- A. E. Neuman
- %
- Critic, n.:
- A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries
- to please him.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Croll's Query:
- If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?
- %
- cursor address, n:
- "Hello, cursor!"
- -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
- %
- Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
- eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
- business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation.
- -- Johnny Hart
- %
- 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"
- %
- Cynic, n.:
- One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye.
- %
- Dare to be naive.
- -- R. Buckminster Fuller
- %
- Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie.
- %
- Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."
- Allen Gwinn: "Yours is."
- %
- Dawn, n.:
- The time when men of reason go to bed.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed.
- %
- %DCL-E-MEM-BAD, bad memory
- -VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears
- %
- Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also
- easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to
- improve.
- %
- Dear Lord:
- I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On
- the other hand", again.
- %
- Dear Miss Manners:
- My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's
- elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between
- courses, is all right. Which is correct?
- Gentle Reader:
- For the purpose of answering examinations in your home
- economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this
- principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now
- than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners
- believes that is.
- %
- Dear Miss Manners:
- Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from
- your face.
- Gentle Reader:
- Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on
- your face ...
- %
- 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"
- %
- Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
- Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business
- signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a
- word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR
- ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when
- creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put
- quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT
- DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
- -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
- %
- Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.
- %
- Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired.
- -- R. Geis
- %
- Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.
- %
- Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'.
- %
- Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
- %
- Death is only a state of mind.
- Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else.
- %
- Death to all fanatics!
- %
- Decision maker, n.:
- The person in your office who was unable to form a task force
- before the music stopped.
- %
- Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really
- overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene
- language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the
- judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when
- addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang).
- -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc.
- %
- Deck Us All With Boston Charlie
- Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
- Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
- Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
- Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo!
- Don't we know archaic barrel,
- Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
- Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
- Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- "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
- %
- default, n.:
- [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you,
- mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will
- come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear
- -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
- %
- #define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
- #define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
- - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
- - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
- -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
- %
- Definitions of hardware and software for dummies:
- Hardware is what you kick;
- Software is what you curse.
- %
- DELETE A FORTUNE!
- Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like
- to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to
- "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it
- gets expunged.
- %
- Deliberation, n.:
- The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is
- buttered on.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
- %
- Demand the establishment of the government
- in its rightful home at Disneyland.
- %
- Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than
- we deserve.
- -- George Bernard Shaw
- %
- Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
- aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
- -- Senator Soaper
- %
- Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
- incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
- -- G. B. Shaw
- %
- Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you
- don't think.
- %
- Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by
- Jackasses.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
- -- Jawaharlal Nehru
- %
- Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people
- are right more than half of the time.
- -- E. B. White
- %
- Democracy, n.:
- A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass
- meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy.
- Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.
- Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,
- whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion,
- prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
- Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
- -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932),
- since withdrawn.
- %
- Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the
- board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.
- %
- Dentist, n.:
- A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls
- coins out of one's pockets.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will
- be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over
- the table.
- -- The Anarchist Cookbook
- %
- DETERIORATA
- 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
- %
- DeVries's Dilemma:
- If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want
- hits the paper.
- %
- Did I say 2? I lied.
- %
- Did you know ...
- That no-one ever reads these things?
- %
- Did you know that clones never use mirrors?
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- 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?
- %
- Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot
- that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states:
- "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and
- squirrel."
- -- ihuxw!tommyo
- %
- Die, v.:
- To stop sinning suddenly.
- -- Elbert Hubbard
- %
- Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a
- conventional thing to happen to him.
- -- John Barrymore's dying words
- %
- Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.
- %
- Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
- Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
- %
- Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
- %
- Disc space -- the final frontier!
- %
- Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
- yours too."
- -- Dave Haynie
- %
- Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of my
- employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely
- coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is
- non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the
- absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader.
- The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for
- the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal,
- non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)
- %
- Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.
- %
- Distinctive, adj.:
- A different color or shape than our competitors.
- %
- Distress, n.:
- A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- 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.
- %
- Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?
- %
- Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?
- %
- Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.
- %
- Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon.
- %
- Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to
- anger.
- %
- Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good
- with ketchup.
- %
- Do not read this fortune under penalty of law.
- Violators will be prosecuted.
- (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.))
- %
- Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight.
- %
- Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each
- day as it comes.
- -- Donald Kaul
- %
- Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.
- %
- Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum.
- %
- Do you have lysdexia?
- %
- Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take
- the time to take the dirt out of them?
- %
- "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!"
- %
- Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and
- when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
- -- Dick Brandon
- %
- Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must
- be good because the programmers hate it so much.
- %
- Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
- %
- Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow.
- %
- Don't be humble ... you're not that great.
- -- Golda Meir
- %
- Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
- %
- Don't change the reason, just change the excuses!
- -- Joe Cointment
- %
- "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"
- %
- Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today!
- %
- Don't feed the bats tonight.
- %
- Don't get even -- get odd!
- %
- Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly
- misleading. Debug only code.
- -- Dave Storer
- %
- Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes
- you nothing. It was here first.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.
- %
- Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.
- %
- Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier.
- %
- Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today.
- %
- Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam.
- %
- Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.
- %
- Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.
- %
- Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.
- %
- Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy
- it today you can do it again tomorrow.
- %
- Don't say yes until I finish talking.
- -- Darryl F. Zanuck
- %
- Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business.
- Cheat.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in!
- -- "Brazil"
- %
- Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive.
- %
- Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective.
- %
- Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to
- get more wax!!
- %
- Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts
- avoiding you.
- -- The Old Farmer's Almanac
- %
- Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any
- good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
- -- Howard Aiken
- %
- Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already
- tomorrow in Australia.
- -- Charles Schultz
- %
- Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too
- busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.
- %
- Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in?
- %
- Don Ameche: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she
- pretty?
- W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of
- bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to
- sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia.
- Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative.
- W. C.: It's almost impossible.
- -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson
- E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles"
- %
- Double Bucky
- (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")
- Double bucky, you're the one!
- You make my keyboard lots of fun
- Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
- (Vo-vo-de-o!)
- Control and Meta side by side,
- Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
- Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
- Oh, I sure wish that I,
- Had a couple of bits more!
- Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four.
- Double bucky, left and right
- OR'd together, outta sight!
- Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
- Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
- Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
- -- (C) 1978 by Guy L. Steele, Jr.
- (to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit
- be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use
- by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"])
- %
- Double-Blind Experiment, n.:
- An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is
- fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied by a
- strong belief in the tooth fairy.
- %
- Down with categorical imperative!
- %
- Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.
- %
- Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
- The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
- of your eyes.
- %
- Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying.
- %
- Drive defensively. Buy a tank.
- %
- Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route!
- %
- Ducharme's Axiom:
- If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize
- yourself as part of the problem.
- %
- Ducharme's Precept:
- Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
- %
- Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and
- it holds the universe together.
- -- Carl Zwanzig
- %
- Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders
- has been discontinued.
- %
- Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate
- and captain of your soul.
- %
- Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been
- discontinued.
- %
- During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen
- were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a
- red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted,
- "Hey, you almost hit my wife."
- "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a
- shot at mine, over there."
- %
- During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several
- times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o
- %
- Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have
- nothing whatever to do with it.
- -- W. Somerset Maugham (last words)
- %
- E Pluribus Unix
- %
- Eagleson's Law:
- Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more
- months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is
- an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
- %
- Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends
- %
- /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.
- %
- Earth is a beta site.
- %
- Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun.
- -- Jeff Berner
- %
- Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube:
- Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the
- cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of
- the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this
- means the puzzle is solved.
- -- Steve Rubenstein
- %
- Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
- %
- Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work.
- %
- Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
- -- John Kenneth Galbraith
- %
- Economics, n.:
- Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K.
- Galbraith ...
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy
- would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it
- hasn't.
- -- Robert Orben
- %
- 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
- %
- Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.
- -- Fred Allen
- %
- Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.
- -- Irsin Edman
- %
- Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!
- -- Bullwinkle Moose
- %
- Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.
- -- Adlai Stevenson
- %
- 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...
- %
- Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain
- of being a damned fool.
- -- Bellamy Brooks
- %
- Egotist, n.:
- A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
- -- 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?
- %
- Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees.
- -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star
- %
- 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.
- %
- Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.
- %
- Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles,
- called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you
- have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in
- most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the
- time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could
- have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey,
- although God alone knows why it would want to.
- The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current,
- direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes
- have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one
- direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents
- harmful electron buildup in the wires.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- Electrocution, n.:
- Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.
- %
- Elevators smell different to midgets.
- %
- Emerson's Law of Contrariness:
- Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we
- can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
- %
- Encyclopedia Salesmen:
- Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police
- and tell them your house is being burgled.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
- Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
- -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
- %
- Entropy isn't what it used to be.
- %
- Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which
- otherwise require harder thinking.
- -- Jerome Lettvin
- %
- Epperson's law:
- When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably
- something his wife can beat him at.
- %
- Equal bytes for women.
- %
- Error in operator: add beer
- %
- Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven
- Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
- Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven
- Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben.
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- Etymology, n.:
- Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that
- were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed
- from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy"
- ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow."
- -- Mike Kellen
- %
- Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to
- speak it to?
- -- Clarence Darrow
- %
- Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral.
- -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- %
- 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.
- %
- Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
- just how busy they are?
- %
- 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"
- %
- Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.
- %
- Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.
- %
- Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this
- woman and stop her.
- %
- Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one
- idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's
- sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all
- of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two
- highly-motivated, caustic twits.
- -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet
- %
- Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
- signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
- fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
- spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
- genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
- of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
- humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
- %
- 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 [above] lemma ["All horses are the same
- color"], that does not exist.
- %
- Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
- -- Frank Moore Colby
- %
- Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
- %
- Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own.
- -- Don Vonada
- %
- Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95.
- %
- Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.
- -- Miguel de Cervantes
- %
- Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the
- richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.
- -- Robert Orben
- %
- Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.
- It makes sense, when you don't think about it.
- %
- Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
- instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
- program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
- %
- Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and
- another for which it wasn't.
- %
- Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.
- %
- Every solution breeds new problems.
- %
- Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no
- guarantee of eventual success.
- %
- Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it.
- %
- Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
- -- Beckett
- %
- Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
- -- Dykstra
- %
- Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
- %
- Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be
- taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers.
- %
- Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to
- realize it.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____does anything about it.
- %
- Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately,
- no one we know belongs.
- %
- Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being
- that a belch is more satisfying.
- -- Ingmar Bergman
- %
- Everything journalists write is true, except when they write about
- something you know.
- -- Dag-Erling Smorgrav,
- June 1999, FreeBSD-Stable Mailing List
- %
- Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
- %
- Everything you know is wrong!
- %
- Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less
- obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no
- solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
- There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no
- straight lines.
- -- R. Buckminster Fuller
- %
- 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"
- %
- Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike the office water cooler.
- %
- Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator.
- %
- Excellent day to have a rotten day.
- %
- Excellent time to become a missing person.
- %
- Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
- acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
- -- W. Somerset Maugham
- %
- Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility.
- %
- Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do
- the work.
- -- John G. Pollard
- %
- Expect the worst. It's the least you can do.
- %
- Expense Accounts, n.:
- Corporate food stamps.
- %
- Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
- -- Olivier
- %
- Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
- when you make it again.
- -- Franklin P. Jones
- %
- Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and
- the instruction afterward.
- %
- Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old
- ones.
- %
- Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.
- %
- Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
- %
- Expert, n.:
- Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
- %
- Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules:
- NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE
- To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully
- cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand
- corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and
- address -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) --
- to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower
- left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card
- below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your
- computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL
- SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card
- (without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the
- Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be
- disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print
- this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and
- completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize.
- %
- F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
- %
- f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd.
- %
- f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
- %
- 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
- %
- Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
- %
- Fairy Tale, n.:
- A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.
- %
- Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic
- without looking to see whether the seeds move.
- %
- Faith, n:
- That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be
- untrue.
- %
- Fakir, n:
- A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost
- religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to
- have shinnied up a rope and vanished.
- %
- Familiarity breeds attempt.
- %
- Families, when a child is born
- Want it to be intelligent.
- I, through intelligence,
- Having wrecked my whole life,
- Only hope the baby will prove
- Ignorant and stupid.
- Then he will crown a tranquil life
- By becoming a Cabinet Minister
- -- Su Tung-p'o
- %
- Famous last words:
- %
- Famous last words:
- (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it."
- (2) "You and what army?"
- (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be
- a cop."
- %
- 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!
- %
- Famous, adj.:
- Conspicuously miserable.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- 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"
- %
- Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
- every six months.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- Fats Loves Madelyn.
- %
- Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ...
- %
- Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children,
- neither will you.
- %
- Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each
- other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around
- the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors
- d'oeuvres.
- Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes
- to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your
- Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright
- piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.
- Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with
- inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down
- other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and
- placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when
- the little hammers strike.
- Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over
- their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning
- Christmas tree. The piano is missing.
- You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless
- you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level
- 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog.
- %
- Fifth Law of Applied Terror:
- If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
- Corollary:
- If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.
- %
- Fifth Law of Procrastination:
- Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
- there is nothing important to do.
- %
- Fifty flippant frogs
- Walked by on flippered feet
- And with their slime they made the time
- Unnaturally fleet.
- %
- FIGHTING WORDS
- Say my love is easy had,
- Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
- Say I am too often sad --
- Still behold me at your side.
- Say I'm neither brave nor young,
- Say I woo and coddle care,
- Say the devil touched my tongue --
- Still you have my heart to wear.
- But say my verses do not scan,
- And I get me another man!
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North
- Carolina.
- %
- Finagle's Creed:
- Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.
- %
- Finagle's First Law:
- If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
- %
- Finagle's Fourth Law:
- Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes
- it worse.
- %
- Finagle's Second Law:
- No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be
- someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it
- happened according to his own pet theory.
- %
- Finagle's Third Law:
- In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
- beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.
- Corollaries:
- (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
- (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
- don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
- %
- Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture
- on a rock.
- -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
- %
- Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.
- %
- Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.
- %
- Fine's Corollary:
- Functionality breeds Contempt.
- %
- Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less:
- "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..."
- Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to:
- P.O. Box 35
- Baffled Greek, Michigan
- %
- First Corollary of Taber's Second Law:
- Machines that piss people off get murdered.
- -- Pat Taber
- %
- First Law of Bicycling:
- No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the
- wind.
- %
- First Law of Procrastination:
- Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
- for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed
- the deadline).
- %
- First Law of Socio-Genetics:
- Celibacy is not hereditary.
- %
- First Rule of History:
- History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
- other.
- %
- First things first -- but not necessarily in that order
- -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who"
- %
- 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"
- %
- Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.
- -- Robert Firth
- %
- FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when
- the little hand is on the ....
- %
- Flon's Law:
- There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
- the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
- %
- 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"
- %
- flowchart, n. & v.:
- [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart
- "a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."]
- 1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction
- problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation
- using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template. 2. n. Neronic
- doodling while the system burns. 3. n. A low-cost substitute for
- wallpaper. 4. n. The innumerate misleading the illiterate. "A
- thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's
- Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps. 5. v.intrans. To produce
- flowcharts with no particular object in mind. 6. v.trans. To obfuscate
- (a problem) with esoteric cartoons.
- -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
- %
- Flugg's Law:
- When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the
- world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
- %
- Flying saucers on occasion
- Show themselves to human eyes.
- Aliens fume, put off invasion
- While they brand these tales as lies.
- %
- Fog Lamps, n.:
- Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the
- fronts of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the
- driver's brain is in a fog.
- See also "Idiot Lights".
- %
- Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
- -- Walt Kelly, "Putluck Pogo"
- %
- For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ...
- %
- For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a
- cat.
- %
- For an adequate time call 555-3321.
- %
- For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be
- always old-fashioned.
- %
- For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
- and wrong.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
- -- R. Clopton
- %
- "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence
- of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind."
- "Whose?"
- "MINE! HA-HA!"
- %
- For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.
- %
- For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entire
- life to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days
- now. He has the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child gets
- when he suddenly realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch
- in the coat closet and neither parent [because of the flu] would have
- the strength to object. He has been foraging for his own food, which
- means his diet consists entirely of "food" substances which are
- advertised only on Saturday-morning cartoon shows; substances that are
- the color of jukebox lights and that, for legal reasons, have their
- names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot
- ("part of this complete breakfast").
- -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
- %
- For perfect happiness, remember two things:
- (1) Be content with what you've got.
- (2) Be sure you've got plenty.
- %
- For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say
- "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.
- -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to
- the U.S.
- %
- For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz.
- %
- 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
- %
- For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.
- -- Abraham Lincoln
- %
- For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
- phone calls taper off.
- -- Johnny Carson
- %
- For years a secret shame destroyed my peace --
- I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
- But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
- Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
- -- Justin Richardson
- %
- For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!
- %
- Forgetfulness, n.:
- A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their
- destitution of conscience.
- %
- Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.
- %
- FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6
- RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min.
- One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and
- arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating
- hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison.
- %
- 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 Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
- "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
- %
- Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month):
- Don't Write On Walls!
- (and underneath)
- You want I should type?
- %
- Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky):
- No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this
- State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed
- with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females
- weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it
- apply to female horses.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week:
- Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige.
- %
- FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14
- Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good
- liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and
- light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything
- drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck.
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18:
- Q: Are you married?
- A: No, I'm divorced.
- Q: And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
- A: A lot of things I didn't know about.
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19:
- Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
- A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29:
- THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present
- information and prejudice from your minds, if you have
- any ...
- %
- 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.
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3:
- Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were
- able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to
- go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with
- him to the station?
- MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41:
- Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
- A: By death.
- Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52:
- Q: What is your name?
- A: Ernestine McDowell.
- Q: And what is your marital status?
- A: Fair.
- %
- Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7:
- Q: What happened then?
- A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify
- me."
- Q: Did he kill you?
- A: No.
- %
- fortune: CPU time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.
- %
- Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai
- sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
- Oh, and have a nice day!
- -- Bryce Nesbitt '84
- %
- Fourth Law of Applied Terror:
- The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology
- instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.
- Corollary:
- Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do
- except study for that instructor's course.
- %
- Fourth Law of Revision:
- It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about
- interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you.
- %
- Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not
- almost one, it is damn near zero.
- -- David Ellis
- %
- Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a
- policeman's tie.
- %
- Fresco's Discovery:
- If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Frisbeetarianism, n.:
- The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and
- gets stuck.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.:
- An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to
- electronic black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to
- FROTZ, or more commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, and
- FROBNODULE. Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl.
- FROBBOTZIM, has also become very popular, largely due to its exposure
- via the Adventure spin-off called Zork (Dungeon). These can also be
- applied to non-physical objects, such as data structures.
- %
- [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.
- %
- From the "Guiness Book of World Records", 1973:
- Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and
- the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the
- Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his
- candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground
- nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,
- other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not
- qualify as nuts (unground)(other than ground nuts) by reason of their
- being nuts (unground)."
- %
- From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was
- convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
- -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
- %
- [From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made
- in Japan]:
- The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT
- MATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is
- featured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality
- against low cost", "diversified functions with compact design",
- "flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00
- Dot/Head", "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agile
- operating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc.
- And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help
- achieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by
- HOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being.
- %
- From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the
- instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new
- experience in sound:
- 5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading
- sound is normal for this type of connector.
- %
- From too much love of living,
- From hope and fear set free,
- We thank with brief thanksgiving,
- Whatever gods may be,
- That no life lives forever,
- That dead men rise up never,
- That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
- -- Swinburne
- %
- Fuch's Warning:
- If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well
- enough to travel.
- %
- Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
- Push something hard enough and it will fall over.
- %
- Furbling, v.:
- Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank
- even when you are the only person in line.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
- -- H. H. Williams
- %
- Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening.
- %
- G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One
- of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his
- secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says
- `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And
- that's your chance, my boy."
- %
- Garbage In -- Gospel Out.
- %
- Garter, n.:
- An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her
- stockings and desolating the country.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall
- on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!!
- -- Adventures of Asterix
- %
- Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep".
- Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound
- than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference:
- "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling."
- Obvious, isn't it?
- Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start
- speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as
- long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all
- your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and
- so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed
- individuals and then grow ...
- Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those
- signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when
- everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on
- the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs
- backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I
- think not, my friend, I think not.
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has an
- extracurricular activity except you."
- "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?"
- "Only to ten, Mudhead."
- -- The Firesign Theatre
- %
- Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.
- %
- GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
- You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you
- because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much
- for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for
- committing incest.
- %
- GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20)
- Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while
- you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise
- and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short
- trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room.
- %
- Genderplex, n.:
- The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to
- determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and
- tortoises).
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why
- you should.
- %
- Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus
- handicapped.
- -- Elbert Hubbard
- %
- Genius, n.:
- A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with
- "bright".
- %
- George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0.
- -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
- %
- George Orwell was an optimist.
- %
- George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
- have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
- -- Ashley Cooper
- %
- Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
- (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
- direction.
- (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
- (3) The energy required to change either one of these states
- will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
- much as to make the task totally impossible.
- %
- Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.
- %
- Get GUMMed
- --- ------
- The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April
- 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above
- the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep
- each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered
- chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek
- nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three
- days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two
- seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user-
- friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is
- Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis
- "cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You
- Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because
- all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we
- could tell them.
- -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84
- %
- Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children!
- %
- -- 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"
- %
- -- Gifts for Men --
- Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional
- ice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you
- should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the
- clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For
- example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only
- three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error,
- that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh
- at him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?").
- So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several
- years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will
- pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you.
- If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More
- than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set
- of tires.
- -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- %
- Gimmie That Old Time Religion
- We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids,
- Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods,
- I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids,
- And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me!
- (chorus) (chorus)
- In the church of Aphrodite,
- The priestess wears a see-through nightie,
- She's a mighty righteous sightie,
- And she's good enough for me!
- (chorus)
- CHORUS: Give me that old time religion,
- Give me that old time religion,
- Give me that old time religion,
- 'Cause it's good enough for me!
- %
- Ginsberg's Theorem:
- (1) You can't win.
- (2) You can't break even.
- (3) You can't even quit the game.
- Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem:
- Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem
- meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's
- Theorem. To wit:
- (1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
- (2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even.
- (3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.
- %
- Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place
- to stand, and I will drain the world.
- %
- Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war.
- -- Napoleon
- %
- Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!
- %
- Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to
- a new town.
- %
- Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.
- %
- Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying
- around, I'd rather lie around. No contest.
- -- Eric Clapton
- %
- Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden:
- Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP
- machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
- Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
- probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some
- useful work done.
- %
- Gnagloot, n.:
- A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to
- impress people.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Go 'way! You're bothering me!
- %
- Go climb a gravity well!
- %
- Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may
- be in owning a piece thereof.
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
- %
- God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six
- days and then pulled an all-nighter.
- %
- God doesn't play dice.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- "God gives burdens; also shoulders"
- Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the
- end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I
- can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why
- would he lie about a thing like that?
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ...
- The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do
- not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman
- ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on
- smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and
- water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in
- the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at
- night!
- -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
- %
- God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.
- %
- God is a polytheist.
- %
- God is Dead
- -- Nietzsche
- Nietzsche is Dead
- -- God
- Nietzsche is God
- -- The Dead
- %
- God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's
- %
- God is real, unless declared integer.
- %
- God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the
- elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying
- other things.
- -- Pablo Picasso
- %
- God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
- -- Alfred Jarry
- %
- God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place.
- %
- God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.
- %
- God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- God made the integers; all else is the work of Man.
- -- Kronecker
- %
- God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.
- %
- God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them.
- %
- God rest ye CS students now,
- Let nothing you dismay.
- The VAX is down and won't be up,
- Until the first of May.
- The program that was due this morn,
- Won't be postponed, they say.
- Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
- Comfort and joy,
- Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
- The bearings on the drum are gone,
- The disk is wobbling, too.
- We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol
- Can't tell false from true.
- And now we find that we can't get
- At Berkeley's 4.2.
- (chorus)
- %
- Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to
- school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a
- person a car.
- %
- Gold, n.:
- A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It
- is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who
- immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold
- hasn't done anything to them.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- Goldenstern's Rules:
- (1) Always hire a rich attorney.
- (2) Never buy from a rich salesman.
- %
- Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad
- example.
- -- La Rochefoucauld
- %
- Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
- %
- Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase.
- %
- Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school.
- %
- Good day to let down old friends who need help.
- %
- Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
- %
- Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.
- %
- Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.
- %
- Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's
- new lover.
- %
- Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored.
- -- George Saunders' dying words
- %
- Gordon's first law:
- If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing
- well.
- %
- Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
- time travel, you never can tell.
- -- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara"
- %
- Got Mole problems?
- Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23
- %
- Goto, n.:
- A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers
- to complain about unstructured programmers.
- -- Ray Simard
- %
- Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.
- -- John Updike, "Couples"
- %
- Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are
- different lies.
- %
- Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know
- any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he
- doesn't know much.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- Grabel's Law:
- 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.
- %
- Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture.
- %
- Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture.
- %
- Grandpa Charnock's Law:
- You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
- %
- Gravity is a myth: the Earth sucks.
- %
- Gray's Law of Programming:
- `_n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same
- time as `_n' tasks.
- Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law:
- `_n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `_n' trivial tasks.
- %
- Great minds run in great circles.
- %
- GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY #21 -- July 30, 1917
- On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then-
- Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them
- off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I
- wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his
- mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a
- tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men
- stood lookout.
- %
- Green light in A.M. for new projects.
- Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets.
- %
- Greener's Law:
- Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.
- %
- Grelb's Reminder:
- Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
- average drivers.
- %
- Grub first, then ethics.
- -- Bertolt Brecht
- %
- Gurmlish, n.:
- The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which
- prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof of his
- mouth.
- -- Rich Hall & Friends, "Sniglets"
- %
- Gyroscope, n.:
- A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also
- free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each
- other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two
- mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the
- other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus
- offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any
- torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin.
- -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary
- %
- H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.
- Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude.
- -- Maxwell Bodenheim
- %
- H. L. Mencken's Law:
- Those who can -- do.
- Those who can't -- teach.
- Martin's Extension:
- Those who cannot teach -- administrate.
- %
- H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you,
- Slice him up before he slays you.
- Nothing makes you look a slob
- Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB).
- -- The Roguelet's ABC
- %
- Hacker's Law:
- The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a
- nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.
- %
- Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.
- %
- Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
- and you would not have been informed.
- %
- Hail to the sun god
- He sure is a fun god
- Ra! Ra! Ra!
- %
- Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big
- enough majority in any town?
- -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"
- %
- Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.)
- %
- Half-done:
- This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still
- crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference
- between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like
- the difference between life and death.
- You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill
- there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the
- airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough
- Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on
- Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk
- about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the
- man, "Let me have a nice half-done."
- Worth the trouble, wasn't it?
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- Hall's Laws of Politics:
- (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
- (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something
- fixed.
- (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend
- military spending, and conservatives social spending in
- their own districts).
- %
- Hand, n.:
- A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and
- commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Hanlon's Razor:
- Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
- stupidity.
- %
- Hanson's Treatment of Time:
- There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days
- before Saturday.
- %
- Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
- -- Oscar Levant
- %
- Happiness, n.:
- An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of
- another.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?
- %
- Hardware, n.:
- The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
- %
- Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand
- convicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want.
- -- Tobias Smollet
- %
- Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark
- The Duke is fond of kittens
- He likes to take their insides out
- And use them for his mittens
- From "The Thirteen Clocks"
- %
- Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
- Advertising wondrous things.
- -- Tom Lehrer
- %
- Harris's Lament:
- All the good ones are taken.
- %
- Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
- Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment
- ruined.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Hartley's First Law:
- You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
- on his back, you've got something.
- %
- Hartley's Second Law:
- Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
- %
- Harvard Law:
- Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
- temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will
- do as it damn well pleases.
- %
- "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?"
- "Yes, I don't have one."
- "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..."
- -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372
- %
- Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are
- typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter
- keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use
- of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is
- not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Hatred, n.:
- A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's
- superiority.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Have an adequate day.
- %
- Have people realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is
- to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a
- non-cynical, or even an informative cookie?
- Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This
- still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or
- only serves to blunt the warning signs.
- Long live the revolution!
- Have a nice day.
- %
- Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell
- you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time
- for play?
- %
- Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs,
- I mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container
- filled with water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite
- sex, none of whom is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in
- their hot tubs, Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or
- mass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything , which is why
- they are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley" week after week.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- "Have you lived here all your life?"
- "Oh, twice that long."
- %
- Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a
- crack in your sidewalk?
- %
- Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline
- sharply the minute they start waving guns around?
- -- Dr. Who
- %
- Have you reconsidered a computer career?
- %
- He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental
- effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable
- perversion.
- -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails"
- %
- He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
- -- Stephen Leacock
- %
- He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation
- perfectly delightful.
- -- Sydney Smith
- %
- He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and
- heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope
- of ever behaving "normally."
- -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
- %
- He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.
- %
- He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.
- -- John Mason Brown, drama critic
- %
- He thought he saw an albatross
- That fluttered 'round the lamp.
- He looked again and saw it was
- A penny postage stamp.
- "You'd best be getting home," he said,
- "The nights are rather damp."
- %
- He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
- -- Jonathan Swift
- %
- He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable.
- %
- He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.
- %
- He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
- attacks democracy itself.
- -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
- %
- He who Laughs, Lasts.
- %
- He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ...
- %
- He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be
- there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.
- %
- He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ...
- %
- HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science.
- SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their ___OWN brains.
- -- Walt Kelley
- %
- Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
- %
- Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
- of nothing.
- -- Redd Foxx
- %
- Heaven, n.:
- A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of
- their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you
- expound your own.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Heavy, adj.:
- Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.
- %
- Heisenberg may have slept here.
- %
- Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
- -- Milton Friedman
- %
- Heller's Law:
- The first myth of management is that it exists.
- Johnson's Corollary:
- Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the
- organization.
- %
- "Hello," he lied.
- -- Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent
- %
- Help a swallow land at Capistrano.
- %
- Help fight continental drift.
- %
- Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!
- %
- Help stamp out and abolish redundancy.
- %
- Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!
- %
- HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!
- -- E. E. CUMMINGS
- %
- 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.
- %
- Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from
- Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ...
- %
- Here I sit, broken-hearted,
- All logged in, but work unstarted.
- First net.this and net.that,
- And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.
- The boss comes by, and I play the game,
- Then I turn back to net.flame.
- Is there a cure (I need your views),
- For someone trapped in net.news?
- I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
- 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
- %
- Here in my heart, I am Helen;
- I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
- I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el;
- I'm Salome, moon of the East.
- Here in my soul I am Sappho;
- Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
- In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
- With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell.
- I'm all of the glamorous ladies
- At whose beckoning history shook.
- But you are a man, and see only my pan,
- So I stay at home with a book.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- 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?"
- %
- Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the
- month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people
- are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China.
- The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either
- (depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax
- tadpole".
- Bite the wax tadpole.
- There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
- The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's
- hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to
- bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,
- but broad satiric vistas do not open up.
- -- John Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle
- %
- Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like
- `Psychic Wins Lottery'?
- -- Jay Leno
- %
- Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs,
- then they'd be algorithms.
- %
- Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!
- -- W. C. Fields
- %
- Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person
- reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes,
- nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.
- %
- "Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet.
- As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of
- equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney.
- Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you
- probably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although of
- course every case is different, I would definitely say that based on my
- experience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come out
- of this thing with at least a cabin cruiser.
- "Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our
- motto is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'"
- -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering"
- %
- Hier liegt ein Mann ganz ohnegleich;
- Im Leibe dick, an Suenden reich.
- Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws
- Weil es uns duenkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head;
- We buried him today because
- As far as we can tell, he's dead.
- -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty
- Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher;
- "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele
- %
- Higgledy Piggledy,
- Hamlet of Elsinore
- Ruffled the critics by
- Dropping this bomb:
- "Phooey on Freud and his
- Psychoanalysis --
- Oedipus, Shmoedipus,
- I just loved Mom."
- %
- Hindsight is an exact science.
- %
- Hippogriff, n.:
- An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin.
- The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle.
- The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which
- is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full
- of surprises.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Hire the morally handicapped.
- %
- His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had
- money, he went to Southern California.
- %
- His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice.
- -- Foghorn Leghorn
- %
- His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier.
- %
- 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.
- %
- History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.
- %
- History, n.:
- Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we
- learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from
- what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long
- view.
- -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
- %
- Hlade's Law:
- If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they
- will find an easier way to do it.
- %
- Hoare's Law of Large Problems:
- Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.
- %
- Hofstadter's Law:
- It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
- Hofstadter's Law into account.
- %
- Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.
- -- Rex Reed
- %
- 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"
- %
- Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories:
- The ultimate in watchdog weaponry.
- -- Chris Shaw
- %
- Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
- %
- Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.
- -- F. M. Hubbard
- %
- Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."
- %
- Honk if you love peace and quiet.
- %
- Honorable, adj.:
- Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative
- bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the
- honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Horngren's Observation:
- Among economists, the real world is often a special case.
- %
- Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
- people.
- -- W. C. Fields
- %
- Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.
- %
- Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.
- -- Neil Armstrong
- %
- How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
- %
- How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?
- %
- How come wrong numbers are never busy?
- %
- How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows.
- %
- How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?
- -- Elliot, "E.T."
- %
- How doth the little crocodile
- Improve his shining tail,
- And pour the waters of the Nile
- On every golden scale!
- How cheerfully he seems to grin,
- How neatly spreads his claws,
- And welcomes little fishes in,
- With gently smiling jaws!
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
- %
- How doth the VAX's C compiler
- Improve its object code.
- And even as we speak does it
- Increase the system load.
- How patiently it seems to run
- And spit out error flags,
- While users, with frustration, all
- Tear their clothes to rags.
- %
- How I love to watch the morn,
- With golden sun that shines,
- Up above to nicely warm
- These frosty toes of mine.
- The wind doth taste so bitter sweet,
- Like Jaspar wine and sugar,
- It must have blown through someone's feet,
- Like those of ... Caspar Weinberger.
- -- P. Opus (Bloom County)
- %
- How doth the VAX's C-compiler
- Improve its object code.
- And even as we speak does it
- Increase the system load.
- How patiently it seems to run
- And spit out error flags,
- While users, with frustration, all
- Tear all their clothes to rags.
- %
- How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're
- on.
- %
- How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
- None: "We'll fix it in software."
- How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
- None: "We'll document it in the manual."
- How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb?
- None: "The user can work it out."
- %
- 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"
- %
- How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are
- 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,
- who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a
- nanocentury.
- -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
- %
- How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton?
- -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey
- %
- How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
- %
- HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
- #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.
- %
- HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
- #15 Your pet rock snaps at you.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Howe's Law:
- Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
- %
- However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional
- manner ... sulking and nausea.
- -- Tom K. Ryan
- %
- HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill.,
- motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate
- amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits.
- The Senate amendment was an amendment to the House amendment to the
- Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the
- bill. The original Senate amendment was the conference agreement on
- the bill. Agreed to.
- -- Albuquerque Journal
- %
- Hug O' War
- I will not play at tug o' war.
- I'd rather play at hug o' war,
- Where everyone hugs
- Instead of tugs,
- Where everyone giggles
- And rolls on the rug,
- Where everyone kisses,
- And everyone grins,
- And everyone cuddles,
- And everyone wins.
- -- Shel Silverstein
- %
- Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
- %
- Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in
- 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an
- operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a urethral
- catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of
- his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took
- the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the
- Nobel Prize.
- %
- Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.
- %
- Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse.
- -- William Gilbert
- %
- Hurewitz's Memory Principle:
- The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
- to ..... to ........ uh ..............
- %
- I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a
- professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any
- other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority.
- -- Richard M. Nixon
- What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?
- -- Richard M. Nixon
- %
- I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder
- have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products.
- This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's
- reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go
- buy some more.
- -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM
- %
- I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work.
- %
- I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!
- -- Paul McCracken
- %
- I am not now, and never have been, a girlfriend of Henry Kissinger.
- -- Gloria Steinem
- %
- I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party.
- -- Dennis M. Ritchie
- %
- I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it.
- -- English Professor
- %
- I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
- great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone
- has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.
- -- English Professor, Ohio University
- %
- I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast
- with an option to buy.
- %
- I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater.
- %
- I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person,
- of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell
- you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial
- atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something
- inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering.
- -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan
- %
- I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of
- the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for
- you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway.
- -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy,
- University of Tennessee at Knoxville
- %
- 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 believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
- -- G. K. Chesterton
- %
- I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- I bet the human brain is a kludge.
- -- Marvin Minsky
- %
- I brake for chezlogs!
- %
- I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.
- -- Biff Barf
- %
- I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskan
- prostitute dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get very
- bored with washing and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after
- relentless day.
- -- Betty MacDonald
- %
- I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
- %
- I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
- 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
- true.
- -- Harry S. Truman
- %
- I can resist anything but temptation.
- %
- I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.
- -- Joe Walsh
- %
- I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling.
- -- Florence Henderson
- %
- I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can
- understand it.
- -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
- %
- I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a
- novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
- -- Fred Allen
- %
- I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.
- -- Lillian Hellman
- %
- I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate
- of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
- -- F. H. Wales (1936)
- %
- I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.
- What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good
- grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause
- of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the
- United States would have lost World War II."
- -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"
- %
- "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a
- quavering voice.
- "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of
- course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which
- I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in
- Elven-lore:
- "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves,
- Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves.
- Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop,
- This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop.
- The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring.
- The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing.
- If broken or busted, it cannot be remade.
- If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)."
- -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
- %
- I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights
- instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is
- standing still ...
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather
- dance with the cows till you come home.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps
- the time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand ...
- -- Peter Oakley
- %
- I didn't know it was impossible when I did it.
- %
- I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The
- curtain was up.
- %
- I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because
- we use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently
- leads to violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say,
- in traffic, is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had
- time to think of witty and learned insults or look them up in the
- library, we could call each other up:
- You: Hello? Bob?
- Bob: Yes?
- You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you
- took last Thursday? Outside of Sears?
- Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed?
- You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is:
- "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait.
- I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill
- and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto
- the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to
- have to get back to you.
- Bob: Fine.
- -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
- %
- I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an
- exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to
- minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary
- accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a
- mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the
- bottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is always
- different.
- -- Mrs. La Touche (19th cent.)
- %
- I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
- -- Isaac Asimov
- %
- I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
- with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.
- -- Galileo Galilei
- %
- I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.
- -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- %
- I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians
- don't believe in astrology.
- -- James R. F. Quirk
- %
- I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just
- a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more
- numbers!!
- %
- I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of
- a frog jumping on my Breakfast.
- -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82
- %
- I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the
- nominating.
- -- Boss Tweed
- %
- I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem.
- -- Ashleigh Brilliant
- %
- I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of
- people waiting to abuse me.
- -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"
- %
- I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
- -- Elvis Presley
- %
- "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said
- Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't --
- till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for
- you!'"
- "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice
- objected.
- "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful
- tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor
- less."
- "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean
- so many different things."
- "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--
- that's all."
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd
- eat it, and I just hate it.
- -- Clarence Darrow
- %
- I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path.
- -- Ronald Mabbitt
- %
- 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 don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?
- %
- "I don't think so," said Ren'e Descartes. Just then, he vanished.
- %
- 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 don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that
- the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is
- thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists
- broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake.
- Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off
- their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ...
- -- Davy Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE
- COMING!"
- %
- I doubt, therefore I might be.
- %
- I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business
- on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment
- he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual
- becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
- -- George Bernard Shaw
- %
- I drink to make other people interesting.
- -- George Jean Nathan
- %
- I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
- so I woke up from sheer boredom.
- %
- I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the
- accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For
- the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that
- can't be measured in monetary terms.
- Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have
- that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by
- subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should
- someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly
- understand his long delay.
- %
- I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words.
- %
- I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very
- reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment.
- -- Gautama Buddha
- %
- I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________horrifying* 20
- minutes of my life!
- %
- I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
- -- Mae West
- %
- I get up each morning, gather my wits.
- Pick up the paper, read the obits.
- If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
- So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
- %
- I get up each morning, gather my wits.
- Pick up the paper, read the obits.
- If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
- So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
- Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent?
- My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.
- But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,
- And think of the places my get-up has been.
- -- Pete Seeger
- %
- I had this sudden vision of a klein pizza containing all the mozarella
- in the world.
- -- Peter da Silva
- %
- I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler
- Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!
- -- Mary Lou Bax
- %
- I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense.
- %
- I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means
- it's going to be up all night.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I hate quotations.
- -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- %
- I have a simple philosophy:
- Fill what's empty.
- Empty what's full.
- Scratch where it itches.
- -- A. R. Longworth
- %
- I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it
- any time!
- %
- I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show,
- which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
- %
- I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth
- and they never believe me.
- -- Camillo Di Cavour
- %
- I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it.
- -- Edgar Allan Poe
- %
- I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You
- sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an
- eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I
- have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of
- beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a
- guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more
- of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry.
- -- President Harry S. Truman
- %
- I have learned
- To spell hors d'oeuvres
- Which still grates on
- Some people's n'oeuvres.
- -- Warren Knox
- %
- I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming
- that I have never made one.
- -- James Gordon Bennett
- %
- I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
- make it shorter.
- -- Blaise Pascal
- %
- I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole
- ____BODY!
- -- from "Cerebus" #82
- %
- I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.
- -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- %
- I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it
- scattered around the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you've seen it.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I have to convince you, or at least snow you ...
- -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
- %
- I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking
- his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell
- beating up a child.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
- at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
- -- Poul Anderson
- %
- I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere.
- %
- I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it.
- %
- I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!
- %
- I just need enough to tide me over until I need more.
- -- Bill Hoest
- %
- I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.
- %
- I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
- War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
- The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building.
- -- Charles Schulz
- %
- I like being single. I'm always there when I need me.
- -- Art Leo
- %
- I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to
- promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want
- peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of
- the way and let them have it.
- -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- %
- I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours.
- %
- I like your game but we have to change the rules.
- %
- I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what
- entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils.
- -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
- %
- "I love to eat them Smurfies
- Smurfies what I love to eat
- Bite they ugly heads off,
- Nibble on they bluish feet."
- %
- I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but
- don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the
- speed of light.
- -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk
- %
- I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent.
- -- Ashleigh Brilliant
- %
- I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
- week sometimes to make it up.
- -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"
- %
- I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts
- %
- I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do
- was to go away.
- %
- I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like.
- %
- I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
- -- G. B. Shaw
- %
- I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!
- -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)
- %
- I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the
- kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled
- substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no
- restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we
- made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given
- powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative
- nerve disease.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
- %
- I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!
- %
- I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.
- -- William F. Buckley
- %
- "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
- that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
- more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
- might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
- otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
- otherwise.'"
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
- %
- I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that
- the whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional
- congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile
- so we can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the
- plumber.
- But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such
- as this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of
- the world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never
- win large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually
- write about, such as nose-picking.
- -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against
- Political Fallout"
- %
- 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 refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
- %
- I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope
- they do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
- I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
- Bernoulli would have been content to die
- Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)!
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- I sent a letter to the fish,
- I told them, "This is what I wish."
- The little fishes of the sea,
- They sent an answer back to me.
- The little fishes' answer was
- "We cannot do it, sir, because ..."
- I sent a letter back to say
- It would be better to obey.
- But someone came to me and said
- "The little fishes are in bed."
- I said to him, and I said it plain
- "Then you must wake them up again."
- I said it very loud and clear,
- I went and shouted in his ear.
- But he was very stiff and proud,
- He said "You needn't shout so loud."
- And he was very proud and stiff,
- He said "I'll go and wake them if ..."
- I took a kettle from the shelf,
- I went to wake them up myself.
- But when I found the door was locked
- I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked,
- And when I found the door was shut,
- I tried to turn the handle, But ...
- "Is that all?" asked Alice.
- "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck.
- -- Graffito in Los Angeles
- %
- "... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was
- supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which
- actually made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..."
- -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning
- Points in l'Amour"
- %
- I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full
- house and four people died.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to
- see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
- -- Shirley Temple
- %
- I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do
- too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which
- direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After
- much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot
- tub to face is up.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3
- because I couldn't remember the proof.
- -- Baker, Pure Math 351a
- %
- I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it.
- %
- I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick
- and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this
- country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people
- in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I'm certainly
- not, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
- -- Monty Python
- %
- I think that I shall never see
- A billboard lovely as a tree.
- Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
- I'll never see a tree at all.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- 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 think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple
- to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the
- farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light
- into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from
- the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing
- off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the
- color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on
- out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars
- singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors.
- -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club
- %
- I think we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown
- ... HEY! PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU DAMMIT! I said I think
- we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown today.
- When we take the time to be courteous to each other, we find that we
- are happier and less likely to engage in nuclear war. This point was
- driven home by the recent summit talks, where Nancy Reagan and Raisa
- Gorbachev, each of whose husband thinks the other's husband is vermin,
- were able to sit down at a high-level tea and engage in courteous
- conversation ...
- -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
- %
- "I thought you were trying to get into shape."
- "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle."
- %
- ... I told my doctor I got all the exercise I needed being a
- pallbearer for all my friends who run and do exercises!
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
- twenty minutes. It's about Russia.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.
- %
- I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance.
- %
- I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
- %
- I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my
- body. Then I realized who was telling me this.
- -- Emo Phillips
- %
- I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere
- near the place.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to
- animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for
- anything connected with society except that which makes the roads
- safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and women
- warmer in the winter, and happier in the summer.
- -- Brendan Behan
- %
- I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St.
- Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE
- HAW"!!'
- -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County"
- %
- I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know
- anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is
- a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows
- up.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I
- put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured
- what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I
- should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to
- get off my driveway.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
- didn't know.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- 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
- %
- I was playing poker the other night ... with Tarot cards. I got a full
- house and four people died.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained
- it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass
- stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold.
- I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be
- absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had
- developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case.
- Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's
- temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I
- chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to
- the point where it would not run at all.
- -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black
- Holes and the Fate of Stars"
- %
- I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any
- questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
- speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?
- He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work
- for him then.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in
- the shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't
- included.
- -- 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 went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that
- it took seven others to beat him!
- %
- I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
- There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work.
- -- Gallagher
- %
- I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
- always worked for me.
- -- Hunter S. Thompson
- %
- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got
- to undo it.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I snore.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in `Y.'
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my blender.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from
- Julian to Gregorian.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for
- static cling.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my
- cottage cheese sculpture.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma transplant.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never came back.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to stay tuned.
- %
- I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that
- need worrying about.
- %
- I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
- %
- I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
- carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia,
- I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun.
- -- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H
- %
- I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd
- listen to it!
- -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire
- %
- I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
- Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
- And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
- And in our bound partition never part.
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob.
- That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood.
- -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones]
- %
- I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from man.
- %
- I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!
- %
- I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister.
- %
- I'm changing my name to Chrysler
- I'm going down to Washington, D.C.
- I'll tell some power broker
- What they did for Iacocca
- Will be perfectly acceptable to me!
- I'm changing my name to Chrysler,
- I'm 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!
- -- Tom Paxton
- %
- I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.
- %
- I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to
- die in.
- -- George McGovern
- %
- I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man.
- -- Fred Allen
- %
- I'm going to live forever, or die trying!
- -- Spider Robinson
- %
- ... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a
- KOSHER DELI!!
- %
- I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?
- -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate
- %
- I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be
- living apart.
- -- e. e. cummings
- %
- I'm N-ary the tree, I am,
- N-ary the tree, I am, I am.
- I'm getting traversed by the parser next door,
- She's traversed me seven times before.
- And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!)
- Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!)
- I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary.
- N-ary the tree I am, I am,
- N-ary the tree I am.
- %
- I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.
- It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get.
- %
- I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life.
- %
- I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is
- -- I could be just as proud for half the money.
- -- Arthur Godfrey
- %
- I'm rated PG-34!!
- %
- I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again ____REAL
- soon ...
- %
- I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it
- (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage.
- -- English Professor, Providence College
- %
- I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
- I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
- In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
- I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
- -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance"
- %
- I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people's lives
- %
- I've built a better model than the one at Data General
- For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral
- My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality;
- My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality.
- My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity,
- You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity;
- There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting;
- My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting.
- I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point:
- There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point,
- Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
- I've built a better model than the one at Data General.
- -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of
- "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance",
- by Gilbert & Sullivan)
- %
- I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand.
- %
- I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there was
- this little hole in the bottom ...
- -- John Croll
- %
- I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
- %
- I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimes
- on the same day.
- %
- I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer.
- %
- I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer.
- -- Senator Claghorn
- %
- I've seen Sun monitors on fire off the side of the multimedia lab.
- I've seen NTU lights glitter in the dark near the Mail Gate.
- All these things will be lost in time, like the root partition last week.
- Time to die...
- -- Peter Gutmann
- %
- I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
- And from that full meridian of my glory
- I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
- Like a bright exhalation in the evening
- And no man see me more.
- -- William Shakespeare
- %
- IBM had a PL/I,
- Its syntax worse than JOSS;
- And everywhere this language went,
- It was a total loss.
- %
- Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box
- of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
- %
- Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like
- solitary confinement.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Idiot, n.:
- A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human
- affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape
- at about 30 miles/second.
- -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming
- %
- If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law.
- -- Roy Santoro
- %
- If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far.
- -- Paul White
- %
- If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus
- forecast is a camel's behind.
- -- Edgar R. Fiedler
- %
- If A equals success, then the formula is _A = _X + _Y + _Z. _X is work. _Y
- is play. _Z is keep your mouth shut.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- If a group of _N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be _N-1
- passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager.
- -- T. Cheatham
- %
- If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four
- hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where
- it votes guilty.
- -- Joseph C. Goulden
- %
- If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake
- him up.
- %
- If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.
- %
- If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have
- dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to
- maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it
- must drop. The law of gravity supersedes the law of golf.
- -- Donald A. Metz
- %
- If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good
- attitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to
- playing the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win --
- unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager
- can make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry?
- -- Sparky Anderson
- %
- If all be true that I do think,
- There be Five Reasons why one should Drink;
- Good friends, good wine, or being dry,
- Or lest we should be by-and-by,
- Or any other reason why.
- %
- If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular
- error.
- -- John Kenneth Galbraith
- %
- If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot
- platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave
- that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska.
- %
- If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
- -- Paul Beatty
- %
- If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
- conclusion.
- -- William Baumol
- %
- If an S and an I and an O and a U
- With an X at the end spell Su;
- And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
- Pray what is a speller to do?
- Then, if also an S and an I and a G
- And an HED spell side,
- There's nothing much left for a speller to do
- But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
- -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"
- %
- If anything can go wrong, it will.
- %
- If at first you don't succeed, give up. No use being a damn fool.
- %
- If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
- %
- If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four
- tellers?
- %
- If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?
- %
- If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?
- %
- If everybody minded their own business, the world would go
- around a deal faster.
- -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.
- %
- ... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with
- the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls
- asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ...
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three
- to a can.
- %
- If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.
- %
- If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet.
- %
- If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears.
- %
- If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads.
- %
- If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with
- green, baggy skin.
- %
- If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
- %
- If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to
- invent it.
- %
- If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger
- hands.
- %
- If God is dead, who will save the Queen?
- %
- If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?
- %
- If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows.
- -- Yiddish saying
- %
- If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs?
- -- Marvin Kitman
- %
- If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be
- replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET!
- %
- If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!
- -- Samuel Goldwyn
- %
- If I don't drive around the park,
- I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
- If I'm in bed each night by ten,
- I may get back my looks again.
- If I abstain from fun and such,
- I'll probably amount to much;
- But I shall stay the way I am,
- Because I do not give a damn.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.
- %
- If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the
- plantation and go home.
- -- Eugene P. Gallagher
- %
- If I had any humility I would be perfect.
- -- Ted Turner
- %
- If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the
- shoulders of giants.
- -- Isaac Newton
- In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
- with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
- -- Gerald Holton
- If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
- on my shoulders.
- -- Hal Abelson
- In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
- -- Brian K. Reid
- %
- If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction.
- On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is
- also a psychological interaction.
- The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so
- friendly.
- The crucial point is if you can tell which is which.
- -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
- %
- If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
- As Dame Fortune did intend,
- Murphy would be there to tell me
- The pot's at the other end.
- -- Bert Whitney
- %
- If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
- %
- If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune.
- %
- If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him.
- They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun
- of it.
- -- Thomas Carlyle
- %
- 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 is down and
- think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to
- receive Net Mail ...
- -- Leith (Casey) Leedom
- %
- If life is a stage, I want some better lighting.
- %
- If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
- -- Tom Robbins
- %
- If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women
- you've got in the house.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by
- the page number.
- %
- If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.
- %
- If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
- little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and
- Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
- -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)
- %
- If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
- in my name at a Swiss bank.
- -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
- %
- If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.
- %
- If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without
- having to accomplish anything.
- %
- If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad,
- he should see how bad it is with representation.
- %
- If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
- arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the
- physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker
- entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
- -- Vannevar Bush
- %
- If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied
- harder.
- -- Pope John Paul I
- %
- If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem.
- -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234
- %
- If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would
- presumably flunk it.
- -- Stanley Garn
- %
- If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
- -- Norm Schryer
- %
- 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 the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!
- -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
- %
- If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
- are 50-50 it will.
- %
- If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down.
- If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down.
- If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance
- will exceed all expectations.
- -- Reverend Chichester
- %
- If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.
- %
- If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that
- will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
- %
- If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?
- -- Art Hoppe
- %
- If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make
- something out of you.
- -- Muhammad Ali
- %
- If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it.
- %
- If this is timesharing, give me my share right now.
- %
- If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?
- %
- If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was
- yesterday?
- %
- If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is
- doing the thinking.
- -- Lyndon Baines Johnson
- %
- If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
- -- Laurence J. Peter
- %
- If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely
- %
- If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage.
- %
- If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel
- in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary
- qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
- -- Marguerite Emmons
- %
- If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?
- -- Ann Edwards-Duff
- %
- If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.
- -- J. Paul Getty
- %
- If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.
- %
- If you can read this, you're too close.
- %
- If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.
- %
- If you can't be good, be careful.
- If you can't be careful, give me a call.
- %
- If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
- %
- If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
- -- Harry S. Truman
- %
- If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?
- %
- If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
- %
- If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.
- -- Clarence Day
- %
- If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter.
- -- Freeman Dyson
- %
- If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little
- Lavoris in the toilet.
- -- Jay Leno
- %
- If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to
- either of you for the rest of the day.
- %
- If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to
- have to get a toehold in the public eye.
- %
- If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody
- will.
- %
- If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it
- will always do it.
- -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin
- %
- If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is
- make the rubble bounce.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous.
- %
- If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
- %
- If you have to hate, hate gently.
- %
- If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to
- boot yourself in the posterior.
- -- A. J. Liebling, "The Press"
- %
- If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.
- %
- If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
- -- Graham Summer
- %
- If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few
- people die past the age of a hundred.
- -- George Burns
- %
- 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 only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
- -- Maslow
- %
- If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure
- can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly
- develop.
- %
- If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
- you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine,
- you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get
- ice, but no cup.
- %
- If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But
- this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is
- somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.
- %
- If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're
- the sucker.
- %
- If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
- %
- If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
- -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
- %
- If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens
- tomorrow!
- %
- If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car
- payments.
- -- Earl Wilson
- %
- If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.
- -- Arthur Kasspe
- %
- If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
- shopping center in the world?
- -- Richard M. Nixon
- %
- 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
- %
- 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"
- %
- If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything.
- -- A. L.
- %
- If you want divine justice, die.
- -- Nick Seldon
- %
- If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people
- he gave it to.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the
- Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's
- statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington
- telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with
- titles beginning with the word "National".
- -- George Will
- %
- If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every
- word you say, talk in your sleep.
- %
- 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"
- %
- If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one.
- %
- If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for
- tomorrow morning, sleep late.
- -- Henny Youngman
- %
- If you're happy, you're successful.
- %
- 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"
- %
- If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
- %
- If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
- -- Benjamin Disraeli
- %
- If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%?
- %
- If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it
- off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe?
- %
- If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.
- -- Ronald Reagan
- %
- Ignisecond, n.:
- The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car
- door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!"
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux
- Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave,
- Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex,
- Et le m^omerade horgrave.
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- Iles's Law:
- There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly
- at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
- Neither will Iles.
- %
- Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
- land He's trying to ignore.
- %
- Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
- -- Jules de Gaultier
- %
- Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
- usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
- thinks of complaining.
- -- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
- %
- Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has
- a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
- storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
- voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
- What's the first question that the computer community asks?
- "Is it PC compatible?"
- %
- Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
- -- Jack Paar
- %
- Immortality -- a fate worse than death.
- -- Edgar A. Shoaff
- %
- Impartial, adj.:
- Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from
- espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two
- conflicting opinions.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the
- mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the
- Boss is reading it.
- %
- Impossible, adj.:
- (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't approve;
- (2) I can't be bothered;
- (3) God can't be bothered.
- Meaning (3) may perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck.
- -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
- %
- In 1750 Issac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of
- stairs.
- %
- In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkled waffles.
- %
- In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't
- get parts.
- %
- In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The
- creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.
- %
- In 1915 pancake make-up was invented but most people still preferred
- syrup.
- %
- In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only
- we can't control when the five year period will begin.
- %
- 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!"
- "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, what are we doing these days?"
- "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits
- devour wolves."
- "Are you crazy? Where is 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
- next to some bloody and furry 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.
- %
- In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"
- Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.
- -- Frank Mankiewicz
- %
- In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus,
- "one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground
- with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call
- this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.
- %
- In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so
- sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All
- those who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the
- devil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up
- as a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you.
- -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
- %
- In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one
- of the risks he takes.
- -- Adlai Stevenson
- %
- In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own
- incompetency
- -- The Peter Principle
- %
- In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
- are to be treated as variables.
- %
- In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of
- nations -- it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir.
- -- Stuart Keate
- %
- In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own
- at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public.
- %
- In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.
- %
- In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools
- will be temporarily canceled.
- %
- In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and
- make it better.
- %
- In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
- a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
- to get her attention.
- %
- In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride
- in any motor vehicle.
- %
- In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable.
- -- Winston Churchill, of Montgomery
- %
- In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door
- neighbor.
- %
- In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.
- %
- In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
- resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but
- inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our
- programming languages.
- %
- In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on
- the sidewalks when a concert is on.
- %
- In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come
- into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish
- between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which
- will only make it mushy.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your
- pocket.
- %
- In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any
- pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while
- either flying or waiting to board a plane.
- %
- In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless
- there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red
- flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.
- %
- In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as
- to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the
- speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
- %
- In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
- universe.
- -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
- %
- In our civilization, and under our republican form of government,
- intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from
- the cares of office.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds
- and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane.
- %
- In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
- of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public
- view."
- %
- In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
- Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
- Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
- We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that
- is over six feet in length.
- %
- In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- In short, _N is Richardian if, and only if, _N is not Richardian.
- %
- In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.
- %
- In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a
- moving automobile.
- %
- [In the 60's] there was madness in any direction, at any hour ... 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 -- the 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 -- the place where the wave finally broke and
- rolled back.
- -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
- %
- In the beginning was the word.
- But by the time the second word was added to it,
- there was trouble.
- For with it came syntax ...
- -- John Simon
- %
- 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?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any
- preconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do you
- close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will be
- empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
- %
- In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in
- the proper order then why can't he?
- %
- In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful
- Dead.
- -- Egyptian Book of the Dead
- %
- In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
- -- Alan Perlis
- %
- In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or
- a loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it
- to you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by
- forty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you
- stole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit
- punches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong
- enough to punch you.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
- shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the
- Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million
- three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years
- from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.
- ... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
- wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
- fact.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to
- drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at
- discotheques.
- -- Art Linkletter
- %
- In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take
- my advice.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
- the supervision of a licensed engineer.
- %
- In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse
- along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
- %
- Incumbent, n.:
- Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- ... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves
- smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is
- not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
- -- Stephen Crane
- %
- Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
- %
- Individualists unite!
- %
- Infancy, n.:
- The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven
- lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
- afterward.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- Information Center, n.:
- A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is
- to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.
- %
- Ingrate, n.:
- A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of
- indigestion.
- %
- Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- %
- Ink, n.:
- A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and
- water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote
- intellectual crime.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Innovation is hard to schedule.
- -- Dan Fylstra
- %
- Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
- %
- Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the
- salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon.
- %
- Interpreter, n.:
- One who enables two persons of different languages to
- understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
- the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure.
- %
- I/O, I/O,
- It's off to disk I go,
- A bit or byte to read or write,
- I/O, I/O, I/O
- %
- INVENTORY
- Four be the things I am wiser to know:
- Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
- Four be the things I'd been better without:
- Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
- Three be the things I shall never attain:
- Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
- Three be the things I shall have till I die:
- Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
- %
- Iron Law of Distribution:
- Them that has, gets.
- %
- Irrationality is the square root of all evil
- -- Douglas Hofstadter
- %
- Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is
- meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a
- soap bubble?
- %
- Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the
- beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get
- out, and such as are out wish to get in?
- -- Ralph Emerson
- %
- Is your job running? You'd better go catch it!
- %
- Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
- listen to weather forecasts and economists?
- -- Kelvin Throop III
- %
- Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune
- tellers take economists seriously?
- %
- Issawi's Laws of Progress:
- The Course of Progress:
- Most things get steadily worse.
- The Path of Progress:
- A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
- %
- 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 asked,
- "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
- %
- 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.
- -- S. A. Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
- %
- It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is
- thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have
- drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself
- that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that
- one can learn."
- -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
- %
- It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have
- been searching for evidence which could support this.
- -- Bertrand Russell
- %
- It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
- %
- It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to
- program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in
- organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be
- self-critical?
- -- Alan Perlis
- %
- It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of
- Urbana, Illinois.
- %
- It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will
- not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves
- and because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like
- mature human beings ...
- -- Playboy, January 1983
- %
- It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a
- pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the
- sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.
- -- Voltaire
- %
- 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 Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
- coming up it.
- -- Henry Allen
- %
- It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?
- One in a million, perhaps.
- %
- It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark
- %
- It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three
- benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never
- to use either.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
- incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
- twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
- -- Rod Serling
- %
- It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
- lightly greased.
- -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- %
- It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its
- proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community
- a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to
- treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the
- focus of attention, the harder the task.
- -- Sydney J. Harris
- %
- It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
- %
- It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
- %
- It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
- %
- It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because
- if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of
- people.
- -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
- %
- It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood
- Boulevard at one time.
- %
- It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia.
- %
- It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry
- a tune.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
- ingenious.
- %
- It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not
- desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our
- offense consists in doubting it.
- -- Justice Robert H. Jackson
- %
- It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the
- problem.
- %
- It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be
- privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to
- corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.
- -- George Bernard Shaw
- %
- It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
- -- Gore Vidal
- %
- It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one
- damn thing over and over.
- -- Edna St. Vincent Millay
- %
- It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
- -- Elizabeth Carpenter
- %
- It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit.
- %
- It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
- virginity could be a virtue.
- -- Voltaire
- %
- It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their
- dignity.
- %
- 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 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 is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the
- lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as
- high as the eagle?
- %
- It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a
- statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more
- glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through
- which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the
- day, that is the highest of arts.
- -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"
- %
- It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad
- crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed
- until the other has gone.
- %
- It is the business of little minds to shrink.
- -- Carl Sandburg
- %
- It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
- -- Hawkwind
- %
- It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for
- five straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But
- it takes Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you.
- %
- It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the
- future.
- %
- It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.
- %
- It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too
- good either if you speak when your head is empty.
- %
- It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
- warning to others.
- %
- It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory
- -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
- %
- It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the
- flag.
- %
- It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the
- municipality.
- -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio
- %
- It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
- but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous.
- -- Robert Benchly
- %
- It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
- %
- It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set foot.
- %
- It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a
- breeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was
- broken ...
- -- James Dent
- %
- It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps
- I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I
- don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and
- the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual
- charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its
- novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but
- yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable
- man a lifetime.
- -- Thomas Aldrich
- %
- It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east
- laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The
- thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,
- nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying
- for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's.
- Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating
- under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting
- icepacks.
- -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
- %
- It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like
- the rose and the teeth were in the same glass.
- %
- It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on
- the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work.
- %
- It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human
- nature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
- examples.
- -- Charles Dickens
- %
- It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing
- warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or
- two things still safe to eat.
- -- Robert Fuoss
- %
- It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
- -- Andrew Jackson
- %
- It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear.
- -- Cheers
- %
- It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.
- %
- It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- "It's a summons."
- "What's a summons?"
- "It means summon's in trouble."
- -- Rocky and Bullwinkle
- %
- It's a very *__UN*lucky week in which to be took dead.
- -- Churchy La Femme
- %
- It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black.
- %
- It's bad luck to be superstitious.
- -- Andrew W. Mathis
- %
- It's better to be wanted for murder than not to be wanted at all.
- -- Marty Winch
- %
- "It's easier said than done."
- ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than
- said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than
- said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than
- done".
- %
- It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
- %
- It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for
- being right.
- %
- It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!
- -- Macy's
- %
- It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.
- %
- It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
- is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
- isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
- -- Oxford University Press, "Edpress News"
- %
- It's just a jump to the left
- And then a step to the right.
- Put your hands on your hips
- And pull your knees in tight.
- But it's the pelvic thrust
- That really drives you insa-a-a-a-a-ane!
- LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!
- -- Rocky Horror Picture Show
- %
- It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
- -- Walt Disney
- %
- "It's Like This"
- Even the samurai
- have teddy bears,
- and even the teddy bears
- get drunk.
- %
- It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong
- direction.
- %
- It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name.
- %
- It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre.
- -- Sam Goldwyn
- %
- It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how
- to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.
- -- George Burns
- %
- It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.
- -- Phil White
- %
- It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either.
- -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston
- %
- It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too.
- -- Alexander Korda
- %
- It's not just a computer -- it's your ass.
- -- Cal Keegan
- %
- It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's
- what you're taking for it...
- %
- It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off
- the ground.
- -- Daniel B. Luten
- %
- It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it
- happens.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips.
- -- Garfield
- %
- It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that
- English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many
- other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
- -- Sydney J. Harris
- %
- It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
- %
- It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
- %
- It's so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the
- Devil when he is the only explanation of it.
- %
- It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which
- raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody
- not to.
- -- Franklin P. Jones
- %
- It's the thought, if any, that counts!
- %
- JACK AND THE BEANSTACK
- by Mark Isaak
- Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL
- character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their
- hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices
- are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some
- BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it
- to him.
- So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,
- he met the traveling salesman.
- "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman
- in high-level language.
- "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips
- and Apples," commented Jack.
- "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue
- there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now."
- Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when
- he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she
- started thrashing.
- "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these
- kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the
- window ...
- %
- Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government:
- No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the
- legislature is in session.
- %
- James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total
- indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
- -- Tom Stoppard
- %
- Jenkinson's Law:
- It won't work.
- %
- Jesus Saves,
- Moses Invests,
- But only Buddha pays Dividends.
- %
- Job Placement, n.:
- Telling your boss what he can do with your job.
- %
- Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes!
- %
- Johnson's First Law:
- When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
- most inconvenient possible time.
- %
- Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called
- "Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do
- anything loses.
- %
- Join the march to save individuality!
- %
- Jone's Law:
- The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone
- to blame it on.
- %
- Jone's Motto:
- Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
- %
- Jones's First Law:
- Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of
- endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction
- to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their
- original contribution.
- %
- Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac
- (and nobody cares about it).
- -- Bill Joy 6/21/85
- %
- Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good
- solutions seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires
- one side to be totally the loser and the other side to be totally the
- winner. The reason there are two sides to begin with usually is
- because neither side has all the facts. Therefore, when the wise
- mediator effects a compromise, he is not acting from political
- motivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep sense of respect for the
- whole truth.
- -- Stephen R. Schwambach
- %
- Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has
- changed.
- -- Irene Peter
- %
- Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.
- %
- Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he
- knows what it is.
- %
- Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you
- get a prompt, type like hell.
- %
- Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
- immune to bullets.
- -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who"
- %
- Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some
- of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?
- -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US
- %
- Just remember, it all started with a mouse.
- -- Walt Disney
- %
- Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to
- twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
- %
- `Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried,
- As he landed his crew with care;
- Supporting each man on the top of the tide
- By a finger entwined in his hair.
- 'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
- That alone should encourage the crew.
- Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
- What I tell you three times is true.'
- %
- Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a
- faster rat!!!
- %
- Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven!
- -- Michael J. Wagner
- %
- Justice is incidental to law and order.
- -- J. Edgar Hoover
- %
- Justice, n.:
- A decision in your favor.
- %
- K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining;
- Cobol's wordy and confining;
- KOBOLDS topple when you strike them;
- Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them.
- -- The Roguelet's ABC
- %
- Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to
- wear tail lights.
- %
- Katz' Law:
- Man and nations will act rationally when all other
- possibilities have been exhausted.
- %
- Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans.
- %
- Keep Cool, but Don't Freeze
- - Hellman's Mayonnaise
- %
- Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.
- %
- Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.
- %
- Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee:
- (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
- straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
- force is technically termed "car suck").
- (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
- than "Watch this!"
- %
- Keep your Eye on the Ball,
- Your Shoulder to the Wheel,
- Your Nose to the Grindstone,
- Your Feet on the Ground,
- Your Head on your Shoulders.
- Now ... try to get something DONE!
- %
- Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most
- automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the
- numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the
- driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the
- dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know
- what's wrong."
- %
- Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College:
- Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students,
- and parking for the faculty.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Kin, n.:
- An affliction of the blood
- %
- Kinkler's First Law:
- Responsibility always exceeds authority.
- Kinkler's Second Law:
- All the easy problems have been solved.
- %
- Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack.
- %
- Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through
- any of its streets.
- %
- Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic.
- %
- Kiss your keyboard goodbye!
- %
- Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.
- %
- Kleptomaniac, n.:
- A rich thief.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
- %
- Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.
- -- Henry N. Camp
- %
- Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr):
- The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Labor, n.:
- One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Lackland's Laws:
- (1) Never be first.
- (2) Never be last.
- (3) Never volunteer for anything
- %
- Lactomangulation, n.:
- Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly
- that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Ladybug, ladybug,
- Look to your stern!
- Your house is on fire,
- Your children will burn!
- So jump ye and sing, for
- The very first time
- The four lines above
- Have been put into rhyme.
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- Laetrile is the pits
- %
- Langsam's Laws:
- (1) Everything depends.
- (2) Nothing is always.
- (3) Everything is sometimes.
- %
- Larkinson's Law:
- All laws are basically false.
- %
- 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
- %
- Last night, I came home and realized that everything in my apartment
- had been stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate. I told this to
- my friend -- he said, `Do I know you?'
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a police
- record. I said, no, but I have the new DEVO album. Cops have no sense
- of humor.
- %
- Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won.
- %
- Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
- %
- Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
- -- Victor Borge
- %
- Law of Communications:
- The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications
- between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of
- misunderstanding.
- %
- Law of Probable Dispersal:
- Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly
- distributed.
- %
- Law of Selective Gravity:
- An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
- Jenning's Corollary:
- The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is
- directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
- Law of the Perversity of Nature:
- You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the
- bread to butter.
- %
- Laws of Serendipity:
- (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for
- something.
- (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already
- be engaged in making an inferior one.
- %
- Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats --
- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
- %
- Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.
- %
- Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and
- everything else follows in the same way.
- -- Alan J. Perlis
- %
- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- %
- Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the
- fun?
- %
- Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907:
- "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour
- unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a
- drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he
- can."
- %
- Leibowitz's Rule:
- When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you
- hold the hammer with both hands.
- %
- LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
- You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are
- pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike
- honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people
- are thieves.
- %
- LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
- Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore.
- Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because
- you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of
- fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got
- a sick sense of humor.
- %
- Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday.
- %
- Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a
- number. You're two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash
- and another number.
- -- James Estes
- %
- Let us live!!!
- Let us love!!!
- Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!
- You first.
- %
- Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every
- relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you
- really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the
- end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the
- qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and
- bossy ... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind
- his back.
- -- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn
- %
- Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick
- your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as
- Mental Anguish. You would sue:
- * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions
- section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand
- into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls
- in there".
- * The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious
- cretin like yourself.
- * Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this
- case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you
- a large cash settlement anyway.
- -- Dave Barry
- %
- Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often
- overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of
- dollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your
- tax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to
- spend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe
- money, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will
- probably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care?
- It's not his money.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
- %
- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)
- 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 unemployment in the already severely depressed
- agricultural industry.
- Yours faithfully,
- Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P.
- Sevenoaks
- %
- Lewis's Law of Travel:
- The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to
- anyone, ever.
- %
- Liar, n.:
- A lawyer with a roving commission.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
- -- Harry Emerson Fosdick
- %
- LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22)
- Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your
- desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and
- polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that.
- %
- LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
- You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with
- reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay.
- Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most
- Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal
- disease.
- %
- Lie, n.:
- A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one
- discovered to date.
- %
- Lieberman's Law:
- Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
- %
- Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
- %
- Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string.
- %
- Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to
- eat it nevertheless.
- -- Flaubert
- %
- Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it.
- %
- Life is like a simile.
- %
- Life is like an analogy.
- %
- Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find
- there is nothing in it.
- %
- Life is too important to take seriously.
- -- Corky Siegel
- %
- Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
- which I disapprove.
- %
- Life to you is a bold and dashing responsibility.
- -- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie
- %
- Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it
- weren't for other people.
- -- Blore
- %
- Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
- %
- Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.
- -- Marvin, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made
- sense from things she found in gift shops.
- -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- %
- Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
- for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
- -- Alan McKay
- %
- Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations.
- %
- Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe
- we should think only about today.
- Charlie Brown:
- No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get
- better.
- %
- Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night.
- -- Candice Bergen
- %
- Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip
- around the Sun.
- %
- Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted
- before.
- %
- Lizzie Borden took an axe,
- And plunged it deep into the VAX;
- Don't you envy people who
- Do all the things ___YOU want to do?
- %
- Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these
- interest rates, we don't need it."
- %
- 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"
- %
- Lockwood's Long Shot:
- The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't
- one in a million, but once would be enough.
- %
- Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____awful*.
- %
- ... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and
- legally ... impeccable!
- %
- 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
- %
- Look out! Behind you!
- %
- Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us
- to pay income taxes, too?
- -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox
- %
- Loose bits sink chips.
- %
- Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying
- "BOOGA, BOOGA!"
- %
- Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy.
- %
- Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in
- Halstead, Kansas.
- %
- Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
- %
- Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
- world has ever seen.
- %
- Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder.
- -- Sigmund Freud
- %
- Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
- flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
- -- Matt Groening
- %
- Love is a word that is constantly heard,
- Hate is a word that is not.
- Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.
- Love, I have read, is hot.
- But hate is the verb that to me is superb,
- And Love but a drug on the mart.
- Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,
- But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
- the ideal never goes unpunished.
- -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- %
- Love is sentimental measles.
- %
- Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes.
- %
- Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.
- -- Louise Beal
- %
- Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to.
- %
- Love's Drug
- My love is like an iron wand
- That conks me on the head,
- My love is like the valium
- That I take before my bed,
- My love is like the pint of scotch
- That I drink when I be dry;
- And I shall love thee still, my dear,
- Until my wife is wise.
- %
- Lowery's Law:
- If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing
- anyway.
- %
- LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand.
- %
- Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
- There's always one more bug.
- %
- Lunatic Asylum, n.:
- The place where optimism most flourishes.
- %
- Lysistrata had a good idea.
- %
- MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into
- the smallest amount of thoughts.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- Machine-Independent, adj.:
- Does not run on any existing machine.
- %
- Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate,
- and play games -- but not with pleasure.
- -- Leo Rosten
- %
- Mad, adj.:
- Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them
- first for seven hours, they always come out tender.
- -- W. C. Fields
- %
- MAFIA, n:
- [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance
- Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore
- subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is
- rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy
- reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP
- operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that
- MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped
- variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex
- security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a
- more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an
- imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES
- options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay.
- Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a
- powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and
- entire nodal aggravations.
- -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
- %
- Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism.
- Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet.
- The two definition immediately preceding are condensed from the works
- of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject
- with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human
- knowledge.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Magnocartic, adj.:
- Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts.
- -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
- %
- Magpie, n.:
- A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it
- might be taught to talk.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Maier's Law:
- If the facts don't conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
- 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.
- %
- Main's Law:
- For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
- %
- Maintainer's Motto:
- If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.
- %
- Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly
- as one man.
- Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds.
- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Majority, n.:
- That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.
- %
- Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!
- %
- Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users
- tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It
- has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is
- the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
- -- System V.2 administrator's guide
- %
- Malek's Law:
- Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
- %
- Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good
- joke is.
- Man 2: OK, what is the most impo --
- Man 1: ______TIMING!
- %
- Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
- -- Lily Tomlin
- %
- Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called
- upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the
- only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.
- -- Wernher von Braun
- %
- Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
- victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
- -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
- %
- Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it
- is an enemy.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- Man, n.:
- An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks
- he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief
- occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which,
- however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole
- habitable earth and Canada.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Mandrell: "You know what I think?"
- Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you
- don't think, right?"
- -- Dr. Who
- %
- Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
- dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive
- man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the
- air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first
- primitive umpire.
- What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as
- mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
- %
- Manual, n.:
- A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a
- given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The
- information you need is in the others.
- -- Ray Simard
- %
- Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon,
- there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he
- was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how
- completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ...
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery:
- Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a
- simple yes or no answer.
- %
- Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
- -- Voltaire
- %
- 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
- %
- Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant.
- -- Malcolm Smith
- %
- Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated.
- -- R. Drabek
- %
- 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
- %
- Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is
- described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can
- play.
- -- Dr. Thor Wald, in "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by
- James Blish
- %
- Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence.
- %
- Matter cannot be created or destroyed,
- nor can it be returned without a receipt.
- %
- Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
- -- Jules Feiffer
- %
- May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts.
- %
- May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!
- %
- May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.
- %
- May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
- Thousand Caramels.
- %
- Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology.
- -- R. S. Barton
- %
- Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge
- it.
- %
- McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom:
- If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not
- $19.95.
- %
- Meader's Law:
- Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to
- everyone you know, only more so.
- %
- Meeting, n.:
- An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or
- department not represented in the room must solve a problem.
- %
- Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures
- from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha
- Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man
- had split before. Thus was the Empire forged.
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and
- it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin
- very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
- tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ...
- [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important
- world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the
- next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.]
- ... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
- cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
- billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even
- more interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a
- fact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the
- older veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and
- obtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the
- window head first, without so much as a pension plan, by younger
- hotshot cells moving up from below.
- -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
- %
- Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American:
- The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.
- %
- Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American:
- The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the
- cork makes when it is popped.
- %
- Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American:
- All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.
- %
- Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American:
- Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that
- is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can
- never hope to acquire it.
- %
- Menu, n.:
- A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.
- %
- Meskimen's Law:
- There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to
- do it over.
- %
- MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched.
- %
- Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it.
- %
- methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin-
- ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl-
- phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-
- taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-
- glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala-
- nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta-
- minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly-
- cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl-
- leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu-
- cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva-
- lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro-
- sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu-
- cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe-
- nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala-
- nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas-
- partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl-
- glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl-
- valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu-
- cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi-
- nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse-
- rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl-
- glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly-
- sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro-
- lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl-
- glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.:
- The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a
- 1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids.
- -- Mrs. Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and
- Preposterous Words
- %
- Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch.
- %
- Micro Credo:
- Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
- %
- Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been
- watching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks.
- %
- Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you
- out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles.
- -- Casablanca
- %
- Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?"
- Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO
- inconsiderate."
- -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury"
- %
- Miksch's Law:
- If a string has one end, then it has another end.
- %
- Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- Millihelen, adj:
- The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.
- %
- Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with
- themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
- -- Susan Ertz
- %
- Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that
- politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum
- and Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, they
- are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to
- rummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider all
- the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert
- Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught Hubert
- Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when
- Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the
- black.
- -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery"
- %
- Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there
- is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,
- myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in
- the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
- unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
- will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as
- dead as a door-nail.
- %
- Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner.
- %
- Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap
- pistols; they may buy shotguns freely, however.
- %
- Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.
- %
- Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
- -- Russell Baker
- %
- Misfortune, n.:
- The kind of fortune that never misses.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Miss, n.:
- A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that
- they are in the market.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.
- %
- Mitchell's Law of Committees:
- Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are
- held to discuss it.
- %
- MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed)
- Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers
- 2 cups water 2 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine
- Cinnamon
- Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break
- RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar
- and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon
- juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously
- with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top
- crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let
- steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust
- is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices.
- -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box
- %
- Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
- %
- Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked
- him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just
- last week. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew
- better.
- %
- Molecule, n.:
- The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished
- from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a
- closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of
- matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the
- atom in that it is an ion ...
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis:
- If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented
- it wasn't worth doing.
- %
- Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.
- %
- Monday, n.:
- In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
- %
- Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots.
- %
- Money is the root of all wealth.
- %
- Moon, n.:
- 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to
- hackers. See PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC).
- %
- Mophobia, n.:
- Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian.
- %
- MORE SPORTS RESULTS:
- The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 last
- Saturday night. The match started with a long period of silence while
- the Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and the
- Rogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they could
- paraphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best player
- took the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflecting
- their anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star player
- said "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started a
- fight and the match was called by officials.
- %
- More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One
- path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
- extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
- -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects"
- %
- Mosher's Law of Software Engineering:
- Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd
- be out of a job.
- %
- Most fish live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sex
- because virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabs
- and large quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy little
- eyes. So generally when two fish want to have sex, they swim around
- and around for hours, looking for someplace to go, until finally the
- female gets really tired and has a terrible headache, and she just
- dumps her eggs right on the sand and swims away. Then the male, driven
- by some timeless, noble instinct for survival, eats the eggs. So the
- truth is that fish don't reproduce at all, but there are so many of
- them that it doesn't make any difference.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
- Teen Should Know"
- %
- Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently
- than they do.
- -- Turgenev
- %
- Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
- -- Frank Zappa
- %
- Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
- -- Arnold Bennett
- %
- Mother is the invention of necessity.
- %
- Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before.
- %
- Mr. Cole's Axiom:
- The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the
- population is growing.
- %
- "Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams)
- "365,365,365,365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365. He [ten-year-old
- Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his
- pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes
- in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be
- in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he,
- 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" An electronic
- computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be as much
- fun to watch.
- -- James R. Newman (The World of Mathematics)
- %
- Murphy's Discovery:
- Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to
- women? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything
- will be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in
- trouble!
- %
- Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
- work.
- %
- Murphy's Law of Research:
- Enough research will tend to support your theory.
- %
- Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Goedel's Theorem ...
- -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
- %
- Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring
- Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping
- pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret
- military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and
- Esther and hustle them off to prison.
- They can't prove who they are because they've left their
- passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day
- and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation
- movement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court,
- charged with espionage, and sentenced to death.
- The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where
- they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them
- if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call
- her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not
- possible, and turns to Murray.
- "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he
- spits in the sergeants face.
- "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble."
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- Mustgo, n.:
- Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so
- long it has become a science project.
- -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
- %
- My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.
- -- "Grendel", by John Gardner
- %
- 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"
- %
- My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless
- there are three other people.
- -- Orson Welles
- %
- 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.
- %
- My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?
- -- MadameX
- %
- My love runs by like a day in June,
- And he makes no friends of sorrows.
- He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
- In the pathway or the morrows.
- He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
- Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
- My own dear love, he is all my heart --
- And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
- And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
- The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
- And the skies are sunlit for him.
- As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
- As the fragrance of acacia.
- My own dear love, he is all my dreams --
- And I wish he were in Asia.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
- %
- My own dear love, he is strong and bold
- And he cares not what comes after.
- His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
- And his eyes are lit with laughter.
- He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
- Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
- My own dear love, he is all my world --
- And I wish I'd never met him.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!!
- -- Zippy the Pinhead
- %
- My pen is at the bottom of a page,
- Which, being finished, here the story ends;
- 'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,
- But stories somehow lengthen when begun.
- -- Byron
- %
- My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.
- -- Christopher Morley
- %
- My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies
- %
- Mythology, n.:
- The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its
- origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished
- from the true accounts which it invents later.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa);
- n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc);
- n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0);
- n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00);
- n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000);
- -- C code which reverses the bits in a word.
- %
- Naeser's Law:
- You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it
- damnfoolproof.
- %
- NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he
- says is wrong.
- GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says
- will be right.
- -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"
- %
- Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant
- said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next
- time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone
- might steal it."
- %
- 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.
- %
- Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to
- serve him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk
- into your shop?" "Of course." "Have you ever seen me before?"
- "Never." "Then how do you know it was me?"
- %
- Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful
- than the sun." "Why?", he was asked. "Because at night we need the
- light more."
- %
- Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver
- pie. Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of
- meat from his hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it,
- "Foolish bird! You have the liver, but what can you do with it without
- the recipe?"
- %
- Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of
- conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the
- fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he
- is most likely to be creamed?
- -- Solomon Short
- %
- Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,
- God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.
- It did not last; the devil howling "Ho!
- Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.
- %
- Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it
- cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.
- -- Fran Leibowitz
- %
- Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
- character, give him power.
- -- Abraham Lincoln
- %
- Necessity is a mother.
- %
- Neckties strangle clear thinking.
- -- Lin Yutang
- %
- Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.
- %
- Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
- %
- Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.
- %
- Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off.
- %
- Never drink Coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled
- with the chemicals in Coke produce hallucinations. People tend to
- change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually
- fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators
- have windows.
- %
- Never eat more than you can lift.
- -- Miss Piggy
- %
- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
- %
- Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
- %
- Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
- -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"
- %
- Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to
- make it complex and wonderful.
- %
- Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
- -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977
- %
- Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together.
- %
- Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a
- law against it by that time.
- %
- Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower.
- %
- Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
- %
- Never try to outstubborn a cat.
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- %
- Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes.
- -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS
- %
- Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon.
- %
- Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's
- supposed to do.
- -- R. A. Heinlein
- %
- New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
- %
- New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in
- any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.
- %
- New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of
- Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within.
- %
- New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area.
- -- Monty Python's Big Red Book
- %
- New systems generate new problems.
- %
- New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and
- his wife most often reminds him to act it.
- -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary
- %
- New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors.
- %
- New York's got the ways and means;
- Just won't let you be.
- -- The Grateful Dead
- %
- Newlan's Truism:
- An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government
- economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
- %
- NEWS FLASH!!
- Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West
- German pole-vault champion.
- %
- *** NEWSFLASH ***
- Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!
- %
- Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
- %
- Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law:
- A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
- %
- Next Friday will not be your lucky day.
- As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year.
- %
- Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying
- as an income tax refund.
- -- F. J. Raymond
- %
- Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.
- -- Foghorn Leghorn
- %
- Nihilism should commence with oneself.
- %
- Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name
- correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into
- (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but
- Americans call him by value.
- %
- Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
- Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
- Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
- Three megs for system source;
- One disk to rule them all,
- One disk to bind them,
- One disk to hold the files
- And in the darkness grind 'em.
- %
- Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes
- And tapes without any tracks;
- Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes
- And tapes mixed up on the racks --
- Take hold of the tape
- And pull off the strip,
- And then you'll be sure
- Your tape drive will skip.
- -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
- %
- 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
- %
- Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
- The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
- the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
- %
- Nirvana? That's the place where the powers that be and their friends
- hang out.
- -- Zonker Harris
- %
- No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless
- absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.
- -- Fran Leibowitz
- %
- No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a
- camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform
- effectively under such difficult conditions.
- -- Laurence J. Peter
- %
- No good deed goes unpunished.
- -- Clare Boothe Luce
- %
- No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
- eating one peanut.
- -- Channing Pollock
- %
- No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
- %
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will
- seriously cramp his style.
- %
- No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
- immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
- %
- No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
- -- Eleanor Roosevelt
- %
- No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid.
- %
- No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval
- system, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of
- the author.
- -- Chris Shaw
- %
- No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --
- He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.
- Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame
- And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.
- CHORUS:
- Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
- And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
- Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
- And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
- Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails
- And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.
- All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff
- But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!"
- (chorus)
- Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.
- The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.
- A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,
- But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again!
- (chorus)
- %
- No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
- -- C. Schulz
- %
- No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere.
- %
- No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied
- occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an
- indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining
- occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as
- an indication-applied occurrence.
- -- ALGOL 68 Report
- %
- No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper.
- -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was
- taken over by Rupert Murdoch
- %
- No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!
- -- Sherlock Holmes
- %
- No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'
- -- Dr. Who
- %
- Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
- -- Tallulah Bankhead
- %
- NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION.
- %
- Nobody said computers were going to be polite.
- %
- Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in
- order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the
- substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young
- and rob the old.
- -- Lewis Lapham
- %
- Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with
- constructive praise.
- %
- Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
- Negative expectations yield negative results.
- Positive expectations yield negative results.
- %
- Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
- %
- Noncombatant, n.:
- A dead Quaker.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
- %
- Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none.
- -- William Shakespeare
- %
- Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper
- is from the wrong kind of tree.
- -- Professor W., EECS, George Washington University
- %
- Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter
- of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund
- is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --
- unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is
- careful not to make any poultry jokes ...
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
- -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- %
- Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.
- %
- Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...
- To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the
- light comes on.
- %
- Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
- -- Andrew Young
- %
- Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires
- tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
- -- Nero Wolfe
- %
- Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.
- Conscience makes egotists of us all.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- Nothing recedes like success.
- -- Walter Winchell
- %
- Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
- -- Charlie Brown
- %
- November, n.:
- The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.
- %
- Now I lay me down to sleep
- I pray the double lock will keep;
- May no brick through the window break,
- And, no one rob me till I awake.
- %
- Now is the time for all good men to come to.
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next
- time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV
- to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for
- eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself
- the following questions:
- (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a
- food?
- (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich
- exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me?
- (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as
- prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with
- double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living
- right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like
- longer.)
- That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick.
- %
- Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called
- Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that
- were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ...
- -- "The Begatting of a President"
- %
- Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette.
- -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354
- %
- ... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to
- get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in
- the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs
- on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage
- children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a
- snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn
- to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about
- a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an
- outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does
- he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect
- Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks
- Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some
- kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your
- children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop
- quickly.
- -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- %
- 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"
- %
- Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile.
- -- Karl Lehenbauer
- %
- Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
- normal routines, for children and adults alike.
- -- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"
- %
- Nuclear war would really set back cable.
- -- Ted Turner
- %
- [Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable.
- -- Edwin Meese III
- %
- Nudists are people who wear one-button suits.
- %
- (null cookie; hope that's ok)
- %
- Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.
- %
- O give me a home,
- Where the buffalo roam,
- Where the deer and the antelope play,
- Where seldom is heard
- A discouraging word,
- 'Cause what can an antelope say?
- %
- O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
- Murphy was an optimist.
- %
- Of ______course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a
- fake?
- %
- Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
- reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
- amount of hot air.
- -- Thomas L. Martin
- %
- Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
- -- Plato
- %
- Of all the words of witch's doom
- There's none so bad as which and whom.
- The man who kills both which and whom
- Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom.
- -- Fletcher Knebel
- %
- Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power
- tools aren't soluble in alcohol ...
- -- Crazy Nigel
- %
- Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.
- %
- Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
- And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
- blazer.
- %
- Office Automation, n.:
- The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone
- you would want to talk with over coffee.
- %
- Ogden's Law:
- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch
- up.
- %
- Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo!
- %
- Oh don't the days seem lank and long
- When all goes right and none goes wrong,
- And isn't your life extremely flat
- With nothing whatever to grumble at!
- %
- Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
- I muck with indices and structs all day
- And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
- Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
- %
- Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
- be irresponsible, too.
- -- Lichty & Wagner
- %
- Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
- And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
- Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
- Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
- You have not dreamed of --
- Wheeled and soared and swung
- High in the sunlit silence.
- Hovering there
- I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
- My eager craft through footless halls of air.
- Up, up along delirious, burning blue
- I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
- Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
- And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
- The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
- -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"
- %
- Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.
- %
- 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
- %
- Oh, wow! Look at the moon!
- %
- OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard.
- -- Dr. Joy
- %
- OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
- %
- Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
- -- Trotsky
- %
- Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address.
- %
- Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.
- %
- Oliver's Law:
- Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
- it.
- %
- Omnibiblious, adj.:
- Indifferent to type of drink. "Oh, you can get me anything.
- I'm omnibiblious."
- %
- OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of
- JELL-O and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th' WRENCH in the JELL-O
- as if it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... or ... I ... um ...
- WHERE'S the WASHING MACHINES?
- %
- On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:
- This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.
- -- Wolfgang Pauli
- %
- On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
- nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
- what it does.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in
- receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's
- income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than
- $283 on the desk before the cashier.
- "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That
- route never brought in money like this! What happened?"
- "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured
- business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and
- worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!"
- %
- On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
- created jerks.
- -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"
- %
- On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
- POINT ...
- %
- On the subject of C program indentation:
- "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be
- indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."
- -- Blair P. Houghton
- %
- On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], `Pray,
- Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right
- answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
- confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
- -- Charles Babbage
- %
- On-line, adj.:
- The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a
- computer.
- %
- Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
- forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.
- -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"
- %
- Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
- each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
- choice.
- In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
- called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukkah"
- and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
- passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
- Hanukkah!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
- -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- %
- Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict,
- Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
- Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your
- principals or your mistress".
- %
- Once Law was sitting on the bench
- And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
- "Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
- Nor come before me creeping.
- Upon your knees if you appear,
- 'Tis plain you have no standing here."
- Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
- "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
- "Amica curiae," she replied --
- "Friend of the court, so please you."
- "Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
- I never saw your face before!"
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- 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
- %
- 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.
- %
- 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 it's odd. QED.
- 3: The True Prime --
- Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you three 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.
- 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.
- %
- ... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you
- with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday
- shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday
- advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a
- shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take
- them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up.
- -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- %
- Once, adv.:
- Enough.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
- somebody's listening.
- -- Franklin P. Jones
- %
- "One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."
- Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
- The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
- -- Chuq Von Rospach
- %
- One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
- %
- One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing
- how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
- -- Professor Charles P. Issawi
- %
- One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell
- the truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald
- announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to
- a question which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The
- captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth
- -- the alternative is death by hanging." "I am going," said Nasrudin,
- "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if
- I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!"
- "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."
- %
- One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
- when well oiled.
- %
- One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
- never have to stop and answer the phone.
- %
- One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
- -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
- %
- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
- -- Ernest Bramah
- %
- One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as
- one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will
- produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to
- represent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as
- many ...
- -- Anthony Chevins
- %
- One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
- %
- One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How
- will it live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net,
- I'll tell you."
- %
- One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
- %
- One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible
- from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at
- least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts
- are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but
- when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
- -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983
- %
- One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to
- do and always a clever thing to say.
- -- Will Durant
- %
- 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 oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God
- create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "________somebody has to buy
- retail."
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- 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, 1984
- %
- 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.
- %
- The Seventh Commandments for Technicians
- Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy
- fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in
- other ways.
- %
- The First Commandment for Technicians:
- Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged
- capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most
- untechnician-like manner.
- %
- One Page Principle:
- A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch
- paper cannot be understood.
- -- Mark Ardis
- %
- One planet is all you get.
- %
- 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"
- %
- One reason why George Washington
- Is held in such veneration:
- He never blamed his problems
- On the former Administration.
- -- George O. Ludcke
- %
- One seldom sees a monument to a committee.
- %
- One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh paint.
- %
- 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
- %
- One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a
- new model.
- %
- One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
- %
- One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned
- at the stake while the votes were being counted.
- -- Thomas B. Reed
- %
- One-Shot Case Study, n.:
- The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which
- it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes
- green.
- %
- Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps.
- %
- Only God can make random selections.
- %
- Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to
- use the editorial "we."
- %
- Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.
- %
- Optimization hinders evolution.
- %
- Oregano, n.:
- The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.
- %
- Oregon, n.:
- Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday
- night.
- %
- Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.
- Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
- -- Mike Adams
- %
- Osborn's Law:
- Variables won't; constants aren't.
- %
- Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails.
- %
- Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
- they charge fifteen cents for them.
- %
- Our documentation manager was showing her two year old son around the
- office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we
- were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of
- juice. But only *__he* had a lollipop.
- He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?"
- Her reply:
- "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it
- means to be a programmer."
- %
- Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
- Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
- In kernel as it is in user!
- %
- Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
- -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries
- %
- ... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce
- Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One
- thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If
- somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it
- on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what
- a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself.
- -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!"
- %
- Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it.
- -- Alex Schure
- %
- Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
- -- General Omar N. Bradley
- %
- OUTCONERR
- Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes
- Did logzerneg the ifthen block
- All kludgy were the function flows
- And subroutines adhoc.
- Beware the runtime-bug my friend
- squrooneg, the false goto
- Beware the infiniteloop
- And shun the inprectoo.
- %
- Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
- it's too dark to read.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
- I can remember things that *have* happened before ...
- %
- Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!
- %
- Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
- %
- Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Painting, n.:
- The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
- exposing them to the critic.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- panic: can't find /
- %
- panic: kernel trap (ignored)
- %
- Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much
- better.
- -- Laurie Anderson
- %
- Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
- %
- Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.
- %
- Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.
- %
- 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
- %
- Pardo's First Postulate:
- Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or
- fattening.
- Arnold's Addendum:
- Everything else causes cancer in rats.
- %
- Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction.
- %
- Parker's Law:
- Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
- %
- Parkinson's Fifth Law:
- If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
- bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
- %
- Parkinson's Fourth Law:
- The number of people in any working group tends to increase
- regardless of the amount of work to be done.
- %
- Parsley
- is gharsley.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
- %
- Pascal is not a high-level language.
- -- Steven Feiner
- %
- Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat.
- -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340
- %
- Pascal Users:
- To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
- death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.
- %
- Pascal, n.:
- A programming language named after a man who would turn over in
- his grave if he knew about it.
- %
- Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
- -- Eric Hoffer
- %
- Patageometry, n.:
- The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
- under brain transplants.
- %
- Paul Revere was a tattle-tale.
- %
- Paul's Law:
- In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you
- save.
- %
- Paul's Law:
- You can't fall off the floor.
- %
- Peace, n.:
- In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
- periods of fighting.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Peanut Blossoms
- 4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk
- 4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla
- 4 cups shortening 14 cups flour
- 8 eggs 4 tsp. soda
- 4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt
- Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie
- sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a
- Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a
- hell of a lot.
- %
- Pecor's Health-Food Principle:
- Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in
- it.
- %
- Pedaeration, n.:
- The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the
- sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Penguin Trivia #46:
- Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
- -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
- %
- People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
- -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- %
- People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of
- the future.
- %
- People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.
- -- Ken Kesey
- %
- People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.
- %
- People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better
- press than people who are just funny and smart.
- -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"
- %
- 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 will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that
- Benjamin Franklin said it first.
- %
- People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
- %
- People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they
- did yesterday.
- %
- Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
- "Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
- -- Aelius Donatus
- %
- Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.
- %
- Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
- when there is no longer anything to take away.
- -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- %
- Personifiers Unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!
- %
- Peter's Law of Substitution:
- Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after
- themselves.
- %
- Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
- exciting Camden, New Jersey.
- %
- Philogeny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogeny.
- %
- Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
- -- John Keats
- %
- Pick another fortune cookie.
- %
- Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional
- hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational
- sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ...
- %
- Pig, n.:
- An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race
- by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is
- inferior in scope, for it balks at pig.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20)
- You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being
- followed by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your
- associates and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack
- confidence and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible
- things to small animals.
- %
- PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20)
- Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the
- American Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, as
- nobody else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. You will
- probably get run over by a bus.
- %
- Pittsburgh Driver's Test
- (7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light
- but a steady left tail light. This means
- (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn
- to call the problem to the driver's attention.
- (b) the driver is signaling a right turn.
- (c) the driver is signaling a left turn.
- (d) the driver is from out of town.
- The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign
- countries to signal turns.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
- -- Don Marquis
- %
- PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the
- solution set.
- -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
- %
- Plaese porrf raed.
- -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase
- %
- 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"
- %
- Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them.
- %
- Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
- %
- Please ignore previous fortune.
- %
- Please take note:
- %
- Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
- until you are told that those rooms are "punched out". Once punched
- out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas,
- and such.
- -- N. Meyrowitz
- %
- Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?
- %
- Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
- requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm
- into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing
- problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the
- radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how
- plumbing works.
- A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system,
- except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires,
- it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets
- and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at
- all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can
- kill you.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- PLUNDERER'S THEME
- (to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius)
- Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
- If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation.
- Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations.
- Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
- %
- Pohl's law:
- Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
- %
- Police: Good evening, are you the host?
- Host: No.
- Police: We've been getting complaints about this party.
- Host: About the drugs?
- Police: No.
- Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns?
- Police: No, the noise.
- Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns
- or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the
- background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise?
- The neighbors?
- Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent
- complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could
- ask the host to quiet things down?
- Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagen bug with primitive
- religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living
- room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the
- lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out
- onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind
- down.
- %
- Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
- all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.
- %
- Politician, n.:
- An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of
- organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the
- agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared
- with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Politician, n.:
- From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or
- "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face). Hence
- "polytetien", a person of two or more faces.
- -- Martin Pitt
- %
- Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even
- where there is no river.
- -- Nikita Khrushchev
- %
- Politics is like coaching a football team. You have to be smart enough
- to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
- %
- Polymer physicists are into chains.
- %
- Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the
- Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866. The
- white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before
- it dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his
- name had hilarious possibilities. The crowds fell about, helpless with
- laughter, singing
- Half a pound of tuppenny rice
- Half a pound of treacle
- That's the way the chimney smokes
- Pope Goestheveezl
- The square was finally cleared by armed carabinieri with tears of
- laughter streaming down their faces. The event set a record for
- hilarious civic functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron
- Hans Neizant B"ompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"oln in 1653.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- Portable, adj.:
- Survives system reboot.
- %
- Positive, adj.:
- Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
- %
- Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
- -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987
- %
- Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically.
- %
- Power, n:
- The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA.
- %
- Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
- more time for dreaming.
- -- J. P. McEvoy
- %
- Predestination was doomed from the start.
- %
- President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and
- forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax.
- %
- President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the
- vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
- -- The Washington Post
- %
- Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
- %
- Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
- It's on the other side.
- %
- [Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves
- to see him work.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
- %
- Probable-Possible, my black hen,
- She lays eggs in the Relative When.
- She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
- Because she's unable to postulate how.
- -- Frederick Winsor
- %
- Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals have
- orgasms? The answer is yes, they have orgasms almost constantly, which
- is why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
- Teen Should Know"
- %
- Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data
- encryption standard and they came up with ...
- Student: EBCDIC!
- %
- Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem.
- Eng. 130 midterm. Once again no student received a single point on
- his exam. Newell has now tossed five shutouts this quarter. Newell's
- earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%
- %
- Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
- build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying
- to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
- -- Rich Cook
- %
- Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction.
- This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction
- techniques are very popular; even the military used them.
- SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction.
- We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true
- for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n
- as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is
- trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We
- can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just
- about _n.
- QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?")
- %
- 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 to 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"
- %
- Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
- BBW Branch Both Ways
- BEW Branch Either Way
- BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full
- BH Branch and Hang
- BMR Branch Multiple Registers
- BOB Branch On Bug
- BPO Branch on Power Off
- BST Backspace and Stretch Tape
- CDS Condense and Destroy System
- CLBR Clobber Register
- CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately
- CM Circulate Memory
- CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming
- CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip
- CRN Convert to Roman Numerals
- %
- Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
- DC Divide and Conquer
- DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key
- DO Divide and Overflow
- EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator
- EPI Execute Programmer Immediately
- EROS Erase Read Only Storage
- EXCE Execute Customer Engineer
- HCF Halt and Catch Fire
- IBP Insert Bug and Proceed
- INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out])
- PBC Print and Break Chain
- PDSK Punch Disk
- %
- Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
- PI Punch Invalid
- POPI Punch Operator Immediately
- PVLC Punch Variable Length Card
- RASC Read And Shred Card
- RPM Read Programmers Mind
- RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy)
- RTAB Rewind tape and break
- RWDSK rewind disk
- RWOC Read Writing On Card
- SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write
- SLC Search for Lost Chord
- SPSW Scramble Program Status Word
- SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk
- STROM Store in Read Only Memory
- TDB Transfer and Drop Bit
- WBT Water Binary Tree
- %
- Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller
- than the both put together.
- %
- Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check
- three friends. If they're OK, you're it.
- %
- Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well
- anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- 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"
- %
- Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.
- %
- Pushing 40 is exercise enough.
- %
- Put no trust in cryptic comments.
- %
- Put your Nose to the Grindstone!
- -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is?
- A: One per person.
- %
- Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?
- A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
- %
- Q: How many DEC repairmen does it take to fix a flat ?
- A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
- %
- Q: How many DEC repairmen 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 existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
- A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb
- itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
- reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a
- maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
- %
- Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb
- in San Francisco?
- A: Both of them.
- %
- Q: How many IBM CPUs does it take to do a logical right shift?
- A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.
- %
- Q: How many IBM CPUs does it take to execute a job?
- A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
- %
- Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
- A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
- Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of
- the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20%
- of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences
- of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
- %
- Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
- A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
- light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government
- plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer
- prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb
- assassin to break the bulb in the first place.
- %
- Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
- A: One and a half.
- %
- Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
- A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
- to the earlier joke.
- %
- Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
- A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those
- Californians trying to share the experience.
- %
- Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
- A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
- with brightly colored machine tools.
- %
- Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
- A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
- of the way.
- %
- Q: What's a light-year?
- A: One-third less calories than a regular year.
- %
- Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
- A: Because it was on the other side.
- %
- Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
- A: To stamp out forest fires.
- Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
- A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
- %
- Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
- A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home.
- %
- Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What
- should I do?
- A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on
- believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be
- the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No
- time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if
- somebody else has made the correction.
- And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're
- the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have
- to inform the whole net right away!
- -- Brad Templeton, "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions
- on Netiquette"
- %
- Quality Control, n.:
- The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off
- a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works.
- %
- Question:
- Man Invented Alcohol,
- God Invented Grass.
- Who do you trust?
- %
- Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!
- %
- Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!
- %
- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
- (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
- %
- Quigley's Law:
- Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
- atttempt to use it.
- %
- QUOTE OF THE DAY:
- `
- %
- Qvid me anxivs svm?
- %
- QWERT (kwirt), n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]:
- 1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69
- kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering; 2. [colloq.] one
- thirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can carry; 3. [anat.] a
- painful irritation of the dermis in the region of the anus; 4. [slang]
- person who excites in others the symptoms of a qwert.
- -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.
- %
- Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
- %
- 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
- %
- Ray's Rule of Precision:
- Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
- %
- Razors pain you;
- Rivers are damp;
- Acids stain you;
- And drugs cause cramp.
- Guns aren't lawful;
- Nooses give;
- Gas smells awful;
- You might as well live.
- -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926
- %
- Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
- the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
- with pictures.
- %
- Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
- Congress. But I repeat myself.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- 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 despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware
- has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing
- machines are so poor at I/O.
- %
- 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 only write specs for languages that might run
- on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo
- sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.
- %
- 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 comment their code. It was hard to write, it
- should be hard to understand.
- %
- Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
- illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
- much good it did them.
- %
- Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires
- you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers
- wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly
- spring up in the middle of the machine room.
- %
- Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write
- in BASIC after reaching puberty.
- %
- Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress
- freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who
- wear white socks.
- %
- Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who
- can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.
- %
- Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.
- %
- 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 software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the
- job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like
- using an undocumented external procedure.
- %
- Real Time, adj.:
- Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there
- and then.
- %
- Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
- afraid to break your face.
- %
- Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts
- down the system for days.
- %
- Real Users hate Real Programmers.
- %
- Real Users know your home telephone number.
- %
- Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your
- program doesn't deliver it.
- %
- Real Users never use the Help key.
- %
- Real World, The n.:
- 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
- be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To
- programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
- to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
- tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5.
- 4. The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university.
- "Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used
- pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking
- of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
- deceased person.
- %
- Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs.
- %
- Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.
- %
- Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?
- -- Patrick Sky
- %
- Reality is for people who lack imagination.
- %
- Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
- %
- Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity.
- -- Alvy Ray Smith
- %
- Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"
- -- Philip K. Dick
- %
- Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!
- %
- Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than
- being flat broke and having a stomach ache.
- -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
- %
- Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you
- lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict,
- but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and
- Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3
- recessions.
- %
- Reclaimer, spare that tree!
- Take not a single bit!
- It used to point to me,
- Now I'm protecting it.
- It was the reader's CONS
- That made it, paired by dot;
- Now, GC, for the nonce,
- Thou shalt reclaim it not.
- %
- "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"
- Candy
- Is dandy
- But liquor
- Is quicker.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- "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"
- %
- Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia:
- If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
- %
- Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
- -- Anatole France
- %
- Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it.
- -- Dave Barry
- %
- Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be
- worse in Cleveland.
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good
- offense!
- %
- Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat.
- %
- Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.
- %
- Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
- -- Dave Butler
- %
- Renning's Maxim:
- Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.
- %
- Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western
- Civilization?
- Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
- %
- Reporter, n.:
- A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a
- tempest of words.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system?
-
- SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that
- the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can
- carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away."
- I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind
- of chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to
- do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of
- ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we
- need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political
- career by being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but
- that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I
- can't help it.
- -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
- %
- Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
- -- Wernher von Braun
- %
- Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
- another chance later on.
- %
- 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?
- %
- Rhode's Law:
- When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening,
- circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly,
- empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred,
- induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always
- for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage,
- material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or
- none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed,
- proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably,
- universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it
- becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe.
- %
- Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention
- Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will
- reject the proposal.
- %
- Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.
- -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo"
- %
- ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
- MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-
- door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.
- %
- Rudin's Law:
- If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it
- every time.
- %
- Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London:
- Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall
- be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person
- shall be deemed to be a cat.
- %
- Rule of Creative Research:
- (1) Never draw what you can copy.
- (2) Never copy what you can trace.
- (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.
- %
- Rule of Defactualization:
- Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
- %
- Rule of Feline Frustration:
- When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
- content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
- %
- 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 driving in New York:
- (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal.
- (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers
- on.
- (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the
- intersection.
- %
- RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED
- (1) Never eat on an empty stomach.
- (2) Never leave the table hungry.
- (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry.
- (4) Enjoy your food.
- (5) Enjoy your companion's food.
- (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to
- accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned.
- (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare,
- for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a
- brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks?
- (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal.
- (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You
- can always eat it later.
- (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap.
- (11) Avoid blue food.
- -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"
- %
- Rules:
- (1) The boss is always right.
- (2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.
- %
- Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
- Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead.
- (1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, bugs,
- ants.
- (2) Something is missing in your personal relationships.
- (3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate.
- (4) You have a hard time getting a waiter.
- (5) Exotic birds flock around you.
- (6) People ignore you at parties.
- (7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning.
- (8) You no longer get off on cocaine.
- %
- Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
- (1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear
- bomb; use the stairs.
- (2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit
- the ground.
- (3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.
- (4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to
- psychological problems.
- (5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to
- recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed
- potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.
- (6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs
- will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.
- (7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles.
- (8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be
- staggering illegally.
- (9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more
- sanitary due to limited circulation.
- (10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on
- D-Day.
- %
- SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
- You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless
- tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority
- of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People
- laugh at you a great deal.
- %
- San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.
- -- Herb Caen
- %
- San Francisco, n.:
- Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse.
- %
- Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.
- -- Mark Harrold
- %
- Santa Claus wears a Red Suit,
- He must be a communist.
- And a beard and long hair,
- Must be a pacifist.
- What's in that pipe that he's smoking?
- -- Arlo Guthrie
- %
- Satellite Safety Tip #14:
- If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.
- %
- Sattinger's Law:
- It works better if you plug it in.
- %
- Saturday night in Toledo Ohio,
- Is like being nowhere at all,
- All through the day how the hours rush by,
- You sit in the park and you watch the grass die.
- -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"
- %
- Sauron is alive in Argentina!
- %
- Save energy: be apathetic.
- %
- Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda.
- %
- Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
- %
- Saw a sign on a restaurant that said Breakfast, any time -- so I
- ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
- -- Ken Thompson
- %
- Schapiro's Explanation:
- The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's
- because they use more manure.
- %
- Schizophrenia beats being alone.
- %
- Schlattwhapper, n.:
- The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down,
- hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Schnuffel, n.:
- A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in
- mixed company.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Schwiggle, n.:
- The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a
- pencil.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made
- of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts
- is not necessarily science.
- -- Henri Poincar'e
- %
- Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
- %
- Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.
- -- William Buckley
- %
- SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21)
- You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will
- achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of
- ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered.
- %
- Scott's first Law:
- No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
- %
- Scott's second Law:
- When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found
- to have been wrong in the first place.
- Corollary:
- After the correction has been found in error, it will be
- impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.
- %
- Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
- Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
- Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
- Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
- Spock: Affirmative.
- Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
- Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.
- %
- Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.
- %
- Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the
- Presidency.
- -- Richard Nixon
- %
- Second Law of Business Meetings:
- If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you
- will pick the wrong one.
- Corollary:
- If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it
- wrong, anyway.
- %
- Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State).
- In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a
- multiline message byte.
- In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message
- must be sent passive true.
- The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter:
- (1) The ANRS if DAV is false
- (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither:
- (a) The LADS is active
- (b) Nor LACS is active
- -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for
- Programmable Instrumentation
- %
- Security check: INTRUDER ALERT!
- %
- Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
- She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
- Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
- Silently scheming,
- Sightlessly seeking
- Some savage, spectacular suicide.
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ...
- %
- Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine:
- Ice Cream cures all ills.
- %
- Self Test for Paranoia:
- You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's
- your own fault.
- %
- Seminars, n.:
- From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion.
- %
- Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would
- notify you if the record has pornographic material or
- material glorifying violence?"
- Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me."
- Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's
- legs on the album cover is good indication that it's
- not for little Johnny."
- -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock
- lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985
- %
- Senate, n.:
- A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
- misdemeanors.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- Serenity through viciousness.
- %
- Serocki's Stricture:
- Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
- %
- Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
- %
- "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated
- thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY
- advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
- "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
- "Too proud?" the other enquired.
- Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"
- she said, "that one can't help growing older."
- "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With
- proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
- -- Lewis Carroll
- %
- 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"
- %
- Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.
- %
- Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
- -- Swami X
- %
- Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.
- -- M. C. Reed
- %
- Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
- it's one of the best.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- Shamus, n. [Yiddish]:
- A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the
- temple, and makes sure everything is in working order.
- A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagogue
- functionaries, and there's a joke about that:
- A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the
- middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be
- bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!"
- The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I
- am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks
- he's nobody!"
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off
- during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
- Teen Should Know"
- %
- Shaw's Principle:
- Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
- want to use it.
- %
- She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to.
- -- Gypsy Rose Lee
- %
- She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them
- were bad.
- %
- She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could
- have poured on a waffle ...
- %
- She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing,
- you should hear me play piano.'
- -- Morrisey
- %
- She's genuinely bogus.
- %
- Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have
- taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an
- excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
- -- Samuel Johnson
- %
- SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
- POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!
- %
- Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is
- playing golf with his boss.
- %
- Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.
- %
- Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.
- -- from the Brown University Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet
- %
- Silverman's Law:
- If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
- %
- Simon's Law:
- Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
- %
- 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
- %
- Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're
- alive.
- -- John Sloan
- %
- Since we're all here, we must not be all there.
- -- Bob "Mountain" Beck
- %
- [Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
- vices I admire.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate
- Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically
- excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text.
- This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally
- examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published
- Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be
- printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry
- comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had
- no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy.
- %
- Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor):
- That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to,
- or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should
- have gotten.
- %
- Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes
- to work.
- %
- 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
- %
- Slick's Three Laws of the Universe:
- (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad
- check.
- (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat.
- (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is
- attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is
- attracted to dark objects.
- %
- Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
- %
- Slurm, n.:
- The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
- it sits in the dish too long.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
- -- Fletcher Knebel
- %
- Snacktrek, n.:
- The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly
- returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have
- materialized.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate
- your current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and
- hurl it into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast
- array of 8-millimeter video equipment.
- ... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you
- were gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format
- that makes your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as
- toenail dirt. This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be
- made available until it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a
- format called "Elroy", so *order yours now*.
- -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics
- Revolution"
- %
- So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in
- praise of intelligence.
- -- Bertrand Russell
- %
- ... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those
- who wish to tyranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent,
- and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious
- and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
- -- Voltarine de Cleyre
- %
- 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"
- %
- 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
- %
- ... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their
- procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
- to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
- sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
- documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
- listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
- documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
- under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the
- effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
- scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
- in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of
- thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
- then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
- dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
- along.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
- %
- So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway?
- And why can't he ever remember his Bible?
- %
- Sodd's Second Law:
- Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is
- bound to occur.
- %
- Software, n.:
- Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
- %
- Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit.
- %
- Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.
- -- Ed Howe
- %
- Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to
- celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around
- stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on
- "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind
- of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The
- government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level
- Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and
- billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which
- it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming
- thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with
- the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money
- and go to a mall.
- -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- %
- Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some
- people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
- -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
- %
- Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only
- one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."
- %
- Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit
- them on the head.
- %
- Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.
- %
- 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
- %
- Some points to remember [about animals]:
- (1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri,
- hippopotamuses;
- (2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the
- front of your clothes;
- (3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs
- you have just kicked.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- Some primal termite knocked on wood.
- And tasted it, and found it good.
- And that is why your Cousin May
- Fell through the parlor floor today.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Some programming languages manage to absorb change but withstand
- progress.
- %
- Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand
- progress.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the
- pens will multiply instead of disappear.
- %
- Someone will try to honk your nose today.
- %
- Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm
- the only ashtray.
- %
- Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
- -- Lily Tomlin
- %
- "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the
- Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then
- intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men
- and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our
- best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are
- we not God's Machineries of Joy?"
- "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin."
- -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy"
- %
- Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering.
- %
- Song Title of the Week:
- "They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change
- in me."
- %
- Sooner or later you must pay for your sins.
- (Those who have already paid may disregard this fortune).
- %
- Sorry, no fortune this time.
- %
- Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.
- %
- Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the
- road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- Spare no expense to save money on this one.
- -- Samuel Goldwyn
- %
- Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers:
- If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as
- if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question
- back at him.
- %
- Speak roughly to your little boy,
- And beat him when he sneezes:
- He only does it to annoy
- Because he knows it teases.
- Wow! wow! wow!
- I speak severely to my boy,
- And beat him when he sneezes:
- For he can thoroughly enjoy
- The pepper when he pleases!
- Wow! wow! wow!
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
- %
- Speak roughly to your little VAX,
- And boot it when it crashes;
- It knows that one cannot relax
- Because the paging thrashes!
- Wow! Wow! Wow!
- I speak severely to my VAX,
- And boot it when it crashes;
- In spite of all my favorite hacks
- My jobs it always thrashes!
- Wow! Wow! Wow!
- %
- Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword.
- %
- Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.
- -- Dave Millman
- %
- Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am
- sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging,
- cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free
- the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a
- bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a
- controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before
- passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same
- memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well,
- no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously
- designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
- %
- Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror:
- With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair
- He throws the spinning disk drives in the air!
- And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down
- As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds!
- Helpless users with projects due
- Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too!
- Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla!
- Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!"
- * VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation
- * DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc.
- -- Curtis Jackson
- %
- 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"
- %
- Speed is subsittute fo accurancy.
- %
- Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading:
- The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the
- number of times you have looked at it.
- %
- Spelling is a lossed art.
- %
- Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers.
- %
- Spirtle, n.:
- The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in
- your eye.
- -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
- %
- Spouse, n.:
- Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you
- wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.
- %
- Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist
- drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to pur'ee of bat guano; and the
- greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll
- take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!
- -- Harlan Ellison
- %
- Stay away from flying saucers today.
- %
- Stay away from hurricanes for a while.
- %
- Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.
- %
- Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
- Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have
- another drink.
- %
- Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:
- Never test for an error condition you don't know how to
- handle.
- %
- Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.
- %
- Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.
- Now, if they'd only take a bath ...
- %
- Stult's Report:
- Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is
- fight the solutions.
- %
- Stupid, n.:
- Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
- %
- Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?
- %
- Sturgeon's Law:
- 90% of everything is crud.
- %
- Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your
- editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way
- before it is understood.
- %
- Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.
- %
- Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar
- without his duck ...
- %
- (Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA)
- To code the impossible code,
- To bring up a virgin machine,
- To pop out of endless recursion,
- To grok what appears on the screen,
- To right the unrightable bug,
- To endlessly twiddle and thrash,
- To mount the unmountable magtape,
- To stop the unstoppable crash!
- %
- Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!
- %
- Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy.
- %
- Support your local police force -- steal!!
- %
- Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost.
- %
- Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead!
- %
- Surprise due today. Also the rent.
- %
- Surprise your boss. Get to work on time.
- %
- Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type
- in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving
- the room is punishable under law:
- Name #
- %
- Swahili, n.:
- The language used by the National Enquirer to print their retractions.
- -- Johnny Hart
- %
- Sweater, n.:
- A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.
- %
- Swipple's Rule of Order:
- He who shouts the loudest has the floor.
- %
- Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad
- infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- _
- _ / \ o
- / \ | | o o o
- | | | | _ o o o o
- | \_| | / \ o o o
- \__ | | | o o
- | | | | ______ ~~~~ _____
- | |__/ | / ___--\\ ~~~ __/_____\__
- | ___/ / \--\\ \\ \ ___ <__ x x __\
- | | / /\\ \\ )) \ ( " )
- | | -------(---->>(@)--(@)-------\----------< >-----------
- | | // | | //__________ / \ ____) (___ \\
- | | // __|_| ( --------- ) //// ______ /////\ \\
- // | ( \ ______ / <<<< <>-----<<<<< / \\
- // ( ) / / \` \__ \\
- //-------------------------------------------------------------\\
- Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels
- start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and
- then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the
- music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
- -- H. S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
- %
- T: One big monster, he called TROLL.
- He don't rock, and he don't roll;
- Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies.
- He just Love To Eat Them Roguies.
- -- The Roguelet's ABC
- %
- Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
- hole in his head.
- %
- Tact, n.:
- The unsaid part of what you're thinking.
- %
- Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way.
- %
- Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting
- enough cheese.
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- Take it easy, we're in a hurry.
- %
- Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it
- needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
- -- Kipling
- %
- 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"
- %
- 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"
- %
- Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
- -- Euripides
- %
- Talkers are no good doers.
- -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
- %
- Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
- -- Friedrich Nietzsche
- %
- TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20)
- You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged
- determination and work like hell. Most people think you are
- stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist.
- %
- Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
- the tree."
- -- Russell Long
- %
- Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself
- out of the market.
- %
- Taxes, n.:
- Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get
- an extension.
- %
- Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when they
- grows up, they will never be able to edge their car onto a freeway.
- %
- Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.
- %
- Technological progress has merely provided us
- with more efficient means for going backwards.
- -- Aldous Huxley
- %
- Telephone, n.:
- An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
- advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- 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
- %
- Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop
- writing.
- -- R. Geis
- %
- Terence, this is stupid stuff:
- You eat your victuals fast enough;
- There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
- To see the rate you drink your beer.
- But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
- It gives a chap the belly-ache.
- The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
- It sleeps well the horned head:
- We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
- To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
- Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
- Your friends to death before their time.
- Moping, melancholy mad:
- Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.
- -- A. E. Housman
- %
- Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a
- surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one
- hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other
- hand were unwilling to risk offending God's grandmother.
- -- Len Cool, "American Pie"
- %
- Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a
- pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city
- until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is
- ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe
- because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical
- fact, for he merely said:
- "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because
- it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain
- because it is impossible."
- Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of
- philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it.
- -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types
- (Tertullian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church).
- %
- Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.
- %
- Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.
- %
- Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
- one which cannot be justified on any other grounds.
- -- J. Finnegan, USC.
- %
- Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future.
- -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly
- %
- That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver.
- -- Foghorn Leghorn
- %
- That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all.
- -- Moliere
- %
- That secret you've been guarding, isn't.
- %
- That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy.
- %
- The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by
- people who want some.
- -- Dwight MacDonald
- %
- The Abrams' Principle:
- The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.
- %
- The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper
- -- Thomas Jefferson
- %
- The Advertising Agency Song:
-
- When your client's hopping mad,
- Put his picture in the ad.
- If he still should prove refractory,
- Add a picture of his factory.
- %
- The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug
- someone with it.
- -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340
- %
- ... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that
- consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune
- of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to
- listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas
- River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little
- Rock.
- %
- The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion.
- Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed
- and color, but also on ability.
- -- T. Lehrer
- %
- The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe.
- -- Bill Murray
- %
- The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use
- in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the
- Declaration not for that, but for future use.
- -- Abraham Lincoln
- %
- The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m.
- %
- The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the
- average man can see better than he can think.
- %
- The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by
- people who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried
- anything.
- -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore
- %
- 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 basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit
- called the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in
- writing -- "100 percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would
- be heated up and then cooled back down in electronic devices
- immediately before serving. The Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a
- bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special
- Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a bottle and a little slip of
- paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12". The Lunch or Dinner Patty
- would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in the morning.
- The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were starting to
- emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be Seafood
- Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets."
- -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
- %
- The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";
- but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
- %
- The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
- -- W. C. Fields
- %
- The best defense against logic is ignorance.
- %
- The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.
- %
- "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
- blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
- You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
- night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
- love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
- know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
- one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
- wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
- never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
- dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
- lot of things there are to learn."
- -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"
- %
- The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
- is a match.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- The bigger the theory the better.
- %
- The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse
- time.
- -- Merrick Furst
- %
- The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss
- Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.
- It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been
- known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and,
- in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two
- under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of
- people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a
- city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking
- umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of
- activity that frightens the horses on the street ...
- %
- The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch.
- %
- The bogosity meter just pegged.
- %
- The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
- in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
- %
- The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development:
- To determine how long it will take to write and debug a
- program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and
- convert to the next higher units.
- %
- The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.
- Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in
- automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.
- -- Art Buchwald
- %
- The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding
- bureaucracy.
- %
- The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the
- flexibility and power of assembly language with the readability
- of assembly language.
- %
- The camel has a single hump;
- The dromedary two;
- Or else the other way around.
- I'm never sure. Are you?
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly
- greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed
- inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner
- party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain.
- -- G. Fitch
- %
- The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up
- at the steam fitters' picnic.
- %
- The chief cause of problems is solutions.
- -- Eric Sevareid
- %
- The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions.
- -- Alfred Adler
- %
- The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will
- walk carefully.
- -- Russian Proverb
- %
- The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
- %
- The Computer made me do it.
- %
- The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
- -- Alan Perlis
- %
- The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his
- memos.
- -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
- %
- The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other
- subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up
- every bird watcher in the country.
- -- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972
- %
- The Consultant's Curse:
- When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him
- what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong
- medicine, and is normally only required once.
- %
- The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is
- none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but."
- Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period.
- Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you
- talked about.
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- %
- The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
- %
- The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down.
- %
- The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to
- eat.
- -- John McNulty
- %
- The Crown is full of it!
- -- Nate Harris, 1775
- %
- The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should
- therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could
- hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to
- declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny ... In war,
- then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press.
- Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges.
- -- William Ellery Channing
- %
- The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
- %
- The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of
- us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching
- Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.
- %
- The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
- %
- The devil finds work for idle circuits to do.
- %
- The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell
- into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him
- out again, it would be a calamity.
- -- Benjamin Disraeli
- %
- The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science
- requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
- -- Robert Heinlein
- %
- The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the
- following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates:
- "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish.
- Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is
- Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous.
- "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish.
- Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish.
- Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish.
- Macaroons are ____very Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is
- goyish. Lime soda is ____very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that
- Jews won't go near them ..."
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on
- a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets.
- %
- The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man
- really clever who has not found that he is stupid.
- -- Gilbert K. Chesterson
- %
- The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show
- off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his
- next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the
- duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the
- duck and returned it to his master.
- "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
- "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim."
- %
- The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late
- and owns the worm farm.
- -- Travis McGee
- %
- The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.
- %
- The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
- add ten percent.
- %
- The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on
- weather forecasters.
- -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann
- %
- The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not
- Compute' -- I forget which.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of
- civilization.
- -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- %
- The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with
- symposium to follow.
- %
- The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach
- their children to speak it.
- -- G. B. Shaw
- %
- The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a
- remarkable Christian forbearance among men.
- -- Ambrose Bierce
- %
- The fact that it works is immaterial.
- -- L. Ogborn
- %
- The faster we go, the rounder we get.
- -- The Grateful Dead
- %
- The Fifth Rule:
- You have taken yourself too seriously.
- %
- The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
- -- Abbie Hoffman
- %
- The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King
- Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a
- tragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad
- forks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously
- fled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of
- threatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this looked
- suspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected of
- foul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop dead
- one after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled with
- dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were found
- drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknown
- and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have
- thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture
- of grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left
- in Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed
- crown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave
- Parrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when
- a lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful
- throne, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system.
- -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
- %
- The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of
- management is that success equals skill.
- -- Robert Heller
- %
- The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish
- child, was propounded to me by my father:
- "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and
- whistles?"
- I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity
- gave up.
- "A herring," said my father.
- "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!"
- "So hang it there."
- "But a herring isn't green!" I protested.
- "Paint it."
- "But a herring isn't wet."
- "If it's just painted it's still wet."
- "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring
- doesn't whistle!!"
- "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it
- hard."
- -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish"
- %
- The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your
- hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do.
- -- McCloctnik the Lucid
- %
- The First Rule of Program Optimization:
- Don't do it.
- The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
- Don't do it yet.
- -- Michael Jackson
- %
- The first time, it's a KLUDGE!
- The second, a trick.
- Later, it's a well-established technique!
- -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics
- %
- The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions
- Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals:
- As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of
- logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more
- appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the
- four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector.
- . . .
- Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible
- blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves
- parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge
- of the hyper-cube.
- %
- The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by
- a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities.
- %
- The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl.
- -- Dave Barry
- %
- The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the
- number of your kids by 32 teeth.
- %
- The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
- chance.
- %
- The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness.
- %
- The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the
- center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South
- Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South
- End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
- %
- The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled
- today.
- %
- The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
- least until we've finished building it.
- %
- The goal of science is to build better mousetraps.
- The goal of nature is to build better mice.
- %
- The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him
- love and he invented marriage.
- %
- THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
- The one who has the gold makes the rules.
- %
- The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who
- make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians
- have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine
- man in the bonds of Hell.
- -- St. Augustine
- %
- The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got
- to be good.
- %
- "The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")
- On the good ship Enterprise
- Every week there's a new surprise
- Where the Romulans lurk
- And the Klingons often go berserk.
- Yes, the good ship Enterprise
- There's excitement anywhere it flies
- Where Tribbles play
- And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.
- See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
- Mr. Spock is at his side.
- The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
- It gets fried, scattered far and wide.
- It's the good ship Enterprise
- Heading out where danger lies
- And you live in dread
- If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
- -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics
- %
- The government [is] extremely fond of amassing great quantities of
- statistics. These are raised to the _nth degree, the cube roots are
- extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressive
- displays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in every
- case, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he puts
- down anything he damn well pleases.
- -- Sir Josiah Stamp
- %
- The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
- who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
- -- Benjamin Franklin
- %
- The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog:
- The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in
- courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk
- clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods
- of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp
- Hedgehog Eater.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
- of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
- -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
- %
- The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
- -- Albert Einstein
- %
- The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a
- custom whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the
- contrary, nohow.
- %
- The Heineken Uncertainty Principle:
- You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.
- %
- The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent
- thinkers.
- %
- The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back,
- which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at
- least 5000 years old."
- %
- The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
- lists of "Ten Best".
- -- H. Allen Smith
- %
- The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and
- has gills through which it can see.
- -- Monty Python
- %
- The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
- capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
- %
- The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
- protein -- it rejects it.
- -- P. Medawar
- %
- The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I can
- remember. Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spider
- struggling to weave its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming in
- spring, the shark reveals to us yet another of the infinite and
- wonderful facets of nature, namely the facet that it can bite your head
- off. This causes us humans to feel a certain degree of awe.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
- %
- The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
- procession but carrying a banner.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- The idea is to die young as late as possible.
- -- Ashley Montague
- %
- The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic
- devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers,
- where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with
- sledgehammers. With their devices thus permanently destroyed,
- consumers would then be free to go out and buy new devices, rather than
- have to fritter away years of their lives trying to have the old ones
- repaired at so-called "factory service centers," which in fact consist
- of two men named Lester poking at the insides of broken electronic
- devices with cheap cigars and going, "Lookit all them WIRES in there!"
- -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
- %
- The identical is equal to itself, since it is different.
- -- Franco Spisani
- %
- The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer.
- -- Henry Kissinger
- %
- The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
- has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
- when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
- -- Will Rogers
- %
- The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important
- point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly
- important thing to people.
- -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King
- %
- The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the
- number of participants.
- -- Adam Walinsky
- %
- The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided
- by the number of people in the group.
- %
- 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 Kennedy Constant:
- Don't get mad -- get even.
- %
- The Killer Ducks are coming!!!
- %
- 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 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 law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the
- law free.
- -- Henry David Thoreau
- %
- The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
- poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
- bread.
- -- Anatole France
- %
- The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all
- men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the
- universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we
- presently imagine we own.
- -- H. G. Wells
- %
- 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 #12: LITHP
- This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of
- an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said
- to be useful in protheththing lithtth.
- %
- 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 #18: C-
- This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he
- submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is
- best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the
- language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code
- statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very
- similar to COBOL.
- %
- THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18a: FIFTH
- FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types
- refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and
- JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and
- BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY,
- CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND.
- The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and
- financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include
- VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH
- and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers
- who end up using this language.
- %
- 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 #5: VALGOL
- From its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando Valley,
- VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry.
- Here is a sample program:
- LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START
- IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY = LIKE TUBULAR AND
- VALLEY GIRL = LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN
- FOR I = LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100
- DO*WAH - (DITTY**2)
- BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT)
- SURE
- LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM
- REALLY
- LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW)
- IM*SURE
- GOTO THE MALL
- When the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message:
- GAG ME WITH A SPOON!!
- %
- 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 light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching
- train.
- %
- The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon.
- %
- The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get
- much sleep.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
- -- Henry Kissinger
- %
- The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as
- we could with both of them.
- -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
- %
- The makers may make
- And the users may use,
- But the fixers must fix
- With but minimal clues
- %
- The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the
- crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no
- one has ever been.
- -- Alan Ashley-Pitt
- %
- The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
- will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a
- soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which
- when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.
- %
- ... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ...
- -- Dave Barry
- %
- The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
- %
- The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the
- klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream."
- "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?"
- "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?"
- %
- The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to
- devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation.
- -- Lew Mammel, Jr.
- %
- The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might
- be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the
- law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was
- guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples
- Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking
- Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality
- of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive
- power.
- -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems
- Thinking."
- %
- The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything.
- -- Laurence J. Peter
- %
- The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.
- -- Nicol Williamson
- %
- The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.
- %
- The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away.
- %
- The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the
- lower the mailing cost.
- -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
- %
- The more laws and order are made prominent,
- the more thieves and robbers there will be.
- -- Lao Tsu
- %
- The more things change, the more they stay insane.
- %
- The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us
- is right.
- %
- The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
- -- Andy Warhol
- %
- The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and
- to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
- -- Theodore H. White
- %
- The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
- discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
- -- Isaac Asimov
- %
- The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
- %
- ... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!
- %
- "... The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
- "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to
- feel interested.
- "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
- vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged
- Aged Man.'"
- "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"
- Alice corrected herself.
- "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is
- called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!"
- "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time
- completely bewildered.
- "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is
- "A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in
- 1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert.
- -- D. Letterman
- %
- The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says:
- Support your right to bare arms!
- %
- 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 new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I
- hope I don't get run over again.
- %
- The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,
- in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.
- But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for
- whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
- -- Matthew 5:37
- %
- 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
- %
- The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
- choose from.
- -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
- %
- The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the
- 80-column card.
- -- Dennis M. Ritchie
- %
- The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should
- serve the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free society
- these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their
- function is to serve as checks upon the state.
- -- Alan Barth
- %
- The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are
- correct.
- -- Ralph Hartley
- %
- The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly
- analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their
- occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve
- these problems when called upon.
- However, when you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to
- remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
- %
- The Official MBA Handbook on business cards:
- Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm,
- Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate
- Planning."
- %
- The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.
- %
- The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
- brings wisdom.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader
- catch his own breath.
- -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
- %
- The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when
- to cringe.
- %
- The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the
- `social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
- -- Ernest Rutherford
- %
- The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop
- and take a rest.
- %
- The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon.
- -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
- Over and Over"
- %
- The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it.
- %
- The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber
- has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture,
- finished, and put inside boxes.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on.
- It is never any use to oneself.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
- -- Hegel
- I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the
- long view.
- -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"
- %
- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up
- until 5 or 6 p.m.
- %
- The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
- -- Niels Bohr
- %
- The optimum committee has no members.
- -- Norman Augustine
- %
- The other day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven ... I almost
- went back in time.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because
- it isn't here.
- -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)
- %
- The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it
- were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the
- Victorian period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a
- large wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress'
- it. The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into becoming the
- apparatus for a spectator sport.
- The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for
- castrating pigs during Sunday service.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
- Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.
- Let others think his heart is big,
- I think it stupid of the Pig.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter
- swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the
- batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The
- center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute
- his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it.
- -- Dizzy Dean
- %
- The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.
- -- David Lardner
- %
- 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 porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more often.
- %
- The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher,
- Were each of them once a kiddie.
- A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature.
- Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by his
- brother's remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is
- Jews!". Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers.
- -- Baltimore, Channel 11 News, on Jimmy Carter
- %
- The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday
- they might force their beliefs on us.
- -- Mario Cuomo
- %
- The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired
- warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by
- changing the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tipped
- marker.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
- constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every
- appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA
- statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This
- also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
- -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers
- %
- The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough
- voters to win the next election.
- %
- The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO"
- represents the secondary theme:
- Law Enforcement Officials
- The overall theme of SoupCon shall be:
- Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials
- -- M. Gallaher
- %
- ... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from
- other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in
- charity we can only call "inhuman."
- -- R. A. Lafferty
- %
- The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the
- stupidity of your action.
- %
- 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 problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go
- to erase it.
- -- Glaser and Way
- %
- 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 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 problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
- %
- The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's
- outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by
- mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once
- tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims
- the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- "The pyramid is opening!"
- "Which one?"
- "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
- -- The Firesign Theatre, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
- Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
- %
- The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's:
- "My brain is paged out to my liver"
- %
- The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is
- it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television,
- that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of
- industrial waste?
- -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
- %
- The rain it raineth on the just
- And also on the unjust fella,
- But chiefly on the just, because
- The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
- --Lord Bowen
- %
- The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is
- cursed.
- %
- The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.
- %
- The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose",
- which is also sometimes called "grape sugar", and also because "Grape
- Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil
- Food and Gravel", which is what it tastes like.
- -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
- %
- The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
- persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
- progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- -- George Bernard Shaw
- %
- The revolution will not be televised.
- %
- The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
- -- Emerson
- %
- The rhino is a homely beast,
- For human eyes he's not a feast.
- Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
- I'll stare at something less prepoceros.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This
- means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
- %
- The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests
- and to his imagination for his facts.
- -- Sheridan
- %
- The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
- -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
- %
- The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the
- House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights
- you have and what rights you have not got.
- -- J. Parnell Thomas
- %
- The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with
- sloppy analysis!
- %
- The Roman Rule
- The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the
- one who is doing it.
- %
- The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in
- his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on
- one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't
- take it too seriously.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or
- give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.
- -- Jane Bryant Quinn
- %
- "The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"
- %
- The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100
- showed that all had these things in common:
- (1) They all had moderate appetites.
- (2) They all came from middle class homes
- (3) All but two of them were dead.
- %
- The scum also rises.
- -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
- %
- The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,
- respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones
- from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the
- milestones are lifted.
- -- George Bernard Shaw
- %
- The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood
- as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all.
- The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in
- the palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in
- twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive.
- "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached
- everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a
- fierce host which out-numbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by fifty to one --
- and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city."
- "How?" demanded Fafhrd.
- Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know."
- -- Fritz Leiber, from "The Swords of Lankhmar"
- %
- The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land.
- %
- The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
- -- Noelie Alito
- %
- The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee:
- The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going
- in a direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a long
- way.)
- -- Dan Roddick
- %
- The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity
- and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted
- activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ...
- neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
- %
- The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their
- money.
- -- Ed Bluestone, "The National Lampoon"
- %
- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!
- %
- The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be
- able to correct them.
- -- Nicolaides
- %
- The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
- %
- The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average Russian's
- readiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement of
- some pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quiet
- reflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they led
- the field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is well
- known that as early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat at
- Reykjavik would do to national prestige, implemented a vigorous program
- of preparation and incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team of
- psychologists, chess analysts and coaches met with the top three
- Russian grand masters and threatened them with a pointy stick. That
- these tactics proved fruitless is now a part of chess history and a
- further testament to the American way, which provides that if you want
- something badly enough, you can always go to Iceland and get it from
- the Russians.
- -- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973
- %
- The STAR WARS Song
- Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks:
- I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
- Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda
- S-O-D-A soda
- I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
- I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
- Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
- Well I've been around but I ain't never seen
- A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green
- Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
- Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
- How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand
- Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
- %
- The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.
- %
- The steady state of disks is full.
- -- Ken Thompson
- %
- 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 streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make
- them unsafe.
- -- Mayor Frank Rizzo
- %
- The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and
- is an emerging underachiever.
- %
- The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant
- biology.
- %
- The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren't
- even any property taxes.
- -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b
- %
- The sum of the Universe is zero.
- %
- The sun was shining on the sea,
- Shining with all his might:
- He did his very best to make
- The billows smooth and bright --
- And this was very odd, because it was
- The middle of the night.
- -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
- %
- The superfluous is very necessary.
- -- Voltaire
- %
- The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
- authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as
- the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as
- the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
- radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much
- as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we
- receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the
- Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will
- heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to
- the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much
- heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for
- radiation, (_H/_E)^4 = 50, where _E is the absolute temperature of the
- earth (-300K), gives _H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell
- cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the
- fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which
- burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means
- that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We
- have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
- -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
- %
- 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.
- %
- The Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
- The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
- The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break
- even.
- The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero.
- %
- 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"
- %
- The trouble with a kitten is that
- When it grows up, it's always a cat
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
- %
- The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate
- it.
- -- Franklin P. Jones
- %
- The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing
- more important to do.
- %
- The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
- appreciates how difficult it was.
- %
- The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths.
- -- Ken Kesey
- %
- The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie.
- -- Lenny Bruce
- %
- The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility.
- And vice versa.
- %
- The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
- Which practically conceal its sex.
- I think it clever of the turtle
- In such a fix to be so fertile.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
- %
- The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more
- annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are
- "100 percent American"...
- -- U. S. Army (1945)
- %
- The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to
- everybody and still nobody likes him.
- -- Jim Samuels
- %
- The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be
- broken.
- %
- The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the
- combination is locked up in the safe.
- -- Peter DeVries
- %
- The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie
- Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said
- to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his
- decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."
- %
- The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and
- religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging
- from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its
- yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the
- world put together.
- -- Sir Peter Medawar
- %
- The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
- regarded as a criminal offense.
- -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
- %
- The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes
- the worst cigars.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid
- prejudice.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- 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 wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth.
- %
- The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity
- that would be clearly understood.
- -- Alexander Haig
- %
- The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start
- with a large fortune.
- %
- THE WOMBAT
- The wombat lives across the seas,
- Among the far Antipodes.
- He may exist on nuts and berries,
- Or then again, on missionaries;
- His distant habitat precludes
- Conclusive knowledge of his moods.
- But I would not engage the wombat
- In any form of mortal combat.
- %
- The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
- %
- The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
- %
- The world is coming to an end. Please log off.
- %
- The world's as ugly as sin,
- And almost as delightful.
- -- Frederick Locker-Lampson
- %
- The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of
- four and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all
- the answers.
- %
- Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations.
- He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan,
- then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open
- market.
- If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should
- not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself.
- Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree.
- Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg.
- Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower.
- -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- %
- Then here's to the City of Boston,
- The town of the cries and the groans.
- Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,
- And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns.
- -- Franklin Pierce Adams
- %
- THEORY
- Into love and out again,
- Thus I went and thus I go.
- Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
- Well and bitterly I know
- All the songs were ever sung,
- All the words were ever said;
- Could it be, when I was young,
- Someone dropped me on my head?
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- There *__is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday.
- %
- There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable,
- and praiseworthy ...
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all own
- cats.
- %
- There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis
- are chosen correctly.
- %
- There are no games on this system.
- %
- There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the
- existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any
- marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat
- engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is
- obviously impossible.
- -- Richard Davisson
- %
- There are people so addicted to exaggeration
- that they can't tell the truth without lying.
- -- Josh Billings
- %
- There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a
- vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
- -- Gloria Steinem
- %
- There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that
- someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named
- Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or
- Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that
- every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is
- this?
- Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for
- centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think ___you
- can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's
- forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster
- -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't
- even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover
- why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance.
- -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
- %
- 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?
- %
- There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells
- and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated
- pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving
- them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you
- stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your
- intelligence.
- -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII
- %
- There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
- -- Disraeli
- %
- There are three possibilities:
- Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun;
- there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or
- someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor.
- %
- There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be
- offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin
- a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount
- of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of
- affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately.
- When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.
- Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
- -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
- %
- There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and
- engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far
- the more certain.
- -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800
- %
- There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring
- the changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many
- facts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next
- fact; that's science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent
- Universe controlled by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's
- Factor; that's engineering.
- %
- There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I
- can't remember.
- -- Italo Svevo
- %
- There are three ways to get something done:
- (1) Do it yourself.
- (2) Hire someone to do it for you.
- (3) Forbid your kids to do it.
- %
- There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire
- someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
- %
- There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is
- one of them.
- %
- There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect
- the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the
- sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.
- -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
- %
- There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
- sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
- make is so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
- other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
- deficiencies.
- -- C. A. R. Hoare
- %
- There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
- other is to read Pope.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one
- works.
- %
- There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a
- suitable application of high explosives.
- %
- There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule.
- -- R. W. Gerard
- %
- There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
- -- Henry Kissinger
- %
- There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than 10 men or fewer
- than 100.
- -- Steele's Law
- %
- There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know
- nothing about.
- %
- There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an
- opinion.
- -- Anatole France
- %
- There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
- paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.
- %
- There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
- %
- There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs
- tied during the month of April.
- %
- There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish.
- -- Walt Disney
- %
- There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor,
- Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and
- love of the Fatherland.
- -- Adolf Hitler
- %
- There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
- what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
- disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
- inexplicable.
- There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
- -- Arthur C. Clarke
- %
- There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the
- tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not
- abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and
- war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five,
- of course.
- -- Encyclopedia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.
- %
- There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, World Future Society
- Convention, 1977
- %
- There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
- -- G. B. Shaw
- %
- There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes.
- %
- There is no such thing as fortune. Try again.
- %
- There is no time like the pleasant.
- %
- There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be
- doing.
- %
- There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY.
- There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS I'm very probably wrong.
- %
- "There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine,"
- said a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. "And yet just
- a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with an unanswerable
- question," said Nasrudin. "I could have answered it if I had been
- there." "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in
- the middle of the night?'"
- %
- There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the
- ocean level wouldn't cure.
- -- Ross MacDonald
- %
- There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
- that is not being talked about.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
- returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
- -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
- %
- There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors were
- left in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley.
- Unfortunately, it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so they
- started debating who should be allowed to stay.
- The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions all
- over the world, the President explained that if he died then America
- would be stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daley
- said, "Look! We're not solving anything like this! The only fair
- thing to do is to vote on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97
- votes.
- %
- There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:
- both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to
- talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him
- during the trial.
- -- David Letterman
- %
- There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of
- the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-
- digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the
- 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the
- transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity
- stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative
- feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching
- systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the
- first electrical digital computer, and the first communications
- satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the
- telephone business?
- %
- There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not
- a fence.
- %
- There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.
- %
- There's little in taking or giving,
- There's little in water or wine:
- This living, this living, this living,
- Was never a project of mine.
- Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
- The gain of the one at the top,
- For art is a form of catharsis,
- And love is a permanent flop,
- And work is the province of cattle,
- And rest's for a clam in a shell,
- So I'm thinking of throwing the battle --
- Would you kindly direct me to hell?
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our
- whole lives, win, lose, or draw.
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- There's no future in time travel.
- %
- There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
- -- Dr. Who
- %
- There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get
- any worse.
- %
- There's no room in the drug world for amateurs.
- %
- There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government
- working for you.
- -- Will Rodgers
- %
- There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and
- dead armadillos.
- -- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner
- %
- There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them
- won't aggravate.
- %
- There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn
- what it is I'll get married again.
- -- Clint Eastwood
- %
- There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is
- becoming an endangered synthetic.
- -- Lily Tomlin
- %
- "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!"
- "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!"
- "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP
- out of MEGATON MAN!"
- %
- 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 also surf who only stand on waves.
- %
- They make a desert and call it peace.
- -- Tacitus (55?-120?)
- %
- They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners
- always spell better than they pronounce.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
- safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
- %
- They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!
- %
- 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're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!
- %
- They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult to like.
- -- Avon
- %
- Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
- %
- Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.
- %
- Think big. Pollute the Mississippi.
- %
- Think honk if you're a telepath.
- %
- Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
- %
- Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer
- crashes.
- %
- Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click".
- %
- "Thirty days hath Septober,
- April, June, and no wonder.
- all the rest have peanut butter
- except my father who wears red suspenders."
- %
- This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14
- %
- This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need,
- please use the program "________randchar". This program generates random
- characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with
- something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be
- more profound than THIS program has ever been.
- %
- This fortune intentionally not included.
- %
- This fortune is false.
- %
- This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
- %
- This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
- regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys...
- %
- This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT DOG.
- -- Bob Violence
- %
- This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an
- actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?
- %
- 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"
- %
- This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.
- %
- 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
- %
- This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back
- to one.
- -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351
- %
- This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
- %
- THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM
- If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your
- contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continue
- without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are
- contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We
- can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money
- for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the
- difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight
- and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to
- "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before
- you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week.
- Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute
- 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The
- Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or
- more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug ....
- %
- This is the ____LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury!
- %
- This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the
- power of computers:
- Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct
- the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a
- minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The
- results are that one should eat each day:
- 1/2 chicken
- 1 egg
- 1 glass of skim milk
- 27 heads of lettuce.
- -- Rev. Adrian Melott
- %
- This is the story of the bee
- Whose sex is very hard to see
- You cannot tell the he from the she
- But she can tell, and so can he
- The little bee is never still
- She has no time to take the pill
- And that is why, in times like these
- There are so many sons of bees.
- %
- This is your fortune.
- %
- This land is full of trousers!
- this land is full of mausers!
- And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down!
- -- The Firesign Theatre
- %
- This land is made of mountains,
- This land is made of mud,
- This land has lots of everything,
- For me and Elmer Fudd.
- This land has lots of trousers,
- This land has lots of mousers,
- And pussycats to eat them
- When the sun goes down.
- %
- This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,
- you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where
- to go.
- %
- This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88
- %
- This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with
- great force.
- -- Dorothy Parker
- %
- This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of
- the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many
- solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
- largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
- which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
- paper that were unhappy.
- -- Douglas Adams
- %
- This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does
- something child-like.
- -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
- %
- This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland
- student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87.
- One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use
- Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one
- computer language to another and has a built-in editing system
- which identifies errors in the original program.
- %
- This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't.
- -- Douglas Hofstadter
- %
- ... 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"
- %
- This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it.
- %
- 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"
- %
- Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those
- of us who do.
- %
- Those who can't write, write manuals.
- %
- Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
- %
- Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics.
- -- French Proverb
- %
- Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
- -- Henry Spencer
- %
- Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents,
- for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
- -- Aristotle
- %
- Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often
- surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
- -- Mark B. Cohen
- %
- Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
- %
- Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
- will make violent revolution inevitable.
- -- John F. Kennedy
- %
- 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
- %
- 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"
- %
- Time flies like an arrow
- Fruit flies like a banana
- %
- Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
- %
- Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so.
- -- Ford Prefect
- %
- Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at
- once.
- %
- 'Tis the dream of each programmer,
- Before his life is done,
- To write three lines of APL,
- And make the damn things run.
- %
- (to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along")
- Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug
- Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug
- And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
- Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all,
- Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall
- And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
- And we've also found Just flip one switch
- When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch
- You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble
- in a flash.
- Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU
- Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo,"
- And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash.
- %
- To A Quick Young Fox:
- Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
- Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?
- Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp --
- Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.
- -- Lazy Dog
- %
- To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.
- %
- To be is to do.
- -- I. Kant
- To do is to be.
- -- A. Sartre
- Yabba-Dabba-Doo!
- -- F. Flintstone
- %
- To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore
- this is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to
- offer in response is based on information available to make no such
- statement.
- %
- To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
- call it the target.
- %
- To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy.
- %
- To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System
- %
- To err is human, to moo bovine.
- %
- To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D.
- -- B. Duggan
- %
- To generalize is to be an idiot.
- -- William Blake
- %
- To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three
- men, two of them absent.
- %
- To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
- -- Thomas Edison
- %
- To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.
- -- Robert Heller
- %
- To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall.
- %
- To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide
- a test load.
- %
- To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional
- system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,
- inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence:
- precision and flexibility may be just as dysfunctional in novel,
- uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,
- well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures
- of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very
- secure ecological niche.
- -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers"
- %
- To understand this important story, you have to understand how the
- telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local
- computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is
- in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the
- lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan.
- Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it
- suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the
- computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the
- one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe
- break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid
- incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse,
- an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca
- pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna's
- loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen
- and drink gin and laugh themselves silly.
- -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own
- Phones?"
- %
- To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?
- %
- To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official.
- %
- Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.
- %
- Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.
- %
- Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage.
- %
- Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
- %
- Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?
- And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
- -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
- %
- Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new
- cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
- spectacular adventure starring ... Tippy, the Wonder Dog.
- -- Bob & Ray
- %
- Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word
- except in major motion pictures.
- -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
- %
- Toilet Toup'ee, n.:
- Any shag carpet that causes the lid to become top-heavy, thus
- creating endless annoyance to male users.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest.
- %
- Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
- %
- Too clever is dumb.
- -- Ogden Nash
- %
- Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.
- -- Mae West
- %
- Too much of everything is just enough.
- -- Bob Wier
- %
- Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available
- briefcases.
- -- Governor Jerry Brown
- %
- Top 10 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon Programmer:
- 10) Specifications are for the weak and timid!
- 9) You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
- 8) Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
- 7) What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'.
- Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality
- assurance people in its wake.
- 6) Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments'
- - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
- 5) Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
- 4) A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
- 3) Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features
- are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand.
- 2) You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the
- original Klingon.
- 1) Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it!
- Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
- %
- Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the
- earth's supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century.
- As man struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help.
- Please...
- CONSERVE GRAVITY
- Follow these simple suggestions:
- (1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible.
- (2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
- (3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like
- curling.
- (4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead.
- (5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big
- pile.
- (6) Stop flipping pancakes
- %
- Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow.
- %
- Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful, wealthy, and live
- in eucalyptus trees.
- %
- Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence.
- -- Henrik Tikkanen
- %
- Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.)
- %
- Truthful, adj.:
- Dumb and illiterate.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational.
- -- Charles Schulz
- %
- Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no good.
- %
- Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done,
- is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written
- in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and
- pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer),
- defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the
- absolutely perfect future.
- -- Amrom Katz
- %
- Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.
- %
- Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
- specification is that it should run noiselessly.
- %
- Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
- -- Alan Watts
- %
- Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____yell into keyboard.
- %
- Turnaucka's Law:
- The attention span of a computer is only as long as its
- electrical cord.
- %
- Tussman's Law:
- Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
- %
- TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
- -- Frank Lloyd Wright
- %
- 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks
- Did gyre and gimble in their cave
- All mimsy was the CS-VAX
- And Cory raths outgrabe.
- "Beware the software rot, my son!
- The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash!
- Beware the broken pipe, and shun
- The frumious system crash!"
- %
- 'Twas the Night before Crisis
- '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 nocturnal segment of the diurnal period
- preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And
- throughout our place of residence,
- Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the
- possessors of this potential, including that
- species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
- Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
- edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus,
- Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
- imminent visitation from an eccentric
- philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations
- is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...
- %
- Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long.
- -- Howard Kandel
- %
- Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man
- said, "This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The
- second man said, "He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his
- chambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded
- only in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to the
- courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the man whose ear was bitten.
- If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case is
- dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it and
- must pay three silver pieces."
- %
- Two percent of zero is almost nothing.
- %
- Two sure ways to tell a sexy male; the first is, he has a bad memory.
- I forget the second.
- %
- Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
- %
- U: There's a U -- a Unicorn!
- Run right up and rub its horn.
- Look at all those points you're losing!
- UMBER HULKS are so confusing.
- -- The Roguelet's ABC
- %
- "Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex."
- (Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.)
- -- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971)
- %
- UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist.
- %
- "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"
- %
- Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
- Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
- hammer or get a splinter in it.
- %
- Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
- just man is also a prison.
- %
- Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it
- can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ...
- %
- Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics:
- Superiority is recessive.
- %
- Unfair animal names:
- -- tsetse fly -- bullhead
- -- booby -- duck-billed platypus
- -- sapsucker -- Clarence
- -- Gary Larson
- %
- United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the
- Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of
- all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of
- all the patriots of every persuasion.
- Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the
- world.
- -- Isaac Asimov
- %
- Universe, n.:
- The problem.
- %
- 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 ...
- %
- unix soit qui mal y pense
- %
- UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
- Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
- -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
- %
- Unnamed Law:
- If it happens, it must be possible.
- %
- Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out
- twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
- -- H. L. Mencken
- %
- Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir
- %
- User n.:
- A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
- %
- USER, n.:
- The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
- -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"
- %
- Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
- -- S. C. Johnson
- %
- Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
- opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none.
- -- Doug Larson
- %
- Vail's Second Axiom:
- The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the
- amount of work already completed.
- %
- Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ...
- Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ...
- -- Tom Chapin
- %
- Van Roy's Law:
- An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
- %
- Vanilla, adj.:
- Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food,
- very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla
- extract! For example, "vanilla-flavored won ton soup" (or simply
- "vanilla won ton soup") means ordinary won ton soup, as opposed to hot
- and sour won ton soup.
- %
- Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:
- (1) If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only
- once.
- (2) If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data
- points.
- %
- Veni, Vidi, Visa.
- %
- "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past
- year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley
- reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their
- artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue
- moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon
- Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the
- entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the
- sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips."
- "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.
- "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made
- good copy."
- -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
- %
- Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
- %
- Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life."
- Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes
- waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it."
- %
- Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
- -- Salvor Hardin
- %
- Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the
- yard.
- %
- VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
- Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count to
- ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this
- morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you
- wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of
- that old underwear you own.
- %
- VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
- You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is
- sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and
- sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus
- drivers.
- %
- "Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.
- %
- Virtue is its own punishment.
- %
- Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
- from where you left them to where you can't find them.
- %
- Vitamin C deficiency is apauling.
- %
- VMS is like a nightmare about RSX-11M.
- %
- Vote anarchist.
- %
- Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and
- TAX-DEFERRED!
- %
- VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES?
- %
- *** System shutdown message from root ***
- System going down in 60 seconds
- %
- Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?"
- 1st customer: "I'll have tea."
- 2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!"
- (Waiter exits, returns)
- Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?"
- %
- Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser.
- %
- War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
- -- Charles Edward Montague
- %
- War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.
- %
- WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
- Firings will continue until morale improves.
- %
- WARNING:
- Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your
- mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on
- your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war.
- %
- Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
- those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking
- up.
- -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
- %
- Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with.
- %
- Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
- -- John F. Kennedy
- %
- Waste not, get your budget cut next year.
- %
- Wasting time is an important part of living.
- %
- Watson's Law:
- The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the
- number and significance of any persons watching it.
- %
- We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which
- divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
- correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
- -- Niels Bohr
- %
- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.
- -- Winston Churchill
- %
- We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.
- -- Whole Earth Catalog
- %
- We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
- -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
- %
- We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
- socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The
- bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say
- socialism?
- -- Fidel Castro
- %
- We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- We are upping our standards ... so up yours.
- -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988
- %
- We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved.
- %
- We can predict everything, except the future.
- %
- We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is
- deceased. My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead.
- -- James E. Day, Postmaster General
- %
- We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
- -- Vroomfondel
- %
- We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company.
- %
- We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a
- fish.
- %
- We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the
- hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights!
- %
- We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids?
- -- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission
- %
- We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an
- hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down
- mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on
- our grave singing Haleleuia ...
- -- Monty Python
- %
- We have met the enemy, and he is us.
- -- Walt Kelly
- %
- We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get
- back to normal, and that they already have.
- %
- We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his
- hands for masturbation.
- -- Lily Tomlin
- %
- We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an
- official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death
- Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish
- you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that
- said "ELECTROCUTION".
- Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your
- teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing
- process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a
- couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways
- out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste
- stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom
- floor, which is how the police would find you.
- You know the kind of flu I'm talking about.
- -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
- %
- We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all
- purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start
- with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the
- playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is
- best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can
- buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.
- -- Alan M. Turing
- %
- We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always
- respect their good judgement.
- %
- We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass
- no matter how self-seeking.
- -- F. G. Withington
- %
- We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago
- people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult.
- For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had
- to drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare
- fist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with
- primitive blood, which isn't really all that bad when you consider how
- ugly paneling is to begin with.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best
- friends are trying to kill us.
- %
- 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
- %
- We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one
- technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
- %
- We will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love,
- we will cry over things we used to laugh &
- our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile
- creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then &
- in the end a summer with wild winds &
- new friends will be.
- %
- We wish you a Hare Krishna
- We wish you a Hare Krishna
- We wish you a Hare Krishna
- And a Sun Myung Moon!
- -- Maxwell Smart
- %
- We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later.
- %
- We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from
- the fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging
- you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right
- in his bowl full of jelly.
- -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
- %
- We're only in it for the volume.
- -- Black Sabbath
- %
- We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center
- of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,
- but for some reason nobody's ever done it.
- -- Andy Rooney
- %
- Weiler's Law:
- Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
- %
- Weinberg's First Law:
- Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
- %
- Weinberg's Principle:
- An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
- sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
- %
- Weinberg's Second Law:
- If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
- then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
- %
- Weiner's Law of Libraries:
- There are no answers, only cross references.
- %
- Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if
- you run out of food.
- -- Dean McLaughlin
- %
- Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a
- lot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a
- governor or mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the
- reason you'll be reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top
- contenders for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. These men
- will spend the next 18 months going around the country engaging in the
- most degrading activities imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and
- appearing on "Meet the Press". "Meet the Press" is one of those Sunday
- morning public interest shows that the public is not the least bit
- interested in. It features a panel of reporters who ask questions of a
- guest politician, who wins an Amana home freezer if he can get through
- the entire show without answering a single question ...
- -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
- %
- Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them
- back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds,
- or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they
- they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off.
- -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile
- %
- Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can*
- you believe?!
- -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
- %
- 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
- %
- "Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?"
- "Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ...
- coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero."
- -- Dr. Who
- %
- "Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is
- no wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five
- hundred."
- -- The Mahabharata
- %
- Westheimer's Discovery:
- A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
- couple of hours in the library.
- %
- Wethern's Law:
- Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
- %
- "What are we going to do?"
- "Me, I'm examining the major Western religions. I'm looking for
- something that's soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a
- short initiation period."
- %
- "What are you doing?"
- "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something
- that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short
- initiation period."
- %
- What color is a chameleon on a mirror?
- %
- "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty
- teenager asked her mother.
- "Encouragement, dear," she replied.
- %
- What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"?
- %
- What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
- %
- What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
- %
- What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.
- %
- What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so
- that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our
- country. Nice try anyway, George.
- -- D. J. on KSFO/KYA
- %
- What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the
- entrance?
- %
- What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow
- in his footsteps?
- %
- 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, "Saving Face"
- %
- What I tell you three times is true.
- %
- What I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-
- sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come up
- with a terrifically witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill always
- came up with when enormous women asked him stupid questions at
- parties.
- -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
- %
- What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility.
- %
- What I've done, of course, is total garbage.
- -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a
- %
- What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I
- definitely overpaid for my carpet.
- -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
- %
- What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's
- worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
- -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
- %
- What is a magician but a practicing theorist?
- -- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- %
- What is mind? No matter.
- What is matter? Never mind.
- -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875
- %
- What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern
- computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest
- and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak.
- %
- "What is the Nature of God?"
- CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!=
- 1 QT. SOUR CREAM
- 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT
- 1/2 CUT CHIVES.
- STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS.
- "I've just GOT to start labeling my software..."
- -- Bloom County
- %
- What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?
- -- Bertolt Brecht
- %
- What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out,
- which is the exact opposite.
- -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical_Essays", 1928
- %
- What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do.
- %
- What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing
- to compare it with.
- %
- What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism.
- It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books
- and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes
- and, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes,
- women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate
- mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige
- and power by dint of individual rather than collective effort."
- -- Susan Gordon
- %
- What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
- -- Ursula K. LeGuin
- %
- What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.
- %
- What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
- %
- What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.
- %
- What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel.
- %
- What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING!
- %
- What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer.
- %
- What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
- %
- What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.
- %
- What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon.
- %
- What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn?
- -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
- %
- What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which
- nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday
- Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-
- launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it just
- remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual
- process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still
- be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed.
- -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
- %
- What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.
- %
- What's another word for Thesaurus?
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- "What's that thing?"
- "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in
- computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what
- it does. We call it a two-by-four."
- -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"
- %
- What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?
- -- Dr. Who
- %
- Whatever became of eternal truth?
- %
- Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for
- cocaine: "You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils
- as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding
- hundred dollar bills."
- -- Herb Caen
- %
- Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not
- nailed down.
- -- Collis P. Huntingdon
- %
- Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!
- -- Mom
- %
- When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the
- money is.
- -- Robespierre
- %
- When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the
- thing," it's the money.
- -- Kim Hubbard
- %
- When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half
- loop?
- %
- When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is
- not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space
- travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
- -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
- %
- When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the
- sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain
- relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.
- -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
- %
- When all other means of communication fail, try words.
- %
- When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapo
- tactics *with* Gestapo tactics?
- -- Reuben Flagg
- %
- When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before
- the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."
- -- Vine Deloria, Jr.
- %
- When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I
- think it was a Tuesday.
- %
- When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to
- guarantee them.
- %
- When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great
- parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if
- I'm leaving.
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a
- year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire
- winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer.
- -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
- %
- When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young
- ladies, and, of course, the goat.
- %
- When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now
- I'm beginning to believe it.
- -- Clarence Darrow
- %
- When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you
- take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come
- and get you."
- -- Jerry Lewis
- %
- 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 in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
- the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
- -- Woody Allen
- %
- When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an
- act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A
- group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a
- six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things
- together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ...
- Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective
- responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military
- establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have
- been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things
- together which nobody in his right mind would do alone.
- -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"
- %
- When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened
- or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I
- cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to
- go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
- %
- When in doubt, tell the truth.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- When in doubt, use brute force.
- -- Ken Thompson
- %
- When in panic, fear and doubt,
- Drink in barrels, eat, and shout.
- %
- When love is gone, there's always justice.
- And when justice is gone, there's always force.
- And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
- Hi, Mom!
- -- Laurie Anderson
- %
- When Marriage is Outlawed,
- Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.
- %
- When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment
- results.
- -- Calvin Coolidge
- %
- When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony
- concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years --
- and I find I mind it less and less."
- -- Louise Andrews Kent
- %
- When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity:
- for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when
- your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
- -- Daniel B. Luten
- %
- When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
- say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
- %
- When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical.
- -- Jon Carroll
- %
- When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
- modify the problem, not the remedy.
- %
- When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies,
- the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a
- nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____that.
- -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
- %
- When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is
- metaphysics.
- -- Voltaire
- %
- When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the
- stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them
- from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones
- were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the
- corners as bodies of a lower grade ...
- -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- %
- When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the
- plane will fly.
- -- Donald Douglas
- %
- When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most
- insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are
- required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and
- exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
- -- George Bernard Shaw
- %
- When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is
- not hereditary.
- -- Thomas Paine
- %
- When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before --
- except our fingertips will have been singed.
- -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- %
- When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of
- investigation of a topic, it is well to have the answer firmly in hand,
- so that you can proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or
- swayed, directly to the goal.
- -- Amrom Katz
- %
- When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.
- %
- When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
- %
- When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
- -- Harry S. Truman
- %
- When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
- clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer
- to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively.
- In a way, the next move is up to him.
- -- R. A. Lafferty
- %
- When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
- -- Winston Churchill, On formal declarations of war
- %
- When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by
- asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't
- know the answer either.
- -- Edgar R. Fiedler
- %
- When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
- -- The Wall Street Journal
- %
- When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the
- impression you will make.
- %
- When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
- Wretched, bored, dejected; only
- Here's the rub, my darling dear
- I feel the same when you are near.
- -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away"
- %
- When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN.
- %
- Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really".
- -- Dave Parnas
- %
- Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
- see it tried on him personally.
- -- A. Lincoln
- %
- Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last
- you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his
- Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
- -- Mark Twain
- "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
- %
- Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
- to reform.
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE
- Oh, dear, where can the matter be
- When it's converted to energy?
- There is a slight loss of parity.
- Johnny's so long at the fair.
- %
- Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what
- is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
- -- John Kenneth Galbraith
- %
- Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax.
- %
- Whether you can hear it or not
- The Universe is laughing behind your back
- -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
- %
- Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
- %
- While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is
- admission to someone else.
- %
- While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
- The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
- While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
- And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
- Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
- The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
- -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman",
- November 26, 1792
- %
- While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several.
- %
- While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't
- keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove.
- -- Edward Stevenson
- %
- While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own
- form of misery.
- %
- While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position.
- %
- While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their
- correctness never does.
- %
- While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very
- reassuring to know that it's still there.
- %
- While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are
- safe, for you can watch both of his.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Whistler's Law:
- You never know who is right, but you always know who is in
- charge.
- %
- Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new
- Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ...
- %
- Who made the world I cannot tell;
- 'Tis made, and here am I in hell.
- My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
- I never soiled with such a deed.
- -- A. E. Housman
- %
- Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
- %
- Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?
- %
- Who's on first?
- %
- "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
- -- George Ade
- %
- Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
- %
- Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
- %
- Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could
- have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing.
- -- Ian Shoales
- %
- Why be a man when you can be a success?
- -- Bertolt Brecht
- %
- Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we
- have?
- %
- Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else?
- %
- Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to
- avoid responsibility with?
- %
- Why did the Roman Empire collapse?
- What is the Latin for office automation?
- %
- Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with.
- %
- Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently
- there must be a beverage.
- -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
- %
- Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have
- more lawyers?
- New Jersey had first choice.
- %
- Why don't elephants eat penguins ?
- Because they can't get the wrappers off ...
- %
- Why I Can't Go Out With You:
- I'd LOVE to, but ...
- -- I have to floss my cat.
- -- I've dedicated my life to linguini.
- -- I need to spend more time with my blender.
- -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.
- -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish.
- -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves.
- -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.
- -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise.
- -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist.
- -- I have some really hard words to look up.
- -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting.
- -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.
- %
- Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is
- because we are not the person involved
- -- Mark Twain
- %
- Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
- %
- Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?
- -- Lily Tomlin
- %
- Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
- you knowing nothing?
- -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
- %
- Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year?
- Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your
- children open their old-fashioned presents.
- Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?"
- You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it
- falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!"
- Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer
- with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory,
- and I get this cretin TOP?"
- Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this."
- You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!"
- Daughter: "It looks like goat barf."
- -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
- %
- Why was I born with such contemporaries?
- -- Oscar Wilde
- %
- Why You Can't Run When There's Trouble in the Office:
- No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee,
- when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your
- direction, and almost none will be returned to the source.
- -- John L. Shelton
- %
- Wiker's Law:
- Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
- %
- William Safire's Rules for Writers:
- Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never
- be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to
- agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words
- out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal
- of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must
- not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a
- conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a
- sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as
- close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more
- words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles
- must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a
- linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing
- metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should
- be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their
- writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows
- the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek
- viable alternatives.
- %
- Williams and Holland's Law:
- If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by
- statistical methods.
- %
- 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.
- %
- Wit, n.:
- The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery
- ... by leaving it out.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I
- try to be a fraud and a half.
- -- Otto von Bismark
- %
- With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
- build a nuclear balm?
- %
- With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand
- miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and
- still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no
- such thing as progress.
- -- Ransom K. Ferm
- %
- With trembling hands he unfurled the ancient cracked parchment,
- this was the place, it had to be. Uncertainly he began to mumble the
- chant "rdbms, sql, third normal formal form, java, table, scalable".
- Something moved... From outside they heard a scream and a thud.
- The sales department had awoken.
- %
- Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless.
- %
- Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection:
- (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it.
- (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete.
- (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2)
- (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a
- VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator.
- (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless.
- -- Rich Kulawiec
- %
- Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If
- you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut
- down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that
- tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with
- long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit
- there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you
- come back.
- Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago,
- when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot.
- Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the
- cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood
- heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately
- beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made,
- and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed,
- although their insurance rates went way up.
- -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
- %
- Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation):
- We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage
- any thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you
- should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are,
- and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we
- bargained for.
- %
- Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your chairs.
- %
- World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced
- dress code!
- %
- Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing:
- August. The lines are the shortest, though.
- -- Steve Rubenstein
- %
- Worst Month of the Year:
- February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if
- you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't
- get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible.
- -- Steve Rubenstein
- %
- Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985:
- From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved
- in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs
- damage my videotapes?"
- %
- Worst Vegetable of the Year:
- The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next
- year.
- -- Steve Rubenstein
- %
- "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
- "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
- -- Lewis Carroll
- %
- Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish
- and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer
- if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and
- and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and
- and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?
- %
- Write-Protect Tab, n.:
- A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly
- left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error
- message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the
- momentary inconvenience.
- -- Robb Russon
- %
- Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
- -- Frank Zappa
- %
- "Wrong," said Renner.
- "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with
- the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'"
- %
- X-rated movies are all alike -- the only thing they leave to the
- imagination is the plot.
- %
- Xerox does it again and again and again and ...
- %
- Xerox never comes up with anything original.
- %
- XIIdigitation, n.:
- The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made
- by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- "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.
- -- Stephen C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"
- %
- Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall
- fear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic
- operators together.
- -- Steve Higgins
- %
- Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context.
- %
- Year, n.:
- A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
- -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- %
- Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache.
- %
- Yes, but which self do you want to be?
- %
- Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog.
- Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog.
- Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
- -- Snoopy
- %
- Yesterday upon the stair
- I met a man who wasn't there.
- He wasn't there again today --
- I think he's from the CIA.
- %
- Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again.
- -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
- %
- Yinkel, n.:
- A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one
- will notice.
- -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
- %
- You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.
- %
- You are here:
- ***
- ***
- *********
- *******
- *****
- ***
- *
- But you're not all there.
- %
- "You are old, Father William," the young man said,
- "All your papers these days look the same;
- Those William's would be better unread --
- Do these facts never fill you with shame?"
- "In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
- "I wrote wonderful papers galore;
- But the great reputation I found that I'd won,
- Made it pointless to think any more."
- %
- "You are old, father William," the young man said,
- "And your hair has become very white;
- And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
- Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
- "In my youth," father William replied to his son,
- "I feared it might injure the brain;
- But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
- Why, I do it again and again."
- -- Lewis Carroll
- %
- "You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers
- That your lectures bore people to death.
- Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year --
- Don't you think that you should save your breath?"
- "I have answered three questions and that is enough,"
- Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!
- Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
- Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"
- %
- "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
- For anything tougher than suet;
- Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
- Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
- "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
- And argued each case with my wife;
- And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
- Has lasted the rest of my life."
- -- Lewis Carroll
- %
- "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."
- %
- "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
- And have grown most uncommonly fat;
- Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
- Pray what is the reason of that?"
- "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
- "I kept all my limbs very supple
- By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
- Allow me to sell you a couple?"
- -- Lewis Carroll
- %
- "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
- And make errors few people could bear;
- You complain about everyone's English but yours --
- Do you really think this is quite fair?"
- "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared,
- "But my stature these days is so great
- That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared,
- And to stop me it's now far too late."
- %
- "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
- That your eye was as steady as ever;
- Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
- What made you so awfully clever?"
- "I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
- Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
- Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
- Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
- -- Lewis Carroll
- %
- You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
- %
- You are the only person to ever get this message.
- %
- You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading
- this sort of trash.
- %
- You buttered your bread, now lie in it!
- %
- 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 can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
- doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on.
- -- Hepler, Systems Design 182
- %
- You can create your own opportunities this week.
- Blackmail a senior executive.
- %
- You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
- Why do you find that funny?
- -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350, University of Washington
- %
- You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you
- can with just a kind word.
- -- Bumper Sticker
- %
- You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have,
- for instance.
- -- Franklin P. Jones
- %
- You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
- %
- You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
- the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
- -- Alan Perlis
- %
- You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
- %
- You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding
- decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left
- over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart.
- -- F. Allen
- %
- You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of
- supercomputers.
- -- Steven Feiner
- %
- You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.
- %
- You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename.
- -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
- %
- You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks.
- %
- You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
- -- Steven Wright
- %
- You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
- -- Booker T. Washington
- %
- You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
- %
- You can't make a program without broken egos.
- %
- You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic
- enough worrying about what's happening now.
- -- Lauren Bacall
- %
- You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten.
- -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
- Over and Over"
- %
- You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't.
- -- Dagwood Bumstead
- %
- You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.
- %
- You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
- %
- You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.
- %
- You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first
- and last month in advance.
- %
- You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable
- doubt.
- -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict
- %
- You do not have mail.
- %
- You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
- -- J. D. Salinger
- %
- You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting
- needles.
- -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
- %
- You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form.
- The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified",
- which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears
- tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last
- names. Here's the complete text:
- "(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT)
- "(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT)
- "(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to
- send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF
- THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME)
- household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way
- you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST
- NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"
- The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your
- money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long
- form.
- -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
- %
- You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.
- %
- You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More--
- This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More--
- You are permanently confused.
- -- Dave Decot
- %
- You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to
- metal objects which are not fastened down.
- %
- You have junk mail.
- %
- You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets
- wrinkled.
- %
- You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today.
- %
- You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes
- you wore home from the party and there aren't any.
- %
- You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens
- anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
- you can always change the channel.
- -- Jim Ignatowski
- %
- You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo.
- -- S. Rickly Christian
- %
- You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car.
- -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82
- %
- You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your
- friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it.
- %
- You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.
- %
- "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon
- airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in
- deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me
- when I was young!"
- "Why, what did she tell you?"
- "I don't know, I didn't listen!"
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- %
- You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
- %
- You may be recognized soon. Hide.
- %
- 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 may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with
- him.
- -- Ed Howe
- %
- You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.
- -- Alfred Kahn
- %
- You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for
- success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits
- or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume
- party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World.
- -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success"
- %
- You might have mail.
- %
- You might have had mail.
- %
- You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
- proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do.
- %
- You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll
- be dead.
- %
- You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
- reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
- the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
- independence.
- -- Charles A. Beard
- %
- You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the
- beach.
- %
- You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were
- you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare
- yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the
- company.
- -- J. Wellington Wells
- %
- You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
- %
- You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
- know how seldom they do.
- -- Olin Miller
- %
- You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
- if they are dead.
- %
- You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than
- about 10^12 to 1.
- -- Ernest Rutherford
- %
- You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for
- freedom and liberty.
- -- Henrik Ibsen
- %
- You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that,
- contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from
- houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many
- scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the
- summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day,
- you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist
- sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.
- -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
- %
- 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"
- %
- You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a
- plowshare, your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture.
- -- Business Professor, University of Georgia
- %
- You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
- %
- YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF
- PAPER SHUFFLING!
- Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be
- a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel
- really important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."
- Mr. MARC had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward
- to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and
- make really big Zorkmids."
- MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when
- you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter.
- SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY!
- %
- You too can wear a nose mitten.
- %
- You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
- %
- You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
- a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.
- %
- You will be surprised by a loud noise.
- %
- You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself.
- %
- You will feel hungry again in another hour.
- %
- You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door
- mayonnaise salesman.
- %
- You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
- Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
- parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
- -- Sherlock Holmes
- %
- You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes.
- %
- You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You're not paid enough to
- worry.
- %
- You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a
- taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a
- minute and a huff.
- -- Groucho Marx
- %
- You'll never be the man your mother was!
- %
- You're at the end of the road again.
- %
- You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days.
- %
- You're never too old to become younger.
- -- Mae West
- %
- You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
- -- Dean Martin
- %
- You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!!
- %
- You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture.
- %
- You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks.
- -- Gary Giddens
- %
- "You've got to think about tomorrow!"
- "TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_________yesterday* yet!"
- %
- Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a
- thing he tells you.
- %
- Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you
- from enjoying it.
- %
- Your fault: core dumped
- %
- Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that
- bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a
- chance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home
- electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit
- breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires
- until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can
- damage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change
- your fuses regularly.
- Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This
- sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more
- often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case
- you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not
- sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a
- fine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensed
- electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession,
- such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette
- table, etc.
- -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- %
- Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.
- %
- Your lucky color has faded.
- %
- Your lucky number has been disconnected.
- %
- Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
- %
- Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.
- %
- Yow! Am I having fun yet?
- -- Zippy the Pinhead
- %
- YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!
- %
- Zero Defects, n.:
- The result of shutting down a production line.
- %
- Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words
- since I first called my brother's father dad.
- -- William Shakespeare, "King John"
- %
- Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
- People are always available for work in the past tense.
- %
- THE LAST BUG
- "But you're out of your mind," It still wasn't perfect,
- They said with a shrug. As year followed year,
- "The customer's happy; And strangers would comment,
- What's one little bug?" "Is that guy still here?"
- But he was determined. He died at the console,
- The others went home. Of hunger and thirst.
- He spread out the program, Next day he was buried,
- Deserted, alone. Face down, nine-edge first.
- The cleaning men came, And the last bug in sight,
- The whole room was cluttered An ant passing by,
- With memory-dumps, punch cards. Saluted his tombstone,
- "I'm close," he muttered. And whispered, "Nice try."
- The mumbling got louder,
- Simple deduction,
- "I've got it, it's right,
- Just change one instruction."
- %
- Speaking of the philosophy involved in moving humanity into space:
- Furniture will be a largely obsolete concept. Take for example the dresser my
- mom bought for me when I was a kid. I still have it, and by the standards of
- its era, it's an admirable household fixture. It is a massive construction of
- maple wood, expertly joined with cunningly fit pieces, fitted and glued with
- the strength of iron. It is set with massive brass fixtures, and looks today
- -- discounting the dust -- as new as the day it was purchased, a quarter
- century ago. So far, so good; a fine piece of furniture, you might say. But
- let's look at it objectively, as a machine, as an object with a purpose. Here
- sit a hundred pounds of hardwood with a compressive strength of 1500 psi,
- jointed by an expert craftsman into a rigid box that would easily support a
- bull elephant. And what is the sole purpose of this massive crate, this
- monument to a dead tree? -- it holds my socks.
- Not only is it blind engineering overkill of epic proportions, it is also an
- environmental disaster. The home to generations of squirrels, a sentinel post
- for falcons, an autumnal banner of golden glory, a living creature, was chopped
- down to enshrine some underwear. This, my friends, is no way to run a planet.
- -- Marshall T. Savage, from The Millennial Project:
- Colonizing the Galaxy -- In Eight Easy Steps
- %
- Nearly every software professional has heard the term spaghetti code as a
- pejorative description for complicated, difficult to understand, and impossible
- to maintain, software. However, many people may not know the other two
- elements of the complete Pasta Theory of Software.
- Lasagna code is used to describe software that has a simple, understandable,
- and layered structure. Lasagna code, although structured, is unfortunately
- monolithic and not easy to modify. An attempt to change one layer conceptually
- simple, is often very difficult in actual practice.
- The ideal software structure is one having components that are small and
- loosely coupled; this ideal structure is called ravioli code. In ravioli
- code, each of the components, or objects, is a package containing some meat
- or other nourishment for the system; any component can be modified or replaced
- without significantly affecting other components.
- We need to go beyond the condemnation of spaghetti code to the active
- encouragement of ravioli code.
- -- Raymond J. Rubey, in a letter to the editor of Crosstalk
- magazine
- %
- 63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
- ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
- now there's 63,005 bugs in the code!!
|