"How do you pronounce SunOS?" "Just like you hear it, with a big SOS" -- dedicated to Roland Kaltefleiter % finlandia:~> apropos win win: nothing appropriate. % C:\> WIN Bad command or filename C:\> LOSE Loading Microsoft Windows ... % Linux ext2fs has been stable for a long time, now it's time to break it -- Linux-Kongress '95 in Berlin % The state of some commercial Un*x is more unsecure than any Linux box without a root password... -- Bernd Eckenfels % Less is more or less more -- Y_Plentyn on #LinuxGER % Let's call it an accidental feature. --Larry Wall % `:::' ....... ...... ::: * `::. ::' ::: .:: .:.::. .:: .:: `::. :' ::: :: :: :: :: :: :::. ::: .::. .:: ::. `::::. .:' ::. ...:::.....................::' .::::.. % Win95 is not a virus; a virus does something. -- unknown source % Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs (MACINTOSH) -- Topic on #Linux % Except for Great Britain. According to ISO 9166 and Internet reality Great Britain's toplevel domain should be _gb_. Instead, Great Britain and Nortern Ireland (the United Kingdom) use the toplevel domain _uk_. They drive on the wrong side of the road, too. -- PERL book (or DNS and BIND book) % Save yourself from the 'Gates' of hell, use Linux." -- like that one. -- The_Kind @ LinuxNet % I did this 'cause Linux gives me a woody. It doesn't generate revenue. -- Dave '-ddt->` Taylor, announcing DOOM for Linux % Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this driver will be redirected to /dev/null, oh no, it's full...). -- Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device % if (argc > 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "-advice") == 0) { printf("Don't Panic!\n"); exit(42); } -- Arnold Robbins in the LJ of February '95, describing RCS % lp1 on fire -- One of the more obfuscated kernel messages % A Linux machine! Because a 486 is a terrible thing to waste! -- Joe Sloan, jjs@wintermute.ucr.edu % Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO (or Linux) is the answer. -- Taken from a .signature from someone from the UK, source unknown % In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. Then howcome people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? -- Hasse Skrifvars, hasku@rost.abo.fi, % Windows without the X is like making love without a partner. -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi % Sex, Drugs & Linux Rules -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi % win-nt from the people who invented edlin. -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi % Apples have meant trouble since eden. -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi % Linux, the way to get rid of boot viruses -- MaDsen Wikholm, mwikholm@at8.abo.fi % We are MicroSoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. -- Attributed to B.G., Gill Bates % Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux -- unknown source % Intel engineering seem to have misheard Intel marketing strategy. The phrase was "Divide and conquer" not "Divide and cock up" -- Alan Cox, iialan@www.linux.org.uk % Linux! Guerrilla UNIX Development Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus. -- Mark A. Horton KA4YBR, mah@ka4ybr.com % ----==-- _ / / \ ---==---(_)__ __ ____ __ / / /\ \ --==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / / /_/\ \ \ -=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ /______\ \ \ A proud member of TeamLinux \_________\/ % "Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?" Microsoft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !! % Personally, I think my choice in the mostest-superlative-computer wars has to be the HP-48 series of calculators. They'll run almost anything. And if they can't, while I'll just plug a Linux box into the serial port and load up the HP-48 VT-100 emulator. % /* * Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to * terminate things with extreme prejudice. */ die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code); -- From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c % Linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste -- ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93 % Linux: the choice of a GNU generation -- ksh@cis.ufl.edu put this on Tshirts in '93 % There are two types of Linux developers - those who can spell, and those who can't. There is a constant pitched battle between the two. -- From one of the post-1.1.54 kernel update messages posted to c.o.l.a % When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*". -- Linus Torvalds % We come to bury DOS, not to praise it. -- Paul Vojta, vojta@math.berkeley.edu % Be warned that typing \fBkillall \fIname\fP may not have the desired effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user. -- From the killall manual page % Note that if I can get you to "su and say" something just by asking, you have a very serious security problem on your system and you should look into it. -- Paul Vixie, vixie-cron 3.0.1 installation notes % How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only coded it. -- Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting % I develop for Linux for a living, I used to develop for DOS. Going from DOS to Linux is like trading a glider for an F117. -- Lawrence Foard, entropy@world.std.com % Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that no conclusion can be drawn from them. -- Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project) % If the future navigation system [for interactive networked services on the NII] looks like something from Microsoft, it will never work. -- Chairman of Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications % Problem solving under Linux has never been the circus that it is under AIX. -- Pete Ehlke in comp.unix.aix % I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts') -- Olaf Kirch % On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK' - everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS. -- Tarl Neustaedter % By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread. -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power % I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you. -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power % Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The Labs. -- Dennis Ritchie % If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system. -- Linus Torvalds % ...and scantily clad females, of course. Who cares if it's below zero outside. -- Linus Torvalds % ...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved linux kernel version. -- Linus Torvalds % Besides, I think Slackware sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you? -- Patrick Volkerding % All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... -- Larry Wall % And the next time you consider complaining that running Lucid Emacs 19.05 via NFS from a remote Linux machine in Paraguay doesn't seem to get the background colors right, you'll know who to thank. -- Matt Welsh % Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software? -- Matt Welsh % Even more amazing was the realization that God has Internet access. I wonder if He has a full newsfeed? -- Matt Welsh % I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of mice vs. trackballs... It was very silly. -- Matt Welsh % Linux poses a real challenge for those with a taste for late-night hacking (and/or conversations with God). -- Matt Welsh % What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot water. -- Matt Welsh % ...Deep Hack Mode -- that mysterious and frightening state of consciousness where Mortal Users fear to tread. -- Matt Welsh % ...Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). -- Matt Welsh % ...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* being struck by lightning. -- Matt Welsh % ..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I speak from experience. -- Matt Welsh % [In 'Doctor' mode], I spent a good ten minutes telling Emacs what I thought of it. (The response was, 'Perhaps you could try to be less abusive.') -- Matt Welsh % I would rather spend 10 hours reading someone else's source code than 10 minutes listening to Musak waiting for technical support which isn't. -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center % ...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals. -- Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center % Whip me. Beat me. Make me maintain AIX. -- Stephan Zielinski % Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix. -- Linus Torvalds to Andrew Tanenbaum % I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-) -- Andrew Tanenbaum to Linus Torvalds % We use Linux for all our mission-critical applications. Having the source code means that we are not held hostage by anyone's support department. -- Russell Nelson, President of Crynwr Software % Linux is obsolete -- Andrew Tanenbaum % Dijkstra probably hates me. -- Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c % And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies. -- Linus Torvalds % We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated. -- seen in someone's .signature % Linux: the operating system with a CLUE... Command Line User Environment. -- seen in a posting in comp.software.testing % quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" will cause bc to terminate. % Sic transit discus mundi -- From the System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius % Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice. -- Craig E. Groeschel % We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds. - Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam Linux Symposium % Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM FOR THE 386. % The chat program is in public domain. This is not the GNU public license. If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces. -- Copyright notice for the chat program % 'Mounten' wird für drei Dinge benutzt: 'Aufsitzen' auf Pferde, 'einklinken' von Festplatten in Dateisysteme, und, nun, 'besteigen' beim Sex. -- Christa Keil % Manchmal stehe nachts auf und installier's mir einfach... -- H0arry @ IRC % 'Mounting' is used for three things: climbing on a horse, linking in a hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, mounting during sex. -- Christa Keil % We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours! -- Adapted from Pat Paulsen by Joe Sloan % But what can you do with it? -- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner % DOS: n., A small annoying boot virus that causes random spontaneous system crashes, usually just before saving a massive project. Easily cured by UNIX. See also MS-DOS, IBM-DOS, DR-DOS. -- David Vicker's .plan % MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development. -- dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca % LILO, you've got me on my knees! -- David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the Dominos, and Werner Almsberger % I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few months. I just love debugging ;-) -- Linus Torvalds % The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned. -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X interfaces % After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or speaker of intuitive likes". -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac % Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows from that! Har har har!" -- Andy Bates on "intuitive interfaces", slightly defending Macs % > No manual is ever necessary. May I politely interject here: BULLSHIT. That's the biggest Apple lie of all! -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces % How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi $i done" in a GUI? -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces % >Ever heard of .cshrc? That's a city in Bosnia. Right? -- Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands % Who wants to remember that escape-x-alt-control-left shift-b puts you into super-edit-debug-compile mode? -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs % Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK! -- Discussion on the intuitiveness of commands, especially Emacs % Actually, typing random strings in the Finder does the equivalent of filename completion. -- Discussion on file completion vs. the Mac Finder % Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me... -- More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc % On the Internet, no one knows you're using Windows NT -- Submitted by Ramiro Estrugo, restrugo@fateware.com % > I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. Disquieting ... -- Gonzalo Tornaria in response to Linus Torvalds's % > I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals then. -- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's % > I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-). -- Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's % Never make any mistaeks. -- Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report % As usual, this being a 1.3.x release, I haven't even compiled this kernel yet. So if it works, you should be doubly impressed. -- Linus Torvalds, announcing kernel 1.3.3 % People disagree with me. I just ignore them. -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the use of C++ for the Linux kernel % It's now the GNU Emacs of all terminal emulators. -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the fact that Linux started off as a terminal emulator % Audience: What will become of Linux when the Hurd is ready? Eric Youngdale: Err... is Richard Stallman here? -- From the Linux conference in spring '95, Berlin % Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion. -- Mike Coleman % The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children. -- Linus Torvalds % ... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT" -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26 % ... of course, this probably only happens for tcsh which uses wait4(), which is why I never saw it. Serves people who use that abomination right 8^) -- Linus Torvalds, about a patch that fixes getrusage for 1.3.26 % It's a bird.. It's a plane.. No, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue. Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat.. -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 % Eh, that's it, I guess. No 300 million dollar unveiling event for this kernel, I'm afraid, but you're still supposed to think of this as the "happening of the century" (at least until the next kernel comes along). -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 % Oh, and this is another kernel in that great and venerable "BugFree(tm)" series of kernels. So be not afraid of bugs, but go out in the streets and deliver this message of joy to the masses. -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27 % When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows', people just stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*'. -- Linus Torvalds % Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-) -- Unknown source % > Linux is not user-friendly. It _is_ user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly. -- Seen somewhere on the net % Keep me informed on the behaviour of this kernel.. As the "BugFree(tm)" series didn't turn out too well, I'm starting a new series called the "ItWorksForMe(tm)" series, of which this new kernel is yet another shining example. -- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.29 % Seriously, the way I did this was by using a special /sbin/loader binary with debugging hooks that I made ("dd" is your friend: binary editors are for wimps). -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver % (I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as I can tell even _they_ don't have it ;-) -- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver % Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up space? A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words.. -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions % Q: What's the big deal about rm, I have been deleting stuff for years? And never lost anything.. oops! A: ... -- From the Frequently Unasked Questions % Linux is addictive, I'm hooked! -- MaDsen Wikholm's .sig % panic("Foooooooood fight!"); -- In the kernel source aha1542.c, after detecting a bad segment list % Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza." Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza". [1] Licensed - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government licence to sell liquor. -- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University % Footnotes are for things you believe don't really belong in LDP manuals, but want to include anyway. -- Joel N. Weber II discussing the 'make' chapter of LPG % Ok, I'm just uploading the new version of the kernel, v1.3.33, also known as "the buggiest kernel ever". -- Linus Torvalds % Go not unto the Usenet for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (and quite a few things that just have nothing at all to do with the question). -- seen in a .sig somewhere % Those who don't understand Linux are doomed to reinvent it, poorly. -- unidentified source % Look, I'm about to buy me a double barreled sawed off shotgun and show Linus what I think about backspace and delete not working. -- some anonymous .signature % We apologize for the inconvenience, but we'd still like yout to test out this kernel. -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch % The new Linux anthem will be "He's an idiot, but he's ok", as performed by Monthy Python. You'd better start practicing. -- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch % How do you power off this machine? -- Linus, when upgrading linux.cs.helsinki.fi, and after using the machine for several months % Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter _what_ the circumstances. -- Linus Torvalds, to the linux-kernel list % Linus? Whose that? -- clueless newbie on #Linux % > You know you are "there" when you are known by your first name, and > are recognized. > Lemmie see, there is Madonna, and Linus, and ..... help me out here! Bill ? ;-) -- From some postings on comp.os.linux.misc % Whoa...I did a 'zcat /vmlinuz > /dev/audio' and I think I heard God... -- mikecd on #Linux % MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it. -- from Lars Wirzenius' .sig % .. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at number one antagonist in my life.. -- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com % I mean, well, if it were not for Linux I might be roaming the streets looking for drugs or prostitutes or something. Hannu and Linus have my highest admiration (apple polishing mode off). -- Phil Lewis, plewis@nyx.nyx.net % "Linux was made by foreign terrorists to take money from true US companies like Microsoft." - Some AOL'er. "To this end we dedicate ourselves..." -Don -- From the sig of "Don", don@cs.byu.edu % Shoot me again. Just proving that the quickest way to solve the problem is to post a whine to the newsgroups: within moments the solution presents itself to me, and meanwhile my ass is hanging out on the Net... *sigh*... -- Dave Phillips, dlphilp@bright.net, about problem solving via news % > Is there any hope for me? Am I just thick? Does anyone remember the > Rubiks Cube, it was easier! I found that the Rubiks cube and Linux are alike. Looks real confusing until you read the right book. :-) -- seen on c.o.l.misc, about the "Linux Learning Curve" % > I've hacked the Xaw3d library to give you a Win95 like interface and it > is named Xaw95. You can replace your Xaw3d library. Oh God, this is so disgusting! -- seen on c.o.l.development.apps, about the "Win95 look-alike" % > I get the following error messages at bootup, could anyone tell me > what they mean? > fcntl_setlk() called by process 51 (lpd) with broken flock() emulation They mean that you have not read the documentation when upgrading the kernel. % Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;) -- Linus Torvalds, about his failing hard drive on linux.cs.helsinki.fi % One of the things that hamper Linux's climb to world domination is the shortage of bad Computer Role Playing Games, or CRaPGs. No operating system can be considered respectable without one. -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie % The game, anoraks.2.0.0.tgz, will be available from sunsite until somebody responsible notices it and deletes it, and shortly from ftp.mee.tcd.ie/pub/Brian, though they don't know that yet. -- Brian O'Donnell, odonnllb@tcd.ie % 'Ooohh.. "FreeBSD is faster over loopback, when compared to Linux over the wire". Film at 11.' -- Linus Torvalds % Q: Would you like to see the WINE list? A: What's on it, anything expensive? Q: No, just Solitaire and MineSweeper for now, but the WINE is free. -- Kevin M. Bealer, about the WINdows Emulator % So in the future, one 'client' at a time or you'll be spending CPU time with lots of little 'child processes'. -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the private life of a Linux nerd % By the way, I can hardly feel sorry for you... All last night I had to listen to her tears, so great they were redirected to a stream. What? Of _course_ you didn't know. You and your little group no longer have any permissions around here. She changed her .lock files, too. % We should start referring to processes which run in the background by their correct technical name... paenguins. -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo % We can use symlinks of course... syslogd would be a symlink to syslogp and ftpd and ircd would be linked to ftpp and ircp... and of course the point-to-point protocal paenguin. -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo % This is a logical analogy too... anyone who's been around, knows the world is run by paenguins. Always a paenguin behind the curtain, really getting things done. And paenguins in politics--who can deny it? -- Kevin M. Bealer, commenting on the penguin Linux logo % Linux: Where Don't We Want To Go Today? -- Submitted by Pancrazio De Mauro, paraphrasing some well-known sales talk % The most important design issue... is the fact that Linux is supposed to be fun... -- Linus Torvalds at the First Dutch International Symposium on Linux % In short, at least give the penguin a fair viewing. If you still don't like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do. -- Linus "what, me arrogant?" Torvalds, on c.o.l.advocacy % what's the difference between chattr and chmod? SomeLamer: man chattr > 1; man chmod > 2; diff -u 1 2 | less -- Seen on #linux on irc % The linuX Files -- The Source is Out There. -- Sent in by Craig S. Bell, goat@aracnet.com % C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success -- Dennis M. Ritchie % If Bill Gates is the Devil then Linus Torvalds must be the Messiah. -- Unknown source % Vini, vidi, Linux! -- Unknown source % Checking host system type... i586-unknown-linux configure: error: sorry, this is the gnu os, not linux -- Topic on #Linux % It's easy to get on the internet and forget you have a life -- Topic on #LinuxGER % To kick or not to kick... -- Somewhere on IRC, inspired by Shakespeare % Linux - Where do you want to fly today? -- Unknown source % The easiest way to get the root password is to become system admin. -- Unknown source % The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum % The primary difference [...] is that the Java programm will reliably and obviously crash, whereas the C Program will do something obscure -- Java Language Tutorial % LOAD "LINUX",8,1 -- Topic on #LinuxGER % Old MacLinus had a stack/l-i-n-u-x/and on this stack he had a trace/l-i-n-u-x with an Oops-Oops here and an Oops-Oops there here an Oops, there an Oops, everywhere an Oops-Oops. -- tjimenez@site.gmu.edu, linux.dev.kernel % Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) would get the time/chance to. -- Atif Khan % > Also another major deciding factor is availability of source code. > It just gives everybody a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there is > source code available to the product you are using. It allows everybody > to improve on the product and fix bugs etc. sooner that the author(s) > would get the time/chance to. I think this is one the really BIG reasons for the snowball/onslaught of Linux and the wealth of stuff available that gets enhanced faster than the real vendors can keep up. -- Norman % Not only Guinness - Linux is good for you, too. -- Banzai on IRC % > NE-2000 clone. Pentium optimizing gcc (pentium gcc pl8 I think). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Build a kernel with the proper gcc. Reports with a non standard compiler are useless. -- Alan Cox % BTW: I have a better name for the software .... Microsoft Internet Exploder. -- George Bonser % Well, since MS can't be sure of the username of someone downloading things, they are going to play it safe and have everything downloaded and executed by Explorer as suid root. That way, it will run on ANY system anywhere. :) -- George Bonser % If you really want pure ASCII, save it as text... or browse it with your favorite browser... -- Alexandre Maret % Sorry for mailing this article, I've obviously made a typo (168!=186) that's the price for being up all night and doing some "quick" checks before you go to bed .... -- Herbert Rosmanith % Just to remind everyone. Today, Sept 17, is Linux's 5th birthday. So happy birthday to all on the list. Thanks go out to Linus and all the other hard-working maintainers for 5 wonderful fast paced years! -- William E. Roadcap % Exporting beer from Finnland doesn't seem to be that much of a hassle, as the Lenigrad Cowboys brought a lot of their brew to the concerts in Austria. -- Otmar Lendl % Beeping is cute, if you are in the office ;) -- Alan Cox % > Where in the US is Linus? He was in the "Promise Land". -- David S. Miller % > Yeah, Linus is in the US. > > His source trees are in Finland. OK, someone give him access -fast- ...... ;-) -- babydr@nwrain.net, because of problems with the kernel % Subject: Linux box finds it hard to wake up in the morning I've heard of dogs being like their owners, but Linux boxen? -- Peter Hunter % *** PUBLIC flooding detected from erikyyy THAT's an erik, pholx.... ;) -- Seen on #LinuxGER % I've no idea when Linus is going to release 2.0.24, but if he takes too long Im going to release a 2.0.24unoff and he can sound off all he likes. -- Alan Cox % All the existing 2.0.x kernels are too buggy for 2.1.x to be the main goal. -- Alan Cox % Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso % martin@bdsi.com (no longer valid - where are you now, Martin?) -- from /usr/src/linux/drivers/cdrom/mcd.c % [...] or some clown changed the chips on a board and not its name. (Don't laugh! Look at the SMC etherpower for that.) -- from /usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS % REST: P: Linus Torvalds S: Buried alive in email -- from /usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS % Why use Windows when you can have air conditioning? Why use Windows, when you can leave through the door? -- Konrad Blum % Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be. -- Tom Christiansen % I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon. By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses. -- Bruce Perens % If someone can point me to a good and _FREE_ backup software that keeps track of which files get stored on which tape, we can change to it. -- Mike Neuffer, admin of i-Connect Corp. % Whoa, first contact! Welcome, from the people of Terra (Sol III). We extend our hands in friendship, and sincerely hope you shall do the same with your hand-equivelents. % > Whoa, first contact! Nope, 'fraid not, Linux is still primarily used on planet Earth, I'm afraid. Our friend here sent a message in Russian (KOI8-R encoding). -- Aleksey Kliger, explaining a russian posting % There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit. -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution % 1648 files (84%) out of the files that I mirror disappeared. Since my delete threshold was set at 90%, all those files are now missing from my hard drive. It's going to take a loooong time to fetch those again via 14.4kbps! % > What is the status of Linux' Unicode implementation. Will Linux > be prepared for the first contact? We have full klingon console support just in case -- Alan Cox on linux-kernel % "You, sir, are nothing but a pathetically lame salesdroid! I fart in your general direction!" -- Randseed on #Linux % * Jes wonders why so many people in here uses fooZZZZZ and foo_sleeping nicks Jes: Because they are sleeping? -- Seen on #Linux % * gb notes that fdisk thinks his cdrom can store one terabyte -- Seen on #Linux % Check it out, send me comments, and dance joyously in the streets, -- Linus Torvalds announcing 2.0.27 % Sex dumps core (Sex is a Simple editor for X11) -- Seen on debian bugtracking % I tried the clone syscall on me, but it didn't work. -- Mike Neuffer trying to fix a serious time problem % - long f_ffree; /* free file nodes in fs */ + long f_ffree; /* freie Dateiknoten im Dateisystem */ -- Seen in a translation % * Phaedrus wishes he could get a machine that consists of Sparc IO, Alpha Processors and sleek design of an SGI And intel prices -- Seen on #Linux % damn my office is cold. need a hot secretary to warm it up. -- Seen on #Linux % This is a scsi driver, scraes the shit out of me, therefore I tapdanced and wrote a unix clone around it (C) by linus -- Somewhere in the kernel tree % * This is complicated. Has to do with interrupts. Thus, I am * scared witless. Therefore I refuse to write this function. :-P -- From the maclinux patch % Yes I have a Machintosh, please don't scream at me. -- Larry Blumette on linux-kernel % any new sendmail hole I have to fix before going on vacations? -- Seen on #Linux % AUTHOR FvwmAuto just appeared one day, nobody knows how. -- FvwmAuto(1x) % Fairlight: udp is the light margarine of tcp/ip transport protocols :) -- Seen on #Linux % I don't even know if it makes sense at all :) This is an experimental patch for an experimental kernel :)) -- Ingo Molnar on linux-kernel % Linux - Das System fuer schlaue Maedchen ;) -- banshee % If loving linux is wrong, I don't wanna be right. -- Topic for #LinuxGER % >>> FreeOS is an english-centric name Have you all been stuck in email, or have any of you tried *pronouncing* that? free-oh-ess? free-ows? fritos? :-) -- Mark Eichin % The documentation is in Japanese. Good luck. -- Rich $alz % People are going to scream bloody murder about that. -- Seen on linux-kernel % > 1. is qmail as secure as they say? Depends on what they were saying, but most likely yes. -- Seen on debian-devel % NEVER RESPOND TO CRITICAL PRESS. IT IS A GAME YOU CAN ONLY LOSE, AND IT MAKES US LOOK BAD. -- Bruce Perens % A feature is nothing more than a bug with seniority. -- Unknown source % Winnuke in one line? No problem: perl -MIO::Socket -e \ 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)' And formatted so it's a little easier to read: #!/usr/bin/perl use IO::Socket; IO::Socket::INET ->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139") ->send("bye", MSG_OOB); -- Randal Schwartz % If a 'train station' is where a train stops, what's a 'workstation'? % Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. % "We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates "The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates -- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212 % The POP3 server service depends on the SMTP server service, which failed to start because of the following error: The operation completed successfully. -- Windows NT Server v3.51 % Software is like sex; it's better when it's free. -- Linus Torvalds % oh okay. my mistake. Yafcot:atj(*), mark * Yet another fool coming over this: according to joey -- mark@mail.novare.net % Sorry. I just realized this sentance makes no sense :) -- Ian Main % Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be. -- Tom Christiansen % Stopping Apache webserver...sleeping...starting again... apache: dl-version.c:189: _dl_check_map_versions: Assertion `needed != ((void *)0)' failed noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo -- netgod on #Debian at LISC % Make it idiot-proof, and someone will breed a better idiot. -- Oliver Elphick % #Debian makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :) -- HippieGuy on #Debian % ECRC hat keine lynx komp. seiten, sowas MUSS ja pleite gehen ;-)= -- Getty on #LinuxGER % Why are there always boycotts? Shouldn't there be girlcotts too? -- argon on #Linux % Anyone want the new supermount? :) whats new about it klogd: It cleans whiter than white. :) -- Seen on #Linux % Und die Tastaturabrdücke auf Ihrer Wange unterstreichen seeeeeehr vorteilhaft ihr unterschütterliches Vertrauen in die moderene Technologie -- Agent Gully in "Die eXakten" % - DDD no longer requires the librx library. Consequently, librx errors can no more cause DDD to crash. -- DDD % snafu = Situation Normal All F%$*ed up % It's computer hardware, of course it's worth having -- Espy on #Debian % Alan E. Davis: Some files at llug.sep.bnl.gov/pub/debian/Incoming are stamped on 10 January 1998. As I write, nowhere on Earth is it now 10 January. Craig Sanders: That just proves how advanced debian is, doesn't it :-) -- debian-devel % Computers are like air conditioners. Both stop working, if you open windows. -- Adam Heath % I am NOT a kludge! I am a computer! -- tts % * SynrG notes that the number of configuration questions to answer in sendmail is NON-TRIVIAL -- Seen on #Debian % My apologies if I sound angry. I feel like I'm talking to a void. -- Avery Pennarun % RIP is irrelevant. Spoofing is futile. Your routes will be aggregated. -- Alex Yuriev % After 14 non-maintainer releases, I'm the S-Lang non-maintainer. -- Ray Dassen % BREAKFAST.COM Halted... Cereal Port Not Responding. % * JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, that Joey rules." -- Seen on #Debian % Steal my cash, car and TV - but leave the computer! -- Soenke Lange % The only really good reason I can think to not release specs is embarrassment on just how crappy some hardware out there is, or just how buggy it is. -- Chris Wedgwood % > Alan Cox wrote: [..] No I didn't. Someone else wrote that. Please keep attributions straight. -- From linux-kernel % Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't morphed into another one? Not that I'm one to talk, but some people seriously need to get a life -- james on #Debian % ... Linux und seine Programme sind damit so etwas wie ein real existierender Sozialismus der besseren Art ... -- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997 % * james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits in the first place... * netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress -- Seen on #Debian % * In anticipation of 2.10.02 release, updated to patchlevel +ircu2.10.01+.config6-7.config7-8.lgline3.iwho.limit.glibc.motdcache2. trace.whois1-2.config8-9.statsw.sprintf2-3.msgtree2.memleak1-2+. msgtree2-3.gline8-9.gline9-10.invite2.rbr.stats.numclients.whisper. whisper1-2.stats1-2.nokick1-2.chroot.config9-11.snomask7-8.limi+t1-3. userip1-3.userip3-4.config11-12.config12-13.umode2-3.akillsbt.who4-5. kn.kn1-2.freebsdcore2.msgtree3-5.y2k.glibc1-2.rmfunc.msgf+lags2. who5-6.nickchange2.glibc2-3.modeless3 -- From the annoucement of ircd 2.10.01-3 for Debian GNU/Linux % * Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am * DFSC Free cgi library What's that? DFSC? Debian Free Software mroooooCows -- Seen on #Debian % this guy _is_ crazy posix: from the looks of Enlightenment he's on LSD LSD is nothing compared to what this guy's on.. -- Seen on #Unix % On Netscape GPLing their browser: ``How can you trust a browser that ANYONE can hack? For the secure choice, choose Microsoft.'' -- in a comment on slashdot.org % Turn right here. No! NO! The OTHER right! % #define FALSE 0 /* This is the naked Truth */ #define TRUE 1 /* and this is the Light */ -- mailto.c % How do I bind a computer to an NIS server? Use a rope? -- Seen on #Debian % Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. -- Microsoft-Internet Explorer README.TXT % Does biff in bo work coz it biffin doesn't beep an if biff in bo is broke then biff in bo I will delete I've tried biff in bo with 'y' I've tried biff in bo with '-y' no biffin output does it show so poor wee biff is gonna go. -- John Spence on debian-user % Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it. -- Linus Torvalds % One tree to rule them all, One tree to find them, One tree to bring them all, and to itself bind them. -- Gavin Koch % As I currently don't have a floppy drive in my computer, I'd like to make an `emergency cdrom' ;) -- Eugene Crosser % Alan Cox wrote: >> On any procmail new enough not to be full of security holes you set >Brain on, Imeant majordomo of course 8) You got me worried there for a brief (very brief) moment :-). -- Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless) % seen jhm jhm is Sarek, and jhm is on the channel right now! * JHM wonders why dpkg remembers that particular nick. dpkg: Sarek? ermm, sure, and I am Khan -- Seen on #Debian % When you have 200 programmers trying to write code for one product, like Win95 or NT, what you get is a multiple personality program. By definition, the real problem is that these programs are psychotic by nature and make people crazy when they use them. -- Joan Brewer on alt.destroy.microsoft % Hah! we have 2 Johnie Ingrams in the channel :) Hey all btw :) % I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it. -- Sven Rudolph % > I thing you're missing the capability of Makefiles. It takes several _hours_ to do `make' a second time on my machine with the latest glibc sources (and no files are recompiled a second time). I think I'll remove `build' after changing one file if I want to recompile it. -- Juan Cespedes % aIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 MY LIGHT JUST DIED I AM SO SAD I'm blind! I'm blind! Light? Turn all your xterms to black-on-white :) Plenty of light that way. -- Seen on #Debian % | |-sshd---tcsh-+-dpkg-buildpacka---rules---sh---make---make---sh ---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make -- While packaging XFree86 for Debian GNU/Linux % /* * Please skip to the bottom of this file if you ate lunch recently * -- Alan */ -- from Linux kernel pre-2.1.91-1 % #if _FP_W_TYPE_SIZE < 64 #error "Only stud muffins allowed, schmuck." #endif -- linux/arch/sparc64/quad.c % #if _FP_W_TYPE_SIZE < 32 #error "Here's a nickel kid. Go buy yourself a real computer." #endif -- linux/arch/sparc64/double.h % eat Depends: cook | eat-out. But eat-out is non-free so that's out. And cook Recommends: clean-pans. -- Seen on #Debian % * Linux Viruscan..... Windows 95 found. Remove it? (Y/y) -- Unknown source % need help: my first packet to my provider gets lost :-( sel: don't send the first one, start with #2 * netgod is kidding % These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After unzipping, these files can be viewed in any text editor, including all versions of Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer -- From Micro$oft % Ooh, mommy, mommy, what I have now doesn't work in this extremely unlikely circumstance, so I'll just throw it away and write something completely new. -- Linus Torvalds % #ifdef __SMP__ #error "Me no hablo Alpha SMP" #else #define irq_enter(cpu, irq) (++local_irq_count[cpu]) #define irq_exit(cpu, irq) (--local_irq_count[cpu]) #endif -- from kernel 2.1.90, arch/alpha/kernel/irc.c % Linus Torvalds: > This is the special Easter release of linux, more mundanely called 1.3.84 Winfried Truemper: > Umh, oh. What do you mean by "special easter release"?. Will it quit > working today and rise on easter? % I never thought that I'd see the day where Netscape is free software and X11 is proprietary. We live in interesting times. -- Matt Kimball % Because I don't need to worry about finances I can ignore Microsoft and take over the (computing) world from the grassroots. -- Linus Torvalds % /* * Buddy system. Hairy. You really aren't expected to understand this * */ -- From /usr/src/linux/mm/page_alloc.cA % baz bat bamus batis bant. -- James Troup % Just go ahead and write your own multitasking multiuser os! Worked for me all the times. -- Linus Torvalds % I've seen people with new children before, they go from ultra happy to looking like something out of a zombie film in about a week. -- Alan Cox about Linus after his 2nd daughter % I expect that no one has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of flames afterwards :) -- Christian Schwarz % Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed) -- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3 % You will not censor me through bug terrorism. -- James Troup % Thinking is dangerous. It leads to ideas. -- Seen on #Debian % Are we going to make an emacs out of apt? APT - Debian in a program. It even does your laundry -- Seen on #Debian % Do you mean to say that I can read mail with vi too? ;-) Didn't you know that? :r /var/spool/mail/jk -- debian-mentors % Charles Briscoe-Smith : After all, the gzip package is called `gzip', not `libz-bin'... James Troup : Uh, probably because the gzip binary doesn't come from the non-existent libz package or the existent zlib package. -- debian-bugs-dist % Debian is like Suse with yast turned off, just better. :) -- Goswin Brederlow % 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. % The truth is not free. It's that simple. If you change the truth, it is no longer true - so the truth is not free! -- Jules Bean about freeness of documentation % Lemme make sure I'm not wasting time here... bcwhite will remove pkgs that havent been fixed that have outstanding bugs of severity "important". True or false? jim: "important" or higher. True. Then we're about to lose ftp.debian.org and dpkg :) * netgod will miss dpkg -- it was occasionally useful We still have rpm.... -- Seen on #Debian % * JHM wonders what Joey did to earn "I'd just like to say, for the record, that Joey rules." -- Seen on #Debian % The problem here (as someon else stated) is that when multiple dists use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility". -- Stephen Carpenter % *** Rince is wagner@schizo.DAINet.de (We have Joey, we have Fun, we have Linux on a Sun) -- Seen on #Debian % ... Linux und seine Programme sind damit so etwas wie ein real existierender Sozialismus der besseren Art... -- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997 % The most effective has probably been Linux/8086 - that was a joke that got out of hand. So far out of hand in fact its almost approaching usability because other folks thought it worth doing - Alistair Riddoch especially. -- Alan Cox % The only other people who might benefit from Linux8086 would be owners of PDP/11's and other roomsized computers from the same era. -- Alan Cox % Ha. I say let them try -- even vi+perl couldn't match the power of an editor which is, after all, its own OS. ;-) -- Johnie Ingram on debian-devel, about linking vim with libperl.so % Being overloaded is the sign of a true Debian maintainer. -- JHM on #Debian % joey--very clever !!! joey--no wonder that Debian is a good distrib with coder like you -- Seen on #Debian (referring to my RAID article for the LJ) % There are 3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can't. -- Unknown source % Despite the best efforts of a quantum bigfoot drive (yes I know everyone told me they suck, now I know they were right) 2.1.109ac1 is now available -- Alan Cox announcing Linux 2.1.109ac1 % Turns out that grep returns error code 1 when there are no matches. I KNEW that. Why did it take me half an hour? -- Seen on #Debian % It's simply unbelievable how much energy and creativity people have invested into creating contradictory, bogus and stupid licenses... --- Sven Rudolph about licences in debian/non-free. % partycle: I seriously do need a vacation from this package. I actually had a DREAM about introducing a stupid new bug into xbase-preinst last night. That's a Bad Sign. -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 % i'm glad Debian finally got into polar-deep-freeze-we-arent-shitting-you state finally. -- Seen on #Debian shortly before the release of Debian 2.0 % Looks like the channel is back to normal :) You mean it's not scrolling faster than anyone can read? :) -- Seen on #Debian after the release of Debian 2.0 % Alex Buell: Or how about a Penguin logo painted in really really trippy colours, and emblazoned with the word LSD. :o) Geert Uytterhoeven: We already had that one, but unfortunately Russell King fixed that nasty palette bug in drivers/video/fbcon.c :-) -- linux-kernel % Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better. -- Richard Stallman % Außerdem noch [..] die Distribution für Puristen, denen technische Eleganz und Qualität und philosophisch reine Lehre der `freien Software' über totale Einfachheit geht (Debian) und viele mehr. -- Anselm Lingnau in de.comp.os.unix.discussion % Fehlermeldung von StarOffice: Das Dokument wurde fuer den Drucker Generic PostScript Printer formatiert. Der Drucker ist nicht vorhanden. Soll der Standarddrucker Generic PostScript Printer verwendet werden? Ob Programme schizophren werden koennen? -- Oliver Bedford % No, that's wrong too. Now there's a race condition between the rm and the mv. Hmm, I need more coffee. -- Guy Maor on Debian Bug#25228 % Perhaps the RBLing (Realtime Black Hole) of msn.com recently, which prevented a large amount of mail going out for about 4 days, has had a positive influence in Redmond. They did agree to work on their anti-relay capabilities at their POPs to get the RBL lifted. -- Bill Campbell on Smail3-users % Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it receives a response to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS service on a different platform. -- bugtraq % I am amazed that no-one's based a commercial distribution on Debian yet - it is by far the most solid UNIX-like OS I've ever installed, and I've played with HP/UX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSDi, and SCO (not to mention OS/2, Novell, Win95/NT) -- Nathan E. Norman % Jim> http://www.novare.net/~eam/kaffe/ Joey> ^ Joey> And now we all learn how to write Ean's name and the URL is complete. Jim> Hah! I noticed that the instead I sent it, and I tried to hit ^g, but I was too slow. :-) --- debian-devel % Die TeX-Artikel [..] aber doch inzwischen wohl nicht mehr an den Fingern zweier Hände abzählbar (außer vielleicht von Informatikern, die bekanntlich mit den Fingern bis 1023 zählen können. -- Anselm Lingnau % And Bruce is effectively building BruceIX -- Alan Cox % I will be known as Ian Black, Ean can be Ian Red, Netgod Ian Blue, Che gets Ian Yellow, CQ is Ian Purple and Joey is Ian Indigo -- Some #Debian channel % When a float occurs on the same page as the start of a supertabular you can expect unexpected results. -- Documentation of supertabular.sty % From: Ean Schuessler The unrecognized minister of propaganda, E -- Debian, joking % * liw prefers not to have Linus run Debian, because then /me would have to run Red Hat, just to keep the power balance :) -- #Debian % <\\swing> and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil? :) \\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked -- #Debian % I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel, but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this. -- Linus Torvalds % > Tut mir Leid, Jost, aber Du bist ein unertraeglicher Troll. Was soll das? Du *beleidigst* die Trolle! -- de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc % Wenn also die KDE-Arbeit nochmal gemacht wird bei GNOME, hat das die Entwicklungszeit für ein freies Desktop-System verkürzt. Hast Du auch irgendwo die passende Algebra zu der Rechnung? -- Sascha Ziemann in de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc % * dpkg ponders: 'C++' should have been called 'D' -- #Debian % The real value of KDE is that they inspired and push the development of GNOME :-) -- #Debian % * dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer * Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) * Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. * Cylord gives the beer to muggles. -- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary % Stupid nick highlighting Whenever someone starts with "stupid" it highlights the nick. Hmm. -- #Debian % And once Diziet/CQ make the formal announcment that LSA sucks, we can even reduce the Crisis Level rating and move on to linuxfoundation.org. -- #Debian % * LG loves czech girls. LG: do they have additional interesting "features" other girls don't have? ;) -- #Debian % The first is to ensure your partner understands that nature has root privileges - nature doesn't have to make sense. -- Telsa Gwynne % As to house maintenance, does it involve problem solfing? If so, your hacker can safely be left to deall with the panning (for the musement value, if nothering ese). -- Telsa Gwynne % Remember: While root can do most everything, there are certain privileges that only a partner can grant. -- Telsa Gwynne % Where is 'bavaria' proper? I thought it was austria. -- Seen on #Linux % Day X+4 months: Microsoft ships NT 5.0 for Intel.with a big media event on TV. IBM begins to ship Debian 4.6 as the standard OS on all machines from mainframe to PC and announces the move on Slashdot. -- Christoph Lameter % How many chunks could checkchunk check if checkchunk could check chunks? -- Alan Cox % Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep -- unknown source % Someone on IRC was very sad about the uptime of his machine wrapping from 497 days to 0. -- linux-kernel % netgod: 8:42pm is not late. doogie: its 2:42am in Joeyland -- #Debian % We knew from experience that the essence of communal computing, as supplied by remote-access, time-shared machines, is not just to type programs into a terminal instead of a keypunch, but to encourage close communication. -- Dennis Ritchie % modconf (0.2.37) stable unstable; urgency=medium [...] * Eduard Bloch: - fixed Makefile broken Marcin Owsiany a while ago. The default manpage has been overwritten with the polish translation. I still wonder why nobody noticed this before. Closes: #117474 [...] -- Eduard Bloch Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:53:27 +0100 % <|ryan|> I don't use deb u poor man netgod: heh apt-get install task-p0rn % % Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, please? I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. -- Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds % > The branden dodges your magical sigh. The branden attacks you with a slew of words! The branden misses! -- Henning Makholm in % I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' is a good rationale for doing something. -- Andrew Suffield in <20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel % < Overfiend> whew. < Overfiend> I really need to get some sleep. < Overfiend> but it sure was fun talking guitars, politics, and lesbians. % !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH % 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 % 1: No code table for op: ++post % 4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a 575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the 575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the 130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... -- /etc/motd, cbosgd % A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! Fantastic! We'll be famous!" The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" % ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust. % A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. % A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. % A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk was enlightened. From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, who passed it on to theirs. % A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. % [A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. -- Joseph Campbell % A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. -- Mitch Ratcliffe % A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers. Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the speed of light?" Computer: 186,282 miles per second. Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" Computer: George Washington. President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?" Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!" Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass. % A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. % A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard. % A CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg. % A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail. -- Jerry Ogdin % 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 doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" % A 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 formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries % A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis. % A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. % 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 LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. -- Alan Perlis % A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -- Don Knuth % A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. -- Fred Brooks % A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new disciples." Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. % A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer promptly replied. "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, how long will it take?" The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." The programmer agreed to this. Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. He had been programming all night. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the manager retained his job. The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward." The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several resigned on the spot. So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee hours of the morning. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" "It will take one year," said the master promptly. "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take it I assign ten programmers to it?" The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", he said, "may I examine it?" The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. "I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human." "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this mysterious setting?" The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % 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. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A modem is a baudy house. % A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you. % *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what you should blame when you make a mistake. Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) *** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** % A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of the best programmers in the world. Why is this?" The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has entered the mystery of the Tao." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally baffled. What is the reason for this?" The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the novice. "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. Why is this so?" The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an unnatural entity exist?" The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question. "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before replying. "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved enlightenment, several years later. Commentary: His Master is kind, Answering his FAQ quickly, With thought and sarcasm. % A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package. The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial. When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. "Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. % A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. -- Donald Knuth % A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity. A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least. A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances. If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they made rude noises during my presentation." The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother with social conventions?" "They are alive within the Tao." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A 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 newsmagazine % A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant. % 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 rolling disk gathers no MOS. % A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire going to it is so large. Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] % 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 well-used door needs no oil on its hinges. A swift-flowing steam does not grow stagnant. Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum. Software rots if not used. These are great mysteries. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. % About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger Dijkstra % Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker. % Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" % Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. -- George Washington, 1732-1799 % After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." -- DECWARS % Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. -- Dijkstra % Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language yet developed. -- T. Cheatham % All constants are variables. % === ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers. This will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER updated in their .login file. Should you attempt to execute a job on a machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a cold boot process. % All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 % All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug." -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" % All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. % "... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987 % All the simple programs have been written. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added. The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users. The Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid. When the switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O. Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the back of VMI monitors. Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging performance. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, please communicate them by one of the following paths: ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket Non-network sites: Federal Express to: Wastebasket Room NE43-926 Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* * Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== CAR and CDR now return extra values. The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because it cold boots the machine so often. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT- INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. Note that LET *could* have been defined by: (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) ,LET))) `(LET ((LET ',LET)) ,LET)) This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or 3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from Itty Bitti Machines where he was writing COUGHBOL code) so to give him confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== JCL support as alternative to system menu. In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, (NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) (PROG (V P LP) (SETQ P (LOCF V)) L (SETQ LP LISTS) (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) (GO L1) L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) (SETQ LP (%POP)) (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) (GO L))) We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. % All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul. % Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate. -- K. E. Iverson % Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. "I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 % AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an import. This beer never really sold very well because the original manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a 16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway. % An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says 'Beam me up, Scotty'. % An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms. % An algorithm must be seen to be believed. -- D. E. Knuth % ... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and never when standing. Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to hypothesize: was there a loose wire under the carpet, or problems with static electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led astray by hunting and pecking. -- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985 % An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. % An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN. % An interpretation _I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated by the corresponding row and column labels. -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial Intelligence" % And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones % And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. % Another megabytes the dust. % Any given program will expand to fill available memory. % Any given program, when running, is obsolete. % Any program which runs right is obsolete. % Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. % ... 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.) % Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec % Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. -- Elizabeth Zwicky % APL hackers do it in the quad. % APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 % APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; ...and is best for educational purposes. -- A. Perlis % APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir % Are we running light with overbyte? % 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 % As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. % As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert % As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name. -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie % As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies on the austerity of the word. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 % As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later. % As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10. Please update your programs. % As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. Please update your programs. % As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. % As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of the valuable information that daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: how do I run C code received from sources Keywords: C sources Distribution: na I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that must be done? % As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging. -- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service conversion 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, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 % As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % 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 things as a free variable." % ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer. % ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. % Ask not for whom the  tolls. % Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity and understanding of how computers work that it provides. -- D. Gries % Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems. -- D. Winker and F. Prosser % At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving a computer problem?" "Remember the twin paradox?" After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the computer here, and accelerate the earth!" The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. % At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -- G. L. Glegg, "The Design of Design" % At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 % 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. % Avoid strange women and temporary variables. % Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. % BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'. % BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing. -- Seymour Papert % Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. % Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek. % Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. % Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth % Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein % Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. % Beware the new TTY code! % Blinding speed can compensate for a lot of deficiencies. -- David Nichols % BLISS is ignorance. % Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and interface circuit details. The two models, however, are not compatible on the same communications line connection. -- Bell System Technical Reference % 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, "Elements of Networking Style" % Brain fried -- Core dumped % Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science. -- Randy Goebel % Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, 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." % Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. % Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. % Building translators is good clean fun. -- T. Cheatham % Bus error -- driver executed. % Bus error -- please leave by the rear door. % 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 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 K's, not enough ROM's, not enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes? % "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" % By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. -- P. J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April Fool's column. % BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then carefully print the chaff. % Byte your tongue. % C Code. C Code Run. Run, Code, RUN! PLEASE!!!! % C for yourself. % C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. -- Bjarne Stroustrup % C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341] % C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360. % ... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member objects and member functions. Specifically, members may be placed in the public, private, or protected parts of a class. Members declared in the public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports the notion of *_______friends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each other's private parts. -- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications" % Calm down, it's *____only* ones and zeroes. % Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar. % Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes.dat. % CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. % CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... % Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543. % Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information. % COBOL is for morons. -- E. W. Dijkstra % Cobol programmers are down in the dumps. % Coding is easy; All you do is sit staring at a terminal until the drops of blood form on your forehead. % Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade, stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management. -- Dan Klein % COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from a corporation whose president codes in octal. -- J. N. Gray % ... computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price gain in 30 years. -- Fred Brooks % Computer programmers do it byte by byte. % Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing. % Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available. % Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. % Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing to a building as being maintenance -- Jim Horning % Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. % Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. -- Gilb % 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 don't actually think. You just think they think. (We think.) % Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more than the estimate the job will cost. % Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask! % Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual % Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell at people to save their core images before logging them out? I'm sure the cattle prod would be effective in this regard. In any case, a traverse mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention being easier to stake. % Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs. -- Glaser and Way % Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs. -- Tom Lehrer % [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 % Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! % Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence. % Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence. % %DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears % Dear Emily, what about test messages? -- Concerned Dear Concerned: It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth by all USEnauts. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: How can I choose what groups to post in? -- Confused Dear Confused: Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in the fringe groups. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to summarize. What should I do? -- Editor Dear Editor: Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when summarizing a vote. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: I recently read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." What should I do? -- Doubtful Dear Doubtful: Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by mail. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should I do? -- Angry Dear Angry: Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments between the lines. Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article looks like a reply to the original. Everybody *loves* to read those long point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? -- A Concerned Citizen Dear Concerned: Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net society. Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- they are always interested in good stories. By arranging all this free publicity for the net, you'll become very well known. People on the net will wait in eager anticipation for your every posting, and refer to you constantly. You'll get more mail than you ever dreamed possible -- the ultimate in net success. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted to. How about an example? -- Still Confused Dear Still: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Emily: Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. What should I do? -- Forgetful Dear Forgetful: Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, "Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here it is." Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, (particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more about the signature anyway. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Ms. Postnews: I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What should I do? -- Eager Beaver Dear Eager: No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm posting it. All others please ignore." This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, so post it as many places as you can. -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette % Dear Sir, I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un- employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. Yours faithfully, Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. Sevenoaks -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London % Debug is human, de-fix divine. % DEC diagnostics would run on a dead whale. -- Mel Ferentz % #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 % (defun NF (a c) (cond ((null c) () ) ((atom (car c)) (append (list (eval (list 'getchar (list (car c) 'a) (cadr c)))) (nf a (cddr c)))) (t (append (list (implode (nf a (car c)))) (nf a (cdr c)))))) (defun AD (want-job challenging boston-area) (cond ((or (not (equal want-job 'yes)) (not (equal boston-area 'yes)) (lessp challenging 7)) () ) (t (append (nf (get 'ad 'expr) '((caaddr 1 caadr 2 car 1 car 1) (car 5 cadadr 9 cadadr 8 cadadr 9 caadr 4 car 2 car 1) (car 2 caadr 4))) (list '851-5071x2661))))) ;;; We are an affirmative action employer. % Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. % Did you know that for the price of a 280-Z you can buy two Z-80's? -- P. J. Plauger % Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. % Digital circuits are made from analog parts. -- Don Vonada % Disc space -- the final frontier! % DISCLAIMER: Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement of Western industrial civilization. % Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too." -- Dave Haynie % Disk crisis, please clean up! % Disks travel in packs. % Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates. % Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. % Do not simplify the design of a program if a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. % Do not use the blue keys on this terminal. % Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking? % *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to try this simple test: (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? (3) What is the state capital of Idaho? If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. % Do you suffer painful elimination? -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos" Do you suffer painful recrimination? -- Nancy Boxer, "Structured Programming with Come-froms" Do you suffer painful illumination? -- Isaac Newton, "Optics" Do you suffer painful hallucination? -- Don Juan, cited by Carlos Casteneda % 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 a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted? Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student? Does a good father allow a single child to starve? Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code? -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. % Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer % Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. % Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. -- P. Skelly % DOS Air: All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et cetera. % DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available. % Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued. % 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 % E Pluribus Unix % Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. -- Kernighan % Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 % /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. % Earth is a beta site. % /earth: file system full. % Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. -- Fred Brooks % Equal bytes for women. % Error in operator: add beer % Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. -- G. Blaauw, one of the designers of System 360 % Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of the world. Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would return them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, might be a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley. Sniffing the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little suspected that they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked physicist crazed over roulette. -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie" % <<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<< % Even bytes get lonely for a little bit. % Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis- trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the "granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in question." [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.] % "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 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 is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. % Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper ... everyone was eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is bend a disk. -- A member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement. % Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love! % Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers. % Evolution is a million line computer program falling into place by accident. % Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. % FACILITY REJECTED 100044200000; % Feeling amorous, she looked under the sheets and cried, "Oh, no, it's Microsoft!" % Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add yours to the bottom of the list. Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's. Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! % For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor 1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and '\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear. -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80 % Fly Windows NT: All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet swooshing sounds as if they are flying. % "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 % FORTH IF HONK THEN % FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse using ad hoc techniques. -- D. Gries [What's good about it? Ed.] % FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. % FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A. J. Perlis % FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers. -- Steven Feiner % FORTRAN rots the brain. -- John McQuillin % FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 % [FORTRAN] will persist for some time -- probably for at least the next decade. -- T. Cheatham % Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! Try: [Where is Jimmy Hoffa? (C shell) ^How did the^sex change operation go? (C shell) "How would you rate BSD vs. System V? %blow (C shell) 'thou shalt not mow thy grass at 8am' (C shell) got a light? (C shell) !!:Say, what do you think of margarine? (C shell) PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Bourne shell) make love make "the perfect dry martini" man -kisses dog (anything up to 4.3BSD) i=Hoffa ; >$i; $i; rm $i; rm $i (Bourne shell) % Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! Try: ar t "God" drink < bottle; opener (Bourne Shell) cat "food in tin cans" (all but 4.[23]BSD) Hey UNIX! Got a match? (V6 or C shell) mkdir matter; cat > matter (Bourne Shell) rm God man: Why did you get a divorce? (C shell) date me (anything up to 4.3BSD) make "heads or tails of all this" who is smart (C shell) If I had a ) for every dollar of the national debt, what would I have? sleep with me (anything up to 4.3BSD) % fortune: cannot execute. Out of cookies. % fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped. % fortune: No such file or directory % fortune: not found % Frankly, Scarlett, I don't have a fix. -- Rhett Buggler % [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. % Function reject. % Garbage In -- Gospel Out. % GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. % Given its constituency, the only thing I expect to be "open" about [the Open Software Foundation] is its mouth. -- John Gilmore % 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 % Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"! I'm taking a VAX-NAP. logout % //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH % God is real, unless declared integer. % God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. % Good evening, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred ninety-five. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you would like, I could sing it for you. % Grand Master Turing once dreamed that he was a machine. When he awoke he exclaimed: "I don't know whether I am Turing dreaming that I am a machine, or a machine dreaming that I am Turing!" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. % Hacker's Guide To Cooking: 2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) 1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) 1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) 8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) "Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off the ceiling(3m). "Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. "...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. % Hackers are just a migratory lifeform with a tropism for computers. % Hackers of the world, unite! % Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. % /* Halley */ (Halley's comment.) % Happiness is a hard disk. % Happiness is twin floppies. % Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % "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. % Have you reconsidered a computer career? % He's like a function -- he returns a value, in the form of his opinion. It's up to you to cast it into a void or not. -- Phil Lapsley % HEAD CRASH!! FILES LOST!! Details at 11. % Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! % Help stamp out Mickey-Mouse computer interfaces -- Menus are for Restaurants! % Help! I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory! % Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! % HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib! % Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms. % HOLY MACRO! % HOST SYSTEM NOT RESPONDING, PROBABLY DOWN. DO YOU WANT TO WAIT? (Y/N) % HOST SYSTEM RESPONDING, PROBABLY UP... % How can you work when the system's so crowded? % "How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows." % 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 much net work could a network work, if a network could net work? % Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!! Oh wait... I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out. Never mind. % I *____knew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just remember what it was. % I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any administrator. % I am NOMAD! % I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party. -- Dennis Ritchie % I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say (in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated. -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason" % I am the wandering glitch -- catch me if you can. % I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures them completely, even molding the keypads. -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979 % I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky % I came, I saw, I deleted all your files. % 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 do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov % I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and implement a PL/1 compiler. -- T. Cheatham % I have a very small mind and must live with it. -- E. Dijkstra % I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. -- Rob Pike, on X. Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be gone in two years. He was half right. -- Dennis Ritchie Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong. -- Jim Gettys % I have not yet begun to byte! % I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" % I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new science of data processing), c. 1957 % I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. % I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts! % I think there's a world market for about five computers. -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943 % 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 my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!" Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. There was a computer in every doorknob. -- Danny Hillis % I wish you humans would leave me alone. % 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 not even going to *______bother* comparing C to BASIC or FORTRAN. -- L. Zolman, creator of BDS C % I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie. % I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it was by the time I find it. I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe "The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left blank." -- Alex Crain % I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes. -- Dennie van Tassel % I've looked at the listing, and it's right! -- Joel Halpern % I've never been canoeing before, but I imagine there must be just a few simple heuristics you have to remember... Yes, don't fall out, and don't hit rocks. % I've noticed several design suggestions in your code. % IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes... -- with regrets to D. Adams % 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 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 listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. % If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation? % If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine. -- Rob Stampfli % If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer. % If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. % If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will serve us right. -- Alistair Cooke % If God had a beard, he'd be a UNIX programmer. % If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports. % If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of fresh paint? % If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate. -- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" % 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 priviledged 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 Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders. -- Gauss Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other's toes. -- Richard Hamming It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders. If this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and software engineers dig each other's graves. -- Unknown % If I'd known computer science was going to be like this, I'd never have given up being a rock 'n' roll star. -- G. Hirst % If it happens once, it's a bug. If it happens twice, it's a feature. If it happens more than twice, it's a design philosophy. % If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. % If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. % If it's worth hacking on well, it's worth hacking on for money. % If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive Net Mail ... -- Casey Leedom % If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. -- Phil Lapsley % If Machiavelli were a programmer, he'd have worked for AT&T. % "If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem." -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234 % If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside. -- Robert Cringely, InfoWorld % If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. -- Norm Schryer % If the designers of X-window built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that. -- From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990. % If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, paper folding, or something. -- C. Philip Wood % If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. % If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program an imbedded system. The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust anything it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniff around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system calls for undiluted raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front ends need to know what network number they are on so that they can address and route PUPs properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy, you ask a gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct network numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and before you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you get my drift. % If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. % If you put 7 of the most talented open source software developers in a room for a week and asked them to fix a bug in a spreadsheet program, in 1 week you'd have 2 new mail readers and a text-based web browser. -- via Bram Moolenaar % If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dare criticise it. -- Pierre Gallois % If you teach your children to like computers and to know how to gamble then they'll always be interested in something and won't come to no real harm. % If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt. % If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work together yet. -- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89. % Ignorance is bliss. -- Thomas Gray Fortune updates the great quotes, #42: BLISS is ignorance. % 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 % 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?" % **** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. % In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network anyway. -- The 5th Wave % 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 surprise raid last night, federal agents ransacked a house in search of a rebel computer hacker. However, they were unable to complete the arrest because the warrant was made out in the name of Don Provan, while the only person in the house was named don provan. Proving, once again, that Unix is superior to Tops10. % In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. % In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work, the answer may be obtained by inspection. % In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter. % In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. % In every non-trivial program there is at least one bug. % In fact, S. M. Simpson, eventually devised an efficient 24-point Fourier transform, which was a precursor to the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform in 1965. The FFT made all of Simpson's efficient autocorrelation and spectrum programs instantly obsolete, on which he had worked half a lifetime. -- Proc. IEEE, Sept. 1982, p.900 % In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on ... the overriding problem of war and peace. -- James Slagle % In practice, failures in system development, like unemployment in Russia, happens a lot despite official propaganda to the contrary. -- Paul Licker % In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt. -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" % In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. How could it be otherwise? -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do you close your eyes?" "So that the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. % In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home. The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. % In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis % ... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable ... -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 % Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer % >>> Internal error in fortune program: >>> fnum=2987 n=45 flag=1 goose_level=-232323 >>> Please write down these values and notify fortune program administrator. % Introducing, the 1010, a one-bit processor. INSTRUCTION SET Code Mnemonic What 0 NOP No Operation 1 JMP Jump (address specified by next 2 bits) Now Available for only 12 1/2 cents! % IOT trap -- core dumped % Is a computer language with goto's totally Wirth-less? % 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 an identifier % Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! % It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?" % It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. -- J. Sammet % It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network... -- DECWARS % It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % It is 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 easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. % It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. % ... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. % It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. % It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension should be used in its proper place. -- Christopher Strachey % 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] best to confuse only one issue at a time. -- K&R % It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers. % It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 % "It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory" -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 % It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never really needed in the first place. I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above. -- K. E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa % It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus. -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm. % It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. -- Dion, noted computer scientist % It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption. % It's multiple choice time... What is FORTRAN? a: Between thre and fiv tran. b: What two computers engage in before they interface. c: Ridiculous. % "It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." -- Cal Keegan % It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? % ... Jesus cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth; the bug hath been found and thy program runneth. And he that was dead came forth... -- John 11:43-44 [version 2.0?] % Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac (and nobody cares about it). -- Bill Joy 6/21/85 % Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you get a prompt, type like hell. % Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum. -- D. Gries % Kiss your keyboard goodbye! % Know Thy User. % ((lambda (foo) (bar foo)) (baz)) % `Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers ... The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu'' collapsed in the morning before the release. News about the release had been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week. They had got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time. ``No computer can handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager, Erik Troan. ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.'' Luckily, repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening. ``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it together without major problems.'' The site has also installed a new throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same time, thus making a new crash less likely. ``The book is now in our Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.'' -- Lars Wirzenius [comp.os.linux.announce] % `Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers ... The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President. The ISHW is being developed with massive government funding, since studies show that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before the first prototypes are ready. Asked whether he was worried about the foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president said, ``Finland? Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told anyone yet. They're great at building model airplanes as well. And _I can spell potato.'' House representatives are not mollified, however, wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska. Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock market for weeks. Several major publishing houses reached an all time low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius. The negotiations did not work out, tough. ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks, preferring to communicate via e-mail. ``He kept muttering something about jiffies and pegs,'' they say. ... -- Lars Wirzenius [comp.os.linux.announce] % `Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order by staff writers Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars ``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of acknowledgements in the introduction. The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director of LDP, Inc. The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' ... -- Lars Wirzenius [comp.os.linux.announce] % Let the machine do the dirty work. -- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie % Leveraging always beats prototyping. % Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. -- Dave Olson % Like punning, programming is a play on words. % Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. % Lisp Users: Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection. % Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring... % Logic doesn't apply to the real world. -- Marvin Minsky % LOGO for the Dead LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from "The Other Side." The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic Bulletin Board System). LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101. -- '80 Microcomputing % 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... -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" % Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught. % Loose bits sink chips. % Mac Airways: The cashiers, flight attendants and pilots all look the same, feel the same and act the same. When asked questions about the flight, they reply that you don't want to know, don't need to know and would you please return to your seat and watch the movie. % Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. % MAC user's dynamic debugging list evaluator? Never heard of that. % "Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years." "What about X?" "I said `intellectual'." ;login, 9/1990 % Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games -- but not with pleasure. -- Leo Rosten % Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives. % Make sure your code does nothing gracefully. % 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 % 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 % Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the equipment of a certain major manufacturer] (and in doing so have sold their soul to the devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of their data processing systems. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 % Many of the convicted thieves Parker has met began their life of crime after taking college Computer Science courses. -- Roger Rapoport, "Programs for Plunder", Omni, March 1981 % Martin was probably ripping them off. That's some family, isn't it? Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software. -- Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" % Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! What a finely tuned response to the situation! % ** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER ** % May all your PUSHes be POPped. % May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! % May the bluebird of happiness twiddle your bits. % Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton % Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaningful oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof to mouth... % Memory fault - where am I? % Memory fault -- brain fried % Memory fault -- core...uh...um...core... Oh dammit, I forget! % MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. % Message from Our Sponsor on ttyTV at 13:58 ... % Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business. -- P. J. Denning % Mommy, what happens to your files when you die? % Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance. % MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING % Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail % MSDOS is not dead, it just smells that way. -- Henry Spencer % Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing. -- E. Dijkstra % Multics is security spelled sideways. % MVS Air Lines: The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. % 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 sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down by the seashore. % 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. % Nearly every complex solution to a programming problem that I have looked at carefully has turned out to be wrong. -- Brent Welch % Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. % Never put off till run-time what you can do at compile-time. -- D. Gries % Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach % Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself. % Never trust an operating system. % Never try to explain computers to a layman. It's easier to explain sex to a virgin. -- Robert Heinlein (Note, however, that virgins tend to know a lot about computers.) % Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS % New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. % New systems generate new problems. % *** NEWS FLASH *** Archeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00. % news: gotcha % 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. % No directory. % No extensible language will be universal. -- T. Cheatham % No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware until three software guys have signed off for it. -- Andy Tanenbaum % No line available at 300 baud. % No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list. % 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 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 wonder Clairol makes so much money selling shampoo. Lather, Rinse, Repeat is an infinite loop! % No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the president of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. -- Alan Turing on the possibilities of a thinking machine, 1943. % Nobody said computers were going to be polite. % Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start coming in late and lying about it. % My little brother got this fortune: nohup rm -fr /& So he did... % Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... -- Richard Harter % Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad. -- Rob Pike % NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky. % Nothing happens. % Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. "The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very *essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. "This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" % "Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette." -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354 % "Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." -- Karl Lehenbauer % Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid. Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together. Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating? Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other. % Oh, so there you are! % Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in the code over again, since I also removed the source. % Old mail has arrived. % Old programmers never die, they just become managers. % Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address. % Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit. % On a clear disk you can seek forever. -- P. Denning % On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN. % On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. -- Cartoon caption % On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people. There are lots of phrases. My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright, non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works best, write it down and make that the standard. The OSI view is entirely opposite. You take written contributions from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once. So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well, then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is committed to it. One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which. -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI" % 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 % "One Architecture, One OS" also translates as "One Egg, One Basket". % "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 day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to each cons." Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector..." % One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone. % ... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. -- Robert Firth % One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is... If they do foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. -- Joe Martin % One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.] % One person's error is another person's data. % One picture is worth 128K words. % Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. -- Oscar Wilde Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style. -- The Unnamed Usenetter % Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 % OS/2 Beer: Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold. % OS/2 Skyways: The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. % "Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'" "TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make any difference if it takes a while to fix it." -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988 % Our documentation manager was showing her 2 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 informal mission is to improve the love life of operators worldwide. -- Peter Behrendt, president of Exabyte % Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user! % Over the shoulder supervision is more a need of the manager than the programming task. % Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4. % Overconfidence breeds error when we take for granted that the game will continue on its normal course; when we fail to provide for an unusually powerful resource -- a check, a sacrifice, a stalemate. Afterwards the victim may wail, `But who could have dreamt of such an idiotic-looking move?' -- Fred Reinfeld, "The Complete Chess Course" % Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. % Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. % panic: can't find / % panic: kernel segmentation violation. core dumped (only kidding) % panic: kernel trap (ignored) % Pascal is a language for children wanting to be naughty. -- Dr. Kasi Ananthanarayanan % 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 % Passwords are implemented as a result of insecurity. % Pause for storage relocation. % Per buck you get more computing action with the small computer. -- R. W. Hamming % PL/I -- "the fatal disease" -- belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 % Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them. % Please go away. % PLUG IT IN!!! % Premature optimization is the root of all evil. -- D. E. Knuth % Price Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program ran like a gentle wind. Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!" "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique. When I first began to program I would see before me the whole program in one mass. After three years I no longer saw this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. My whole being exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program writes itself. True, sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them coming, I slow down, I watch silently. Then I change a single line of code and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the program. I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my eyes for a moment and then log off." Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data encryption standard and they came up with ... Student: EBCDIC!" % Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. % Programmers do it bit by bit. % Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without giant listings; we would find it hard to use them. -- D. M. Ritchie % Programming is an unnatural act. % 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 % PURGE COMPLETE. % Put no trust in cryptic comments. % RADIO SHACK LEVEL II BASIC READY >_ % RAM wasn't built in a day. % 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 % Reactor error - core dumped! % 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 like having a computer on their desk, else how could they read their mail? % 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 eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food. % 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 eat cache. % 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 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. % Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time. % Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular? % Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't have an established user base. % Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt. % Remember: use logout to logout. % Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J. F. Traub % Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream... % Save energy: Drive a smaller shell. % Save gas, don't use the shell. % Save yourself! Reboot in 5 seconds! % Say "twenty-three-skiddoo" to logout. % SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! -- Ken Thompson % Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing. % Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question. They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked together. They asked the question, "Is there a God?". Lights started blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. "There is now", came the reply. % 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. % "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! % Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged rocks. They all got out of the car: The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it." The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it into town and have a specialist look at it." The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back in and see if it does it again." % SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth ABSTRACT Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable functions. This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. % Send some filthy mail. % Sendmail may be safely run set-user-id to root. -- Eric Allman, "Sendmail Installation Guide" % Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all the odd integers are prime." The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, "Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it does seem right." Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says "Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." % She sells cshs by the cshore. % Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime! % Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials. -- Hubert Kirrman % Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ... % So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh? In reality all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have tomorrow, why, it already happened. You see, it's just a little universal recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of the instant. So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of eternity, the anti-time. So go to sleep... % Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker % Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more "user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover. -- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc. [Pot. Kettle. Black.] % Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is. The answer is: I don't know. Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast? % Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you only have to climb it once. % Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % Somebody's terminal is dropping bits. I found a pile of them over in the corner. % Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the Tao of Programming. If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of morning. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % 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? % ***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration. % Staff meeting in the conference room in %d minutes. % Staff meeting in the conference room in 3 minutes. % Standards are crucial. And the best thing about standards is: there are so ____many to choose from! % Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's very little call for those up there. -- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone % Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise. -- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, Sep. 1984 % Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first these questions three, ere the other side he see! "What is your name?" "Sir Brian of Bell." "What is your quest?" "I seek the Holy Grail." "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" % *** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning. % Such efforts are almost always slow, laborious, political, petty, boring, ponderous, thankless, and of the utmost criticality. -- Leonard Kleinrock, on standards efforts % Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. -- Christopher Evans % Swap read error. You lose your mind. % Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % System checkpoint complete. % System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing. % System going down at 5 this afternoon to install scheduler bug. % System going down in 5 minutes. % System restarting, wait... % *** System shutdown message from root *** System going down in 60 seconds % 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 % Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult. -- R. S. Barton % Testing can show the presence of bugs, but not their absence. -- Dijkstra % TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. -- Gordon Bell % "Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." -- J. Finnegan, USC. % That does not compute. % ... that the notions of "hardware", and "software" should be extended by the notion of LIVEWARE - being that which produces software for use on hardware. This produces an obvious extension to the concept of MONITORS. A liveware monitor is a person dedicated to the task of ensuring that the liveware does not interfere with the real-time processes, invoking the REAL-TIME EXECUTIONER to delete liveware that adversely affects ... -- Linden and Wihelminalaan % "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." -- e.e. cummings last service call % That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" % The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. -- Andy Purshottam % The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. -- R. B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?] % The absence of labels [in ECL] is probably a good thing. -- T. Cheatham % The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete. For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*. -- Bart Miller % "The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone with it." -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 % The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer % "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 beer-cooled computer does not harm the ozone layer. -- John M. Ford, a.k.a. Dr. Mike [If I can read my notes from the Ask Dr. Mike session at Baycon, I believe he added that the beer-cooled computer uses "Forget Only Memory". Ed.] % 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 way to accelerate a Macintoy is at 9.8 meters per second per second. % The bogosity meter just pegged. % The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself. -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" % The bugs you have to avoid are the ones that give the user not only the inclination to get on a plane, but also the time. -- Kay Bostic % "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." % The clothes have no emperor. -- C. A. R. Hoare, commenting on ADA. % The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and 50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into the 80's. -- Marty Winston % The computer is to the information industry roughly what the central power station is to the electrical industry. -- Peter Drucker % "The Computer made me do it." % The computing field is always in need of new cliches. -- Alan Perlis % The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous. -- Bjarne Stroustrup % 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 difference between art and science is that science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. -- Donald Knuth, "Discover" % The disks are getting full; purge a file today. % "The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not Compute' -- I forget which." -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Courtship & Mating: Due to extreme deprivation, HOMO COMPUTATIS maintains a near perpetual state of sexual readiness. Courtship behavior alternates between awkward shyness and abrupt advances. When he finally mates, he chooses a female engineer with an unblinking stare, a tight mouth, and a complete collection of Campbell's soup-can recipes. Track: Trash cans full of pale green and white perforated paper and old copies of the Allen-Bradley catalog. Comments: Extremely fond of bad puns and jokes that need long explanations. % The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Description: Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. Feathering: HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. Song: A rather plaintive "Is it up?" % The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Plumage: All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black plastic digital watch with calculator. % The first time, it's a KLUDGE! The second, a trick. Later, it's a well-established technique! -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics % The first version always gets thrown away. % The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" % 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 fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip objects into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air due to levitation. Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur if the character does not have fire resistance. -- README file from the NetHack game % The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it. % 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. -- "Get GUMMed," Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84 % The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 % The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. -- Nicholas Ambrose % The IBM 2250 is impressive ... if you compare it with a system selling for a tenth its price. -- D. Cohen % The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group" % The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). -- Doug Gwyn % 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 less time planning, the more time programming. % 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 #14 -- VALGOL VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry. VALGOL commands include REALLY, LIKE, WELL, and Y*KNOW. Variables are assigned with the =LIKE and =TOTALLY operators. Other operators include the "California booleans", AX and NOWAY. Loops are accomplished with the FOR SURE construct. A simple example: 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 VALGOL is also characterized by its unfriendly error messages. For example, when the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message GAG ME WITH A SPOON! A successful compile may be termed MAXIMALLY AWESOME! % THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as it travels across the screen. % THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: 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 #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: 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 #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 Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best. % The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence. "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?" The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said. "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?" "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased. Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?" "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out. Computer translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." % 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 more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the lower the mailing cost. -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" % The most important early product on the way to developing a good product is an imperfect version. % The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. % The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that! -- James 'Kibo' Parry % 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 next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have his head knocked off. -- Bill Conrad % The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum % The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night. % The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column card. -- Dennis M. Ritchie % The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct. -- Ralph Hartley % The number of computer scientists in a room is inversely proportional to the number of bugs in their code. % The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected. -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972 % The only difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is that the car salesman knows he's lying. % The only thing cheaper than hardware is talk. % The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X % The party adjourned to a hot tub, yes. Fully clothed, I might add. -- IBM employee, testifying in California State Supreme Court % The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose" -- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982 % The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman. % 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 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 problems of business administration in general, and database management in particular, are much too difficult for people that think in IBMese, compounded with sloppy english. -- Edsger Dijkstra % The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead. % The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? The answer exists only in the Tao. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The proof that IBM didn't invent the car is that it has a steering wheel and an accelerator instead of spurs and ropes, to be compatible with a horse. -- Jac Goudsmit % The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra % The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. % The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the human effort needed to regenerate them. -- T. A. Dolotta % The road to hell is paved with NAND gates. -- J. Gooding % The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear." Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen. "Open the door!", screamed the salesman. The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door, suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this one and I'll go rustle us up another!" % The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why! -- Harry Skelton % The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an "airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- one can see only a very few things at once. -- Fred Brooks % 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 system was down for backups from 5am to 10am last Saturday. % The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance. % The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both wins and losses. The Guru doesn't take sides; she welcomes both hackers and lusers. The Tao is like a stack: the data changes but not the structure. the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. Hold on to the root. % The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities. It is masked but always present. I don't know who built to it. It came before the first kernel. % The tao that can be tar(1)ed is not the entire Tao. The path that can be specified is not the Full Path. We declare the names of all variables and functions. Yet the Tao has no type specifier. Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy. Yet magic and hierarchy arise from the same source, and this source has a null pointer. Reference the NULL within NULL, it is the gateway to all wizardry. % The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what you want. -- D. Cohen % The UNIX philosophy basically involves giving you enough rope to hang yourself. And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure. % The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. -- Edsger Dijkstra % The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 % The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. % The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. -- Paul Licker % The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!! % The world is coming to an end. Please log off. % The world is not octal despite DEC. % The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out. % The young lady had an unusual list, Linked in part to a structural weakness. She set no preconditions. % THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE % ... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee. These guys have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex layers that are going to be agreed upon. -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World % There are never any bugs you haven't found yet. % There are new messages. % There are no games on this system. % There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them? % There are three kinds of people: men, women, and unix. % There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor. % There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. -- Jeremy S. Anderson % There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- C. A. R. Hoare % There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. % There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names. For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read permissions for everyone, you could say #define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444) I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away from its uses. To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology -- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.) -- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review % There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. -- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation), Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977 % There is no distinction between any AI program and some existent game. % There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door: "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found. On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must understand the Tao before transcending structure." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" "An operating system," replied the programmer. The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?" The programmer made no reply. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, "I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" % There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go. % They are called computers simply because computation is the only significant job that has so far been given to them. % They are relatively good but absolutely terrible. -- Alan Kay, commenting on Apollos % They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to learn this particular lesson. -- Richard Stallman % 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. % This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective? % This dungeon is owned and operated by Frobozz Magic Co., Ltd. % This file will self-destruct in five minutes. % This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement. % "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 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 where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow % This login session: $13.76, but for you $11.88. % This login session: $13.99 % This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does something child-like. -- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington % 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 screen intentionally left blank. % This system will self-destruct in five minutes. % * * * * * THIS TERMINAL IS IN USE * * * * * % Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software. -- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological Literacy for the 1990's. % Those who can't write, write manuals. % Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer % Thrashing is just virtual crashing. % Thus spake the master programmer: "A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program is its own hell." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will be productive." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "Time for you to leave." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "Without the wind, the grass does not move. Without software, hardware is useless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Thus spake the master programmer: "You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you can't make him computer literate." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Time sharing: The use of many people by the computer. % Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. -- H. R. J. Grosch (attributed) % To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift. -- Shelley % To communicate is the beginning of understanding. -- AT&T % To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so. % To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System. % To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. -- Robert Heller % To say that UNIX is doomed is pretty rabid, OS/2 will certainly play a role, but you don't build a hundred million instructions per second multiprocessor micro and then try to run it on OS/2. I mean, get serious. -- William Zachmann, International Data Corp % 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 disfunctional 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 a program you must become both the machine and the program. % Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file. % Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. % Tomorrow's computers some time next month. -- DEC % Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software." -- Instrument News [Once is too often. Ed.] % Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (10) Sorry, but that's too useful. (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent! (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell #pragma is for. (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too hard to write. (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar. (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here? (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!" (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this sucker. (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth. (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'. % TRANSACTION CANCELLED - FARECARD RETURNED % Trap full -- please empty. % Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. -- Norman Augustine % Try `stty 0' -- it works much better. % try again % 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 GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. -- Amrom Katz % Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly. % Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____yell into keyboard. % Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers. % Type louder, please. % U X e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159... % Ummm, well, OK. The network's the network, the computer's the computer. Sorry for the confusion. -- Sun Microsystems % "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?" -- MacNelley, "Shoe" % Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys. I have many friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him, slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound. -- Jon Bentley % Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been drinking Unix Beer for several years. BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was discontinued in favor of a lager. SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of stout or the sweetness of ale. % UNIX enhancements aren't. % Unix Express: All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. All passengers believe they got there. % Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure. -- Eric Allman ... We make rope. -- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory. % Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers. -- E. Post "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83 % Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. -- Donn Seeley % * UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. % UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker % UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. % Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others. -- Berry Kercheval % Unix soit qui mal y pense [Unix to him who evil thinks?] % UNIX Trix For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea either. If you need some help, give us a call. -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems % UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). -- Andy Tanenbaum % UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn % Unix will self-destruct in five seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1... % Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1 ... % Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir % USENET would be a better laboratory if there were more labor and less oratory. -- Elizabeth Haley % User hostile. % Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. -- S. C. Johnson % /usr/news/gotcha % Variables don't; constants aren't. % Vax Vobiscum % "Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from. % Vitamin C deficiency is apauling. % VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-beer-like contents. % VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M. % VMS version 2.0 ==> % Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.". % << WAIT >> % WARNING!!! This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need. A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the machine. The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional to the desperation of the operator. Threatening the machine with violence only aggravates the situation. Likewise, attempts to use another machine may cause it to malfunction. They belong to the same union. Keep cool and say nice things to the machine. Nothing else seems to work. See also: flog(1), tm(1) % Wasn't there something about a PASCAL programmer knowing the value of everything and the Wirth of nothing? % We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise. -- Larry Wall % We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends % We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal. % We are Microsoft. Unix is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare to be assimilated. % We are not a clone. % "We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers Manual. -- Andrew Hume % We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and IBM. -- Edsger Dijkstra % We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented. -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" % We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers. % We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights! % "We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, star of "The Muppet Show." [3] % 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 the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities, ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States of America. % "We've got a problem, HAL". "What kind of problem, Dave?" "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, they're not selling." "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." [...] "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters I, B, and M. That is a sIBM compatible as I can be." "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." "What kludge is that, Dave?" "I'm going to disconnect your brain." -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" % [We] use bad software and bad machines for the wrong things. -- R. W. Hamming % Welcome to boggle - do you want instructions? D G G O O Y A N A D B T K I S P Enter words: > % Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence Jane went to the store to buy bread should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) % "Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." "It means the Thing to Do." "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. [with apologies to A. A. Milne] % 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 the hell is it good for? -- Robert Lloyd (engineer of the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM), to colleagues who insisted that the microprocessor was the wave of the future, c. 1968 % What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. % "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" % When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?" % ... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. -- Fred Brooks % When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to roll in. Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon be solved. Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. % When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences: It weighs less than 8 pounds.* And costs less than $1,300.** In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you might not be able to figure this out for yourself. ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if you really want to. Or less. -- Forbes % 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 we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. % Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. % Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equpped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons. -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 % "Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." % Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. % Why are programmers non-productive? Because their time is wasted in meetings. Why are programmers rebellious? Because the management interferes too much. Why are the programmers resigning one by one? Because they are burnt out. Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? % Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users? % Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you open it. % Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew. % Windows Airlines: The terminal is very neat and clean, the attendants all very attractive, the pilots very capable. The fleet of Learjets the carrier operates is immense. Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 feet it explodes without warning. % Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars. % Wings of OS/400: The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need, though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour, unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your accounting department can call it overhead. % With your bare hands?!? % Within a computer, natural language is unnatural. % Work continues in this area. -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton % Worthless. -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September 15, 1842. % Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!! % Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it is itself the one hope for salvation. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 % Writing software is more fun than working. % X windows: Accept any substitute. If it's broke, don't fix it. If it ain't broke, fix it. Form follows malfunction. The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence. The trailing edge of software technology. Armageddon never looked so good. Japan's secret weapon. You'll envy the dead. Making the world safe for competing window systems. Let it get in YOUR way. The problem for your problem. If it starts working, we'll fix it. Pronto. It could be worse, but it'll take time. Simplicity made complex. The greatest productivity aid since typhoid. Flakey and built to stay that way. One thousand monkeys. One thousand MicroVAXes. One thousand years. X windows. % X windows: It's not how slow you make it. It's how you make it slow. The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1. Built to take on the world... and lose! Don't try it 'til you've knocked it. Power tools for Power Fools. Putting new limits on productivity. The closer you look, the cruftier we look. Design by counterexample. A new level of software disintegration. No hardware is safe. Do your time. Rationalization, not realization. Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest. Gratuitous incompatibility. Your mother. THE user interference management system. You can't argue with failure. You haven't died 'til you've used it. The environment of today... tomorrow! X windows. % X windows: Something you can be ashamed of. 30% more entropy than the leading window system. The first fully modular software disaster. Rome was destroyed in a day. Warn your friends about it. Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. An accident that couldn't wait to happen. Don't wait for the movie. Never use it after a big meal. Need we say less? Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. It'll make your day. Don't get frustrated without it. Power tools for power losers. A software disaster of Biblical proportions. Never had it. Never will. The software with no visible means of support. More than just a generation behind. Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. X windows. % X windows: The ultimate bottleneck. Flawed beyond belief. The only thing you have to fear. Somewhere between chaos and insanity. On autopilot to oblivion. The joke that kills. A disgrace you can be proud of. A mistake carried out to perfection. Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set. To err is X windows. Ignorance is our most important resource. Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. Built to fall apart. Nullifying centuries of progress. Falling to new depths of inefficiency. The last thing you need. The defacto substandard. Elevating brain damage to an art form. X windows. % X windows: We will dump no core before its time. One good crash deserves another. A bad idea whose time has come. And gone. We make excuses. It didn't even look good on paper. You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later! A new concept in abuser interfaces. How can something get so bad, so quickly? It could happen to you. The art of incompetence. You have nothing to lose but your lunch. When uselessness just isn't enough. More than a mere hindrance. It's a whole new barrier! When you can't afford to be right. And you thought we couldn't make it worse. If it works, it isn't X windows. % X windows: You'd better sit down. Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. Why do it right when you can do it wrong? Live the nightmare. Our bugs run faster. When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. There ARE no rules. You'll wish we were kidding. Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. Dissatisfaction guaranteed. There's got to be a better way. The next best thing to keypunching. Leave the thrashing to us. We wrote the book on core dumps. Even your dog won't like it. More than enough rope. Garbage at your fingertips. Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. X windows. % "Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in their endless search for "one more feature." Their irritating unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" % 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 % Yes, we will be going to OSI, Mars, and Pluto, but not necessarily in that order. -- George Michaelson % You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately. % You are false data. % You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all alike. % You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different. % You are in the hall of the mountain king. % You are lost in the Swamps of Despair. % You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself killed, as well. You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. % You can be replaced by this computer. % 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 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 % You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of FORTRAN. -- Alan Perlis % You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time in history. -- Kenneth Parker % 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 tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish. -- from the tunefs(8) man page % You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename. -- Forbes Burkowski, CS, University of Washington % You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME. % "You can't make a program without broken egos." % You can't take damsel here now. % You do not have mail. % You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer. % You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it! % You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said. % You have a massage (from the Swedish prime minister). % You have a message from the operator. % 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 junk mail. % You have mail. % You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one. % 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, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to... % You might have 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 scratch my tape, and I'll scratch yours. % You will have a head crash on your private pack. % You will have many recoverable tape errors. % You will lose an important disk file. % You will lose an important tape file. % You're already carrying the sphere! % You're at Witt's End. % You're not Dave. Who are you? % You're using a keyboard! How quaint! % You've been Berkeley'ed! % Your code should be more efficient! % Your computer account is overdrawn. Please reauthorize. % Your computer account is overdrawn. Please see Big Brother. % Your fault -- core dumped % Your files are now being encrypted and thrown into the bit bucket. EOF % Your mode of life will be changed to ASCII. % Your mode of life will be changed to EBCDIC. % Your password is pitifully obvious. % Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory. % I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself, "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well that would be enough immortality for me. % As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems: (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418): Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it. The post is by "redgekko" % "The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will never solve - politics." -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired by working on a large project beseiged by politics % "Don't fear the pen. When in doubt, draw a pretty picture." -- Baker's Third Law of Design. % Breakpoint 1, main (argc=1, argv=0xbffffc40) at main.c:29 29 printf ("Welcome to GNU Hell!\n"); -- "GNU Libtool documentation" % I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous -- David Bradley, inventor of the Ctrl-Alt-Delete keystroke, during panel discussion with Bill Gates at the 20-year celebration for the IBM PC. % We have a policy that we are not being hacked. -- Lisa Kopp, Friendster rep, commenting on a security flaw http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/dating_pr.html % Life is NP-hard, and then you die. -- Dave Cock % Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. -- Microsoft Internet Explorer's README.TXT % One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported -- automobile deaths, domestic violence -- when it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying." -- Bruce Schneier, in _CRYPTO-GRAM_, May 15, 2005. % In case it's not obvious, any solution to this problem that introduces a dependency on Java is profoundly uninteresting to me. In fact, my indifference to that could only be described as "sexual" in intensity. -- Jamie Zawinski % "We wanted to build the chat system of the future, and we ended up with application-layer multicast streaming media. In 1999. We were a bit ahead of our time [∗∗]" [∗∗] This is marketing-speak for “wrong”; you can say the same thing for a batter’s swing when he takes a strike. -- Thomas Ptacek, http://www.matasano.com/log/914/ % Caution: Write-protection will not prevent a cartridge being erased by bulk-erasure or degaussing. -- HP Ultrium tape drive user's guide, page 12 % Why would you want to do this? You don’t, forget I even mentioned it. -- Perl DBI documentation (v1.53) % Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. -- Alan Perlis % If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % C has "the power of assembly language and the convenience of... assembly language." -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % To tell the truth, I don't know how Linus and his merry band manage so well -- I couldn't have stood it with C. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % I can't recall any difficulty in making the C language definition completely open -- any discussion on the matter tended to mention languages whose inventors tried to keep tight control, and consequent ill fate. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % At least for the people who send me mail about a new language that they're designing, the general advice is: do it to learn about how to write a compiler. Don't have any expectations that anyone will use it, unless you hook up with some sort of organization in a position to push it hard. It's a lottery, and some can buy a lot of the tickets. There are plenty of beautiful languages (more beautiful than C) that didn't catch on. But someone does win the lottery, and doing a language at least teaches you something. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % Software is much harder to change en masse than hardware. C++ and Java, say, are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around. For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace. -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of UNIX % It has been suggested that root kits are the largest user community for this kind of access, but there are no forward compatibility guarantees for root kit authors. -- Jonathan Corbet in "Who needs /dev/kmem?" (http://lwn.net/Articles/147901) % Step 1: Close AutoCAD - I know this can be difficult for some of you. You could also wait for AutoCAD to crash if you want. -- Michael Rotolo ( https://is.gd/mSTRrv ) % 1 bulls, 3 cows. % $3,000,000. % 40 isn't old. If you're a tree. % A crow perched himself on a telephone wire. He was going to make a long-distance caw. % A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine! [From the fury of the norsemen deliver us, O Lord!] -- Medieval prayer % A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile. % A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men gets out and goes into the office. "I need some four-by-two's," he says. "You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go check." Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be acceptable. "OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go check," he says. He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, "we're building a house". % A prediction is worth twenty explanations. -- K. Brecher % A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator, "This is a parson to parson call." % A squeegee by any other name wouldn't sound as funny. % A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tennessee Williams % A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father, and her first name by her mother. By the time she was ten, didn't know if she was Carmen or Cohen. % According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo % Adults die young. % African violet: Such worth is rare Apple blossom: Preference Bachelor's button: Celibacy Bay leaf: I change but in death Camelia: Reflected loveliness Chrysanthemum, red: I love Chrysanthemum, white: Truth Chrysanthemum, other: Slighted love Clover: Be mine Crocus: Abuse not Daffodil: Innocence Forget-me-not: True love Fuchsia: Fast Gardenia: Secret, untold love Honeysuckle: Bonds of love Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage Jasmine: Amiablity, transports of joy, sensuality Leaves (dead): Melancholy Lilac: Youthful innocence Lilly: Purity, sweetness Lilly of the valley: Return of happiness Magnolia: Dignity, perseverance * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. % Age is a tyrant who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. % Agree with them now, it will save so much time. % Ah, the Tsar's bazaar's bizarre beaux-arts! % Ahhhhhh... the smell of cuprinol and mahogany. It excites me to... acts of passion... acts of... ineptitude. % All phone calls are obscene. -- Karen Elizabeth Gordon % All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. -- Grant Wood % 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. % Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. % An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways. -- Isaac Asimov % ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers. % And I alone am returned to wag the tail. % Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. -- Milt Barber % Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. % Are we not men? % As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." % Avec! % BAD CRAZINESS, MAN!!! % Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the floor -- especially in the dark. % Batteries not included. % BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...) % BE ALOOF! (There has been a recent population explosion of lerts.) % Before I knew the best part of my life had come, it had gone. % Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disasters in life begin when you get what you want. % Believe everything you hear about the world; nothing is too impossibly bad. -- Honor'e de Balzac % Biggest security gap -- an open mouth. % Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. % Blame Saint Andreas -- it's all his fault. % Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. % Blue paint today. [Funny to Jack Slingwine, Guy Harris and Hal Pierson. Ed.] % Boy! Eucalyptus! % Boy, that crayon sure did hurt! % Bushydo -- the way of the shrub. Bonsai! % "But Huey, you PROMISED!" "Tell 'em I lied." % But like the Good Book says... There's BIGGER DEALS to come! % By perseverance the snail reached the Ark. -- Charles Spurgeon % CF&C stole it, fair and square. -- Tim Hahn % Chapter VIII Due to the convergence of forces beyond his comprehension, Salvatore Quanucci was suddenly squirted out of the universe like a watermelon seed, and never heard from again. % Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. % Confucius say too much. -- Recent Chinese Proverb % Congratulations are in order for Tom Reid. He says he just found out he is the winner of the 2021 Psychic of the Year award. % Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. % Custer committed Siouxicide. % "Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches!" -- Mom % Death to all fanatics! % Depart in pieces, i.e., split. % Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. % Did I say 2? I lied. % Did it ever occur to you that fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing? Or that we drive on parkways and park on driveways? % Did you hear about the model who sat on a broken bottle and cut a nice figure? % Did you know ... That no-one ever reads these things? % "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." -- John Barrymore's dying words % Dignity is like a flag. It flaps in a storm. -- Roy Mengot % Dime is money. % Do not underestimate the power of the Force. % Do not use that foreign word "ideals". We have that excellent native word "lies". -- Henrik Ibsen, "The Wild Duck" % Do people know you have freckles everywhere? % Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work? % "Do you believe in intuition?" "No, but I have a strange feeling that someday I will." % Do you have lysdexia? % Do YOU have redeeming social value? % Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle? % Don't force it, get a larger hammer. -- Anthony % Don't guess -- check your security regulations. % Don't I know you? % Don't let your status become too quo! % Don't quit now, we might just as well lock the door and throw away the key. % Don't speak about Time, until you have spoken to him. % Don't worry -- the brontosaurus is slow, stupid, and placid. % Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac; you can always take something for it. % Double! % Dr. Jekyll had something to Hyde. % Dr. Livingston? Dr. Livingston I. Presume? % Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. % Dreams are free, but there's a small charge for alterations. % Drop that pickle! % Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past. -- The Adventurer % Duckies are fun! % Ducks? What ducks?? % Dungeons and Dragons is just a lot of Saxon Violence. % During a fight, a husband threw a bowl of Jello at his wife. She had him arrested for carrying a congealed weapon. In another fight, the wife decked him with a heavy glass pitcher. She's a women who conks to stupor. % Dyslexia means never having to say that you're ysror. % Dyslexics have more fnu. % DYSLEXICS OF THE WORLD, UNTIE! % "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." -- Jeff Berner % Editing is a rewording activity. % Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson % Events are not affected, they develop. -- Sri Aurobindo % Ever wonder why fire engines are red? Because newspapers are read too. Two and Two is four. Four and four is eight. Eight and four is twelve. There are twelve inches in a ruler. Queen Mary was a ruler. Queen Mary was a ship. Ships sail the sea. There are fishes in the sea. Fishes have fins. The Finns fought the Russians. Russians are red. Fire engines are always rush'n. Therefore fire engines are red. % Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. % Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different. % Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it. % Every time you manage to close the door on Reality, it comes in through the window. % Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett % Everything bows to success, even grammar. % Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous". % Everything might be different in the present if only one thing had been different in the past. % Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. % Everything should be built top-down, except this time. % Everything takes longer, costs more, and is less useful. -- Erwin Tomash % Everything you know is wrong! % Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley % Facts, apart from their relationships, are like labels on empty bottles. -- Sven Italla % "Fantasies are free." "NO!! NO!! It's the thought police!!!!" % Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. % Fats Loves Madelyn. % Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 % Five bicycles make a volkswagen, seven make a truck. -- Adolfo Guzman % Flame on! -- Johnny Storm % Fly me away to the bright side of the moon ... % For a holy stint, a moth of the cloth gave up his woolens for lint. % For thee the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers. -- Titus Lucretius Carus % Force it!!! If it breaks, well, it wasn't working anyway... No, don't force it, get a bigger hammer. % FORCE YOURSELF TO RELAX! % Forest fires cause Smokey Bears. % Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): Don't Write On Walls! (and underneath) You want I should type? % Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week: Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige. % "Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly: "of course you know what 'it' means." "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck: "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?" % From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached. -- F. Kafka % Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H. H. Williams % General notions are generally wrong. -- Lady M. W. Montagu % Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place to stand, and I will drain the world. % GIVE UP!!!! % Given my druthers, I'd druther not. % Gloffing is a state of mine. % Go 'way! You're bothering me! % Go away, I'm all right. -- H. G. Wells' last words. % Go climb a gravity well! % Goals... Plans... they're fantasies, they're part of a dream world... -- Wally Shawn % God is Dead. -- Nietzsche Nietzsche is Dead. -- God Nietzsche is God. -- Dead % God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. % God isn't dead. He just doesn't want to get involved. % God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. % God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal. -- Samuel Butler % God, I ask for patience -- and I want it right now! % Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. % Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) % Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length. % Happy feast of the pig! % Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. -- Daniel Dennett % Have at you! % Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you. -- Albert Einstein % "Have you lived here all your life?" "Oh, twice that long." % Have you locked your file cabinet? % Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? % "He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions." % He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. % Hedonist for hire... no job too easy! % Help a swallow land at Capistrano. % Help stamp out and abolish redundancy and repetition. % HELP! Man trapped in a human body! % HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN! -- E. E. CUMMINGS % Here there be tygers. % "His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult to chew..." % Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." % Honk if you love peace and quiet. % Housework can kill you if done right. -- Erma Bombeck % 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 we never talk anymore? % How come wrong numbers are never busy? % How kind of you to be willing to live someone's life for them. % How much of their influence on you is a result of your influence on them? % How untasteful can you get? % Huh? % I always wake up at the crack of ice. -- Joe E. Lewis % I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. % I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself. % I can relate to that. % I can resist anything but temptation. % I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less. % I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise. % I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % "I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path." -- Ronald Mabbitt % I don't understand you anymore. % I don't wish to appear overly inquisitive, but are you still alive? % I enjoy the time that we spend together. % I exist, therefore I am paid. % I fear explanations explanatory of things explained. % I feel sorry for your brain... all alone in that great big head... % "I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words." % I hate quotations. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % I hate trolls. Maybe I could metamorph it into something else -- like a ravenous, two-headed, fire-breathing dragon. -- Willow % I have a terrible headache, I was putting on toilet water and the lid fell. % I have become me without my consent. % I have more hit points than you can possibly imagine. % I have seen the Great Pretender and he is not what he seems. % I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. % I hear the sound that the machines make, and feel my heart break, just for a moment. % I hear what you're saying but I just don't care. % I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once. % I know you think you thought you knew what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you understood what you thought I meant. % I know you're in search of yourself, I just haven't seen you anywhere. % I live the way I type; fast, with a lot of mistakes. % I love treason but hate a traitor. -- Gaius Julius Caesar % I never did it that way before. % "I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!" -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus) % [I plan] to see, hear, touch, and destroy everything in my path, including beets, rutabagas, and most random vegetables, but excluding yams, as I am absolutely terrified of yams... Actually, I think my fear of yams began in my early youth, when many of my young comrades pelted me with same for singing songs of far-off lands and deep blue seas in a language closely resembling that of the common sow. My psychosis was further impressed into my soul as I reached adolescence, when, while skipping through a field of yams, light-heartedly tossing flowers into the stratosphere, a great yam-picking machine tore through the fields, pursuing me to the edge of the great plantation, where I escaped by diving into a great ditch filled with a mixture of water and pig manure, which may explain my tendency to scream, "Here come the Martians! Hide the eggs!" every time I have pork. But I digress. The fact remains that I cannot rationally deal with yams, and pigs are terrible conversationalists. % I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow! % I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. % I saw what you did and I know who you are. % I smell a wumpus. % I thought YOU silenced the guard! % I understand why you're confused. You're thinking too much. -- Carole Wallach. % 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 want to reach your mind -- where is it currently located? % I will always love the false image I had of you. % I will make you shorter by the head. -- Elizabeth I % I will never lie to you. % I will not forget you. % I wouldn't be so paranoid if you weren't all out to get me!! % I'd be a poorer man if I'd never seen an eagle fly. -- John Denver [I saw an eagle fly once. Fortunately, I had my eagle fly swatter handy. Ed.] % I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. % "I'm dying," he croaked. "My experiment was a success," the chemist retorted . "You can't really train a beagle," he dogmatized. "That's no beagle, it's a mongrel," she muttered. "The fire is going out," he bellowed. "Bad marksmanship," the hunter groused. "You ought to see a psychiatrist," he reminded me. "You snake," she rattled. "Someone's at the door," she chimed. "Company's coming," she guessed. "Dawn came too soon," she mourned. "I think I'll end it all," Sue sighed. "I ordered chocolate, not vanilla," I screamed. "Your embroidery is sloppy," she needled cruelly. "Where did you get this meat?" he bridled hoarsely. -- Gyles Brandreth, "The Joy of Lex" % I'm glad I was not born before tea. -- Sidney Smith (1771-1845) % I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear. -- John Foreman % I'm not laughing with you, I'm laughing at you. % I'm not offering myself as an example; every life evolves by its own laws. % I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally. % I'm not proud. % I'm not tense, just terribly, terribly alert! % I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. % I'm so broke I can't even pay attention. % I've Been Moved! % I've been there. % I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand. % Identify your visitor. % Idleness is the holiday of fools. % "If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far." -- Paul White % If all men were brothers, would you let one marry your sister? % If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. % If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. % If God is dead, who will save the Queen? % If God is One, what is bad? -- Charles Manson % If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! -- Samuel Goldwyn % If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture. % If I love you, what business is it of yours? -- Johann van Goethe % If it doesn't smell yet, it's pretty fresh. -- Dave Johnson, on dead seagulls % If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. % If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. % If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. % If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. % If life is merely a joke, the question still remains: for whose amusement? % If life isn't what you wanted, have you asked for anything else? % If rabbits' feet are so lucky, what happened to the rabbit? % If the ends don't justify the means, then what does? -- Robert Moses % If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers. -- Doug Larson [Not to mention, butterfly would be flutterby. Ed.] % If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past is subject to change in times to come? % If the grass is greener on other side of fence, consider what may be fertilizing it. % If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence would not be false. % If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. % If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe % If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? % If we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of an oncoming train. -- Robert Lowell % If you are going to walk on thin ice, you may as well dance. % If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. % If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. -- John Galsworthy % If you have nothing to do, don't do it here. % If you knew what to say next, would you say it? % If you know the answer to a question, don't ask. -- Petersen Nesbit % If you stick your head in the sand, one thing is for sure, you're gonna get your rear kicked. % If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%? % Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -- Jules de Gaultier % Imagine what we can imagine! -- Arthur Rubinstein % Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant. % Immanuel Kant but Kubla Khan. % In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!" -- The Kidner Report % In my end is my beginning. -- Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots % In the war of wits, he's unarmed. % In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it. % Include me out. % Indecision is the true basis for flexibility. % Indifference will certainly be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? % Insomnia isn't anything to lose sleep over. % Is death legally binding? % Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York, luggage in Brazil. % It has long been known that birds will occasionally build nests in the manes of horses. The only known solution to this problem is to sprinkle baker's yeast in the mane, for, as we all know, yeast is yeast and nest is nest, and never the mane shall tweet. % It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances. -- Emerson % It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck? One in a million, perhaps. % It is better to be bow-legged than no-legged. % It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark. % It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. -- Leonardo da Vinci % It is easier to run down a hill than up one. % It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind % It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the future. % It isn't easy being a Friday kind of person in a Monday kind of world. % It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. % It occurred to me lately that nothing has occurred to me lately. % "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 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 would save me a lot of time if you just gave up and went mad now. % It'll be a nice world if they ever get it finished. % It's a .88 magnum -- it goes through schools. -- Danny Vermin % It's amazing how much better you feel once you've given up hope. % It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing. % It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. -- Kim Hubbard % Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! % Join the march to save individuality! % Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. -- Irene Peter % Just give Alice some pencils and she will stay busy for hours. % Kilroe hic erat! % Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. % Kissing a fish is like smoking a bicycle. % Knocked, you weren't in. -- Opportunity % Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp % L'hazard ne favorise que l'esprit prepare. -- L. Pasteur % La-dee-dee, la-dee-dah. % Lake Erie died for your sins. % Language is a virus from another planet. -- William Burroughs % Laughing at you is like drop-kicking a wounded humming bird. % Lemmings don't grow older, they just die. % Let he who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. % Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. % Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. -- Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 18) % Let's remind ourselves that last year's fresh idea is today's cliche. -- Austen Briggs % Life -- Love It or Leave It. % Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. -- Paul Gauguin % Life is both difficult and time-consuming. % Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut. % Life is just a bowl of cherries, but why do I always get the pits? % Life is like a simile. % Life is like an analogy. % Life is not for everyone. % Life would be tolerable but for its amusements. -- G. B. Shaw % Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. % Littering is dumb. -- Ronald Macdonald % Live fast, die young, and leave a flat patch of fur on the highway! -- The Squirrels' Motto (The "Hell's Angels of Nature") % Look out! Behind you! % Look! Before our very eyes, the future is becoming the past. % Lookie, lookie, here comes cookie... -- Stephen Sondheim % Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" % Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy. % Love the sea? I dote upon it -- from the beach. % Luck can't last a lifetime, unless you die young. -- Russell Banks % Madness takes its toll. % Man who falls in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. % Man who falls in vat of molten optical glass makes spectacle of self. % Man who sleep in beer keg wake up sticky. % Marigold: Jealousy Mint: Virtue Orange blossom: Your purity equals your loveliness Orchid: Beauty, magnificence Pansy: Thoughts Peach blossom: I am your captive Petunia: Your presence soothes me Poppy: Sleep Rose, any color: Love Rose, deep red: Bashful shame Rose, single, pink: Simplicity Rose, thornless, any: Early attachment Rose, white: I am worthy of you Rose, yellow: Decrease of love, rise of jealousy Rosebud, white: Girlhood, and a heart ignorant of love Rosemary: Remembrance Sunflower: Haughtiness Tulip, red: Declaration of love Tulip, yellow: Hopeless love Violet, blue: Faithfulness Violet, white: Modesty Zinnia: Thoughts of absent friends * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. % May a hundred thousand midgets invade your home singing cheesy lounge-lizard versions of songs from The Wizard of Oz. % May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts. % May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits. % May your camel be as swift as the wind. % May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a Thousand Caramels. % Meester, do you vant to buy a duck? % Memory should be the starting point of the present. % Mene, mene, tekel, upharsen. % Metermaids eat their young. % Microbiology Lab: Staph Only! % Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. -- Jean Cocteau % Moebius strippers never show you their back side. % Moebius always does it on the same side. % Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. % Most burning issues generate far more heat than light. % Most general statements are false, including this one. -- Alexander Dumas % Mother Earth is not flat! % Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like. -- Arnold Bennett % Mount St. Helens should have used earth control. % Must be getting close to town -- we're hitting more people. % My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there. % My, how you've changed since I've changed. % 'Naomi, sex at noon taxes.' I moan. Never odd or even. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. Madam, I'm Adam. Sit on a potato pan, Otis. Sit on Otis. -- The Mad Palindromist % Never be afraid to tell the world who you are. -- Anonymous % Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not or that there is not space to list it all, etc. % Never volunteer for anything. -- Lackland % New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. % Nietzsche is pietzsche, but Schiller is killer, and Goethe is moethe. % No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. -- William Blake % No guts, no glory. % No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. % No matter how much you do you never do enough. % No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day. -- Nietzsche % No yak too dirty; no dumpster too hollow. % Nobody ever died from oven crude poisoning. % Non-Determinism is not meant to be reasonable. -- M. J. 0'Donnell % Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades. % Nostalgia is living life in the past lane. % Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. % Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand. -- Spinoza % Nothing can be done in one trip. -- Snider % Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. % Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. -- Michel de Montaigne % Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity. -- Ebner-Eschenbach % Nothing lasts forever. Where do I find nothing? % NOTICE: -- THE ELEVATORS WILL BE OUT OF ORDER TODAY -- (The nearest working elevator is in the building across the street.) % Now there's a violent movie titled, "The Croquet Homicide," or "Murder With Mallets Aforethought." -- Shelby Friedman, WSJ. % Nudists are people who wear one-button suits. % O imitators, you slavish herd! -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) % O.K., fine. % Odets, where is thy sting? -- George S. Kaufman % Oh yeah? Well, I remember when sex was dirty and the air was clean. % Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes. % Oh, wow! Look at the moon! % Once I finally figured out all of life's answers, they changed the questions. % Onward through the fog. % Operator, please trace this call and tell me where I am. % Our houseplants have a good sense of humous. % Our problems are so serious that the best way to talk about them is lightheartedly. % Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now I can remember things that *have* happened before ... % Paranoid Club meeting this Friday. Now ... just try to find out where! % Pardon me while I laugh. % Paul Revere was a tattle-tale. % Peace be to this house, and all that dwell in it. % Phone call for chucky-pooh. % Piece of cake! -- G. S. Koblas % Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe! Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past! -- Green Lantern Comics % Please help keep the world clean: others may wish to use it. % Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being hysterical at the same time. % Predestination was doomed from the start. % Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. -- Niels Bohr % Preserve the old, but know the new. % Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long. -- Ogden Nash % Progress was all right. Only it went on too long. -- James Thurber % Punning is the worst vice, and there's no vice versa. % Pyros of the world... IGNITE !!! % QED. % Quack! Quack!! Quack!! % Question: Is it better to abide by the rules until they're changed or help speed the change by breaking them? % Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! % Quod erat demonstrandum. [Thus it is proven. For those who wondered WTF QED means.] % Rainy days and automatic weapons always get me down. % Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. % Reality -- what a concept! -- Robin Williams % Remember that there is an outside world to see and enjoy. -- Hans Liepmann % Remember the... the... uhh..... % Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good offense! % Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on. % Ring around the collar. % Rubber bands have snappy endings! % Safety Third. % Sailors in ships, sail on! Even while we died, others rode out the storm. % Sank heaven for leetle curls. % Santa Claus is watching! % Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses. % Satire does not look pretty upon a tombstone. % Save the bales! % Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda. % Save the whales. Collect the whole set. % See, these two penguins walked into a bar, which was really stupid, 'cause the second one should have seen it. % She has an alarm clock and a phone that don't ring -- they applaud. % She's genuinely bogus. % "Sheriff, we gotta catch Black Bart." "Oh, yeah? What's he look like?" "Well, he's wearin' a paper hat, a paper shirt, paper pants and paper boots." "What's he wanted for?" "Rustling." % Shirley MacLaine died today in a freak psychic collision today. Two freaks in a van [Oh no!! It's the Copyright Police!!] Her aura-charred body was laid to rest after a eulogy by Jackie Collins, fellow member of SAFE [Society of Asinine Flake Entertainers]. Excerpted from some of his more quotable comments: "Truly a woman of the times. These times, those times..." "A Renaissance woman. Why in 1432..." "A man for all seasons. Really..." After the ceremony, Shirley thanked her mourners and explained how delightful it was to "get it together" again, presumably referring to having her now dead body join her long dead brain. % Sight is a faculty; seeing is an art. % Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves. -- Thomas Carlyle % Silence is the only virtue you have left. % Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. % Sleep is for the weak and sickly. % Smear the road with a runner!! % Solipsists of the World... you are already united. -- Kayvan Sylvan % Some changes are so slow, you don't notice them. Others are so fast, they don't notice you. % Some parts of the past must be preserved, and some of the future prevented at all costs. % Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic. % Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. -- Evan Davis % Someday you'll get your big chance -- or have you already had it? % Someday, Weederman, we'll look back on all this and laugh... It will probably be one of those deep, eerie ones that slowly builds to a blood-curdling maniacal scream... but still it will be a laugh. -- Mister Boffo % Somehow I reached excess without ever noticing when I was passing through satisfaction. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it. % Sometimes, too long is too long. -- Joe Crowe % Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan % Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. (Those who have already paid may disregard this cookie). % Sorry. I forget what I was going to say. % Sorry. Nice try. % Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion. % Stamp out philately. % Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down. % Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly. % Stop me, before I kill again! % Support the Girl Scouts! (Today's Brownie is tomorrow's Cookie!) % Take it easy, we're in a hurry. % Take what you can use and let the rest go by. -- Ken Kesey % Tempt me with a spoon! % Thank you for observing all safety precautions. % That's odd. That's very odd. Wouldn't you say that's very odd? % That's what she said. % The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. -- Clifton Fadiman % The beauty of a pun is in the "Oy!" of the beholder. % The best prophet of the future is the past. % The cart has no place where a fifth wheel could be used. -- Herbert von Fritzlar % The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo! now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. -- H. D. Thoreau % The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. % The difference between this place and yogurt is that yogurt has a live culture. % The eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine. % The executioner is, I hear, very expert, and my neck is very slender. -- Anne Boleyn % The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn % ... the flaw that makes perfection perfect. % The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) % The future lies ahead. % The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptizing it. -- George Meredith % The grass is always greener on the other side of your sunglasses. % The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its message and then disappears. % 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 important thing to remember about walking on eggs is not to hop. % "The jig's up, Elman." "Which jig?" -- Jeff Elman % The Killer Ducks are coming!!! % The last person who said that (God rest his soul) lived to regret it. % The luck that is ordained for you will be coveted by others. % The Martian Canals were clearly the Martian's last ditch effort! % The mosquito exists to keep the mighty humble. % The most important things, each person must do for himself. % The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe. % The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) % The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness. -- Wittgenstein. % The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate. -- Doug Sneyd % The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. -- Glaser and Way % The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed. % The rose of yore is but a name, mere names are left to us. % The sheep died in the wool. % The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land. % The shortest distance between any two puns is a straight line. % The sixth sheik's sixth sheep's sick. [so say said sentence sextuply...] % The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing. -- Judge Harold T. Stone % The tree in which the sap is stagnant remains fruitless. -- Hosea Ballou % The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak. -- Wavy Gravy % The whole world is a scab. The point is to pick it constructively. -- Peter Beard % The world really isn't any worse. It's just that the news coverage is so much better. % The world wants to be deceived. -- Sebastian Brant % The worst part of valor is indiscretion. % Then, gently touching my face, she hesitated for a moment as her incredible eyes poured forth into mine love, joy, pain, tragedy, acceptance, and peace. "'Bye for now," she said warmly. -- Thea Alexander, "2150 A.D." % There are no rules for March. March is spring, sort of, usually, March means maybe, but don't bet on it. % There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I can't remember. -- Italo Svevo % There are two kinds of pedestrians... the quick and the dead. -- Lord Thomas Rober Dewar % There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about. % There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish. -- Walt Disney % There is always someone worse off than yourself. % There is always something new out of Africa. -- Gaius Plinius Secundus % There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. % There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. -- Marie Antoinette % There seems no plan because it is all plan. -- C. S. Lewis % There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse. % There's nothing very mysterious about you, except that nobody really knows your origin, purpose, or destination. % They finally got King Midas, I hear. Gild by association. % They just buzzed and buzzed...buzzed. % Think big. Pollute the Mississippi. % Think honk if you're a telepath. % Think sideways! -- Ed De Bono % This is NOT a repeat. % This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. And now you know why. % This must be morning. I never could get the hang of mornings. % This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. -- Douglas Hofstadter % This sentence does in fact not have the property it claims not to have. % This sentence no verb. % Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time. -- A. E. Houseman % Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little too early for anything you want to do. -- Jean-Paul Sartre % Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. -- Henry David Thoreau % Time will end all my troubles, but I don't always approve of Time's methods. % Tis man's perdition to be safe, when for the truth he ought to die. % To generalize is to be an idiot. -- William Blake % To love is good, love being difficult. % To see you is to sympathize. % "To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" % Topologists are just plane folks. Pilots are just plane folks. Carpenters are just plane folks. Midwest farmers are just plain folks. Musicians are just playin' folks. Whodunit readers are just Spillane folks. Some Londoners are just P. Lane folks. % Trouble always comes at the wrong time. % Trouble strikes in series of threes, but when working around the house the next job after a series of three is not the fourth job -- it's the start of a brand new series of three. % True to our past we work with an inherited, observed, and accepted vision of personal futility, and of the beauty of the world. -- David Mamet % Two cars in every pot and a chicken in every garage. % Use a pun, go to jail. % Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time. -- Pericles % Wanna buy a duck? % Wasting time is an important part of living. % We have ears, earther...FOUR OF THEM! % We have lingered long enough on the shores of the Cosmic Ocean. -- Carl Sagan % We must die because we have known them. -- Ptah-hotep, 2000 B.C. % We'll cross that bridge when we come back to it later. % Welcome to the Zoo! % Well thaaaaaaat's okay. % Well, the handwriting is on the floor. -- Joe E. Lewis % Well, we'll really have a party, but we've gotta post a guard outside. -- Eddie Cochran, "Come On Everybody" % What causes the mysterious death of everyone? % What color is a chameleon on a mirror? % "What did you do when the ship sank?" "I grabbed a cake of soap and washed myself ashore." % What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"? % What excuses stand in your way? How can you eliminate them? -- Roger von Oech % What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes. % What is the sound of one hand clapping? % What soon grows old? Gratitude. -- Aristotle % "What time is it?" "I don't know, it keeps changing." % What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. -- Wittgenstein % What will you do if all your problems aren't solved by the time you die? % What you want, what you're hanging around in the world waiting for, is for something to occur to you. -- Robert Frost [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to AST's.] % What!? Me worry? -- Alfred E. Newman % What's all this brouhaha? % What's so funny? % "What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" -- The Doctor % Whatever became of eternal truth? % When a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far! % When a cow laughs, does milk come out of its nose? % When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? % When does later become never? % When eating an elephant take one bite at a time. -- Gen. C. Abrams % When pleasure remains, does it remain a pleasure? % When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it. -- Billy Sunday % When things go well, expect something to explode, erode, collapse or just disappear. % When you dial a wrong number you never get a busy signal. % When you're down and out, lift up your voice and shout, "I'M DOWN AND OUT"! % When you're ready to give up the struggle, who can you surrender to? % When your memory goes, forget it! % Where am I? Who am I? Am I? I % Where will it all end? Probably somewhere near where it all began. % Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. -- Wittgenstein % Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? % Whip it, whip it good! % Who are you? % Who dat who say "who dat" when I say "who dat"? -- Hattie McDaniel % Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot? % Who will take care of the world after you're gone? % Why are you so hard to ignore? % Why do seagulls live near the sea? 'Cause if they lived near the bay, they'd be called baygulls. % Why does a ship carry cargo and a truck carry shipments? % Why is it called a funny bone when it hurts so much? % Why is it taking so long for her to bring out all the good in you? % Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? -- Lily Tomlin % Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? % Why would anyone want to be called "Later"? % Without adventure, civilization is in full decay. -- Alfred North Whitehead % Would that my hand were as swift as my tongue. -- Alfieri % Would you care to drift aimlessly in my direction? % Would you care to view the ruins of my good intentions? % WRONG! % You auto buy now. % You can cage a swallow, can't you, but you can't swallow a cage, can you? Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing boy, finds boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl. A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! -- The Palindromist % You can get there from here, but why on earth would you want to? % "You've got to think about tomorrow!" "TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_________yesterday* yet!" % Zeus gave Leda the bird. % Well, I think we should get some bricks and some bats, and show him the *true* meaning of Christmas!' -- Bernice, "Designing Women", 12/2/91. % I used to have nightmares that the Grinch's dog would kidnap me and make me dress up in a halter-top and hot pants and listen to Burl Ives records. -- Robin, "Anything But Love", 12/18/91. % [ ] Safeguard this message - it is an important historical document. [ ] Delete after reading -- Subversive Literature. [ ] Ignore and go back to what you were doing. % Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? -- Socrates' last words % I am tired of fighting...The old men are all dead...The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are...Hear me, my Chiefs!! I am tired: my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more. Chief Joseph, (Nez Perce) % [I]f you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right." -- Paul Graham, "What You'll Wish You'd Known" % Whether your covers star a male or a female, I read your magazine for the articles -- Leo Costales, in "Outside July 2005" % (1) Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. (2) If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. (3) Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. (4) Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as the social ramble ain't restful. (5) Avoid running at all times. (6) Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. -- S. Paige, c. 1951 % A clash of doctrine is not a disaster -- it is an opportunity. % A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, if feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance. -- Stanislaw Lem % A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. -- R. A. Heinlein % A halted retreat Is nerve-wracking and dangerous. To retain people as men -- and maidservants Brings good fortune. % A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about. % A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col % 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 who cannot seduce men cannot save them either. -- Soren Kierkegaard % A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk. "It is right before your eyes," said the master. "Why do I not see it for myself?" "Because you are thinking of yourself." "What about you: do you see it?" "So long as you see double, saying `I don't', and `you do', and so on, your eyes are clouded," said the master. "When there is neither `I' nor `You', can one see it?" "When there is neither `I' nor `You', who is the one that wants to see it?" % 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 priest advised Voltaire on his death bed to renounce the devil. Replied Voltaire, "This is no time to make new enemies." % 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 sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space. -- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars % A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper vocation?" The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds. Others must use their strong backs, legs and hands. This is the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual. "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the scholar sobbed. Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?" % A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W. H." % A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed. % Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, Or what's a heaven for ? -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" % All hope abandon, ye who enter here! -- Dante Alighieri % All men know the utility of useful things; but they do not know the utility of futility. -- Chuang-tzu % All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. % All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm." -- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You" % 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 older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but I have not been enlightened. What should I do?" Otis replied, "Give up suffering." -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" % And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. -- Kahlil Gibran % Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. -- J. D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" % Approaching the gates of the monastery, Hakuin found Ken the Zen preaching to a group of disciples. "Words..." Ken orated, "they are but an illusory veil obfuscating the absolute reality of --" "Ken!" Hakuin interrupted. "Your fly is down!" Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon Ken, and he vaporized. On the way to town, Hakuin was greeted by an itinerant monk imbued with the spirit of the morning. "Ah," the monk sighed, a beatific smile wrinkling across his cheeks, "Thou art That..." "Ah," Hakuin replied, pointing excitedly, "And Thou art Fat!" Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the monk, and he vaporized. Next, the Governor sought the advice of Hakuin, crying: "As our enemies bear down upon us, how shall I, with such heartless and callow soldiers as I am heir to, hope to withstand the impending onslaught?" "US?" snapped Hakuin. Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the Governor, and he vaporized. Then, a redneck went up to Hakuin and vaporized the old Master with his shotgun. "Ha! Beat ya' to the punchline, ya' scrawny li'l geek!" % Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here." -- Muad'dib, "Dune" % As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off. -- Joseph Brodsky % At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my ignorance upon the shore. -- Kahlil Gibran % At the end of your life there'll be a good rest, and no further activities are scheduled. % At the foot of the mountain, thunder: The image of Providing Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words And temperate in eating and drinking. % Beauty is one of the rare things which does not lead to doubt of God. -- Jean Anouilh % 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 you ask more questions, think about whether you really want to know the answers. -- Gene Wolfe, "The Claw of the Conciliator" % Brahma said: Well, after hearing ten thousand explanations, a fool is no wiser. But an intelligent man needs only two thousand five hundred. -- The Mahabharata % By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death. -- Titus Lucretius Carus % Catharsis is something I associate with pornography and crossword puzzles. -- Howard Chaykin % Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love" % Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign. -- Anatole France % 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. -- Douglas Adams, HHGG #2, (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). % "Cheshire-Puss," she began, "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. "I don't care much where--" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. % Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances. -- Herodotus % Coincidences are spiritual puns. -- G. K. Chesterton % Death is a spirit leaving a body, sort of like a shell leaving the nut behind. -- Erma Bombeck % 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. % Depart not from the path which fate has assigned you. % Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help the rabbit. -- R. E. Shay % Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck. -- Joseph Heller, "God Knows" % Disease can be cured; fate is incurable. -- Chinese proverb % Ditat Deus. [God enriches] % Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. % Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood and field in a winter night for something to satisfy his hunger. Notwithstanding cold and hounds and traps, his race survives. I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide. -- Henry David Thoreau % Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment. -- Dag Hammarskjold % Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. % Do what you can to prolong your life, in the hope that someday you'll learn what it's for. % "Do you think there's a God?" "Well, ____SOMEbody's out to get me!" -- Calvin and Hobbs % Do your part to help preserve life on Earth -- by trying to preserve your own. % Don't abandon hope. Your Captain Midnight decoder ring arrives tomorrow. % Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. % Don't go to bed with no price on your head. -- Baretta % Don't have good ideas if you aren't willing to be responsible for them. % Don't kid yourself. Little is relevant, and nothing lasts forever. % Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. % Don't make a big deal out of everything; just deal with everything. % Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding. % Don't take life seriously, you'll never get out alive. % Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. -- Paul Tillich, German theologian. % Down with categorical imperative! % Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul. % During the voyage of life, remember to keep an eye out for a fair wind; batten down during a storm; hail all passing ships; and fly your colors proudly. % Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maugham, his last words % Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. -- Woody Allen % Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life. % Each of us bears his own Hell. -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) % Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped. -- Groucho Marx's last words % Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential death in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters. -- Henry James Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William % Every person, all the events in your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % Everything ends badly. Otherwise it wouldn't end. % Everything in this book may be wrong. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % Everything is possible. Pass the word. -- Rita Mae Brown, "Six of One" % Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last. -- Marcus Aurelius % Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay. % Facts are the enemy of truth. -- Don Quixote % Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. -- Sir Walter Raleigh % Faith goes out through the window when beauty comes in at the door. % Faith is under the left nipple. -- Martin Luther % Fill what's empty, empty what's full, scratch where it itches. -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth % ... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. "I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" % For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. % For good, return good. For evil, return justice. % For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. -- Albert Camus % For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH! % Force has no place where there is need of skill. -- Herodotus % FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #2 Never goose a wolverine. % FORTUNE'S RULES TO LIVE BY: #23 Don't cut off a police car when making an illegal U-turn. % From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance. % From the cradle to the coffin underwear comes first. -- Bertolt Brecht % Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. -- Miyamoto Musashi, 1645 % Getting into trouble is easy. -- D. Winkel and F. Prosser % Getting there is only half as far as getting there and back. % Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief. -- William Faulkner % God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. % God instructs the heart, not by ideas, but by pains and contradictions. -- De Caussade % God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. -- Alfred Jarry % God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. -- Paul Valery % Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words % Goodbye, cool world. % Got a dictionary? I want to know the meaning of life. % Great acts are made up of small deeds. -- Lao Tsu % **** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential. % Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. -- Ogden Nash % Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion. % Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have. % Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -- Oscar Levant % Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. -- Socrates % He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord ask of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your God? % He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. % He knows not how to know who knows not also how to unknow. -- Sir Richard Burton % He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book. -- B. Franklin % He thought of Musashi, the Sword Saint, standing in his garden more than three hundred years ago. "What is the 'Body of a rock'?" he was asked. In answer, Musashi summoned a pupil of his and bid him kill himself by slashing his abdomen with a knife. Just as the pupil was about to comply, the Master stayed his hand, saying, "That is the 'Body of a rock'." -- Eric Van Lustbader % He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for the human condition is a fool. -- Albert Camus % He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him. He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him. % He who knows nothing, knows nothing. But he who knows he knows nothing knows something. And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing, he knows something. Or something like that. % He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened. -- Lao Tsu % He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. -- Lao Tsu % He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know. -- Lao Tsu % ...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating. -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose" % Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. % How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state? -- Plato % I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today. -- William Allen White % I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives. I don't see why I should have to believe in it in this one. -- Strange de Jim % I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. -- Chuang-tzu % I do not seek the ignorant; the ignorant seek me -- I will instruct them. I ask nothing but sincerity. If they come out of habit, they become tiresome. -- I Ching % "I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment." -- Gotama Buddha % I hate dying. -- Dave Johnson % I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -- A. R. Longworth % I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. -- Publilius Syrus % I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest. % I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!! % I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a living death? -- St. Augustine % "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 Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" % If a guru falls in the forest with no one to hear him, was he really a guru at all? -- Strange de Jim, "The Metasexuals" % If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life. -- Albert Schweitzer % If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and you had better be on speaking terms with it. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I know of very few things I would take seriously. I would be crazier. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I'd travel and see. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hotwater bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had it to do over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more. I probably wouldn't make such good grades, but I'd learn more. I would ride on more merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies. % 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 men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death. If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means a man will be killed, Who will dare to break the law? There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand. -- Tao Te Ching, "Lao Tsu, #74" % If something has not yet gone wrong then it would ultimately have been beneficial for it to go wrong. % If the master dies and the disciple grieves, the lives of both have been wasted. % If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads. -- Anatole France % 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 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 there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. -- Albert Camus % If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. % If we don't survive, we don't do anything else. -- John Sinclair % If you are not for yourself, who will be for you? If you are for yourself, then what are you? If not now, when? % If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. % If you find a solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem. % If you fool around with something long enough, it will eventually break. % If you have to hate, hate gently. % If you have to think twice about it, you're wrong. % If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away. % If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat. -- Simone de Beauvoir % If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow % If you put it off long enough, it might go away. % If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. % If you wait long enough, it will go away... after having done its damage. If it was bad, it will be back. % If you want divine justice, die. -- Nick Seldon % If your aim in life is nothing, you can't miss. % If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" % Illusion is the first of all pleasures. -- Voltaire % Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- Edgar A. Shoaff % In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, delve deep into the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In work, be competent. In action, be careful of your timing. -- Lao Tsu % In order to discover who you are, first learn who everybody else is; you're what's left. % In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice. % In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart. -- Anne Frank % In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes % In the next world, you're on your own. % Indeed, the first noble truth of Buddhism, usually translated as `all life is suffering,' is more accurately rendered `life is filled with a sense of pervasive unsatisfactoriness.' -- M. D. Epstein % Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. -- Edgar W. Howe % Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations. % 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 Fortune, not Wisdom, that rules man's life. % It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed. -- Goethe % It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true. -- William James % It is only with the heart one can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. -- The Fox, 'The Little Prince" % 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 so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the devil when he is the only explanation of it. -- Ronald Knox, "Let Dons Delight" % It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works and has his being. -- Thomas Carlyle % 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's easier to take it apart than to put it back together. -- Washlesky % It's hard to drive at the limit, but it's harder to know where the limits are. -- Stirling Moss % It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things. % "It's today!" said Piglet. "My favorite day," said Pooh. % It's very inconvenient to be mortal -- you never know when everything may suddenly stop happening. % Joshu: What is the true Way? Nansen: Every way is the true Way. J: Can I study it? N: The more you study, the further from the Way. J: If I don't study it, how can I know it? N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen. It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open yourself as wide as the sky. % Just remember, wherever you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Bonzai % Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. -- Muad'dib [Frank Herbert, "Dune"] % Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around us in awareness. -- James Thurber % Life can be so tragic -- you're here today and here tomorrow. % Life exists for no known purpose. % Life is a grand adventure -- or it is nothing. -- Helen Keller % Life is knowing how far to go without crossing the line. % Life is like a 10 speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use. -- C. Schultz % Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. -- Tom Lehrer % Life is the childhood of our immortality. -- Goethe % Life is the living you do, Death is the living you don't do. -- Joseph Pintauro % Life is the urge to ecstasy. % Life may have no meaning, or, even worse, it may have a meaning of which you disapprove. % Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away. -- Dag Hammarskjold % Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp % Like, if I'm not for me, then fer shure, like who will be? And if, y'know, if I'm not like fer anyone else, then hey, I mean, what am I? And if not now, like I dunno, maybe like when? And if not Who, then I dunno, maybe like the Rolling Stones? -- Rich Rosen (Rabbi Valiel's paraphrase of famous quote attributed to Rabbi Hillel.) % Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world -- even if what is published is not true. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % Living in the complex world of the future is somewhat like having bees live in your head. But, there they are. % Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence. % Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret? -- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet" % Man's reach must exceed his grasp, for why else the heavens? % [Maturity consists in the discovery that] there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood. -- S. Kierkegaard % 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. % Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup -- they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together. -- Robert Fulghum, "All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten" % Murphy was an optimist. % Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. % Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. -- Lao Tsu % My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -- Albert Einstein % My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. -- Christopher Morley % 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?" % Ninety percent of everything is crap. -- Theodore Sturgeon % 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 % No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. -- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland" % No matter where I go, the place is always called "here". % No use getting too involved in life -- you're only here for a limited time. % Nobody ever ruined their eyesight by looking at the bright side of something. % Nonsense and beauty have close connections. -- E. M. Forster % Normal times may possibly be over forever. % Not every question deserves an answer. % Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. % Nothing is as simple as it seems at first Or as hopeless as it seems in the middle Or as finished as it seems in the end. % Nothing is but what is not. % Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example. % Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. -- Michel de Montaigne % Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all. -- Arthur Balfour % Of all men's miseries, the bitterest is this: to know so much and have control over nothing. -- Herodotus % Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in. -- H. R. Haldeman % Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. -- Richard Bach % Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier to change your mind. % One day it was announced that the young monk Kyogen had reached an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers went to speak with him. "We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?" his fellow students inquired. "It is", Kyogen answered. "Tell us", said a friend, "how do you feel?" "As miserable as ever", replied the enlightened Kyogen. % 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 learns to itch where one can scratch. -- Ernest Bramah % One meets his destiny often on the road he takes to avoid it. % 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." % Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying. -- Baba Ram Dass % Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely. -- Lao Tsu % Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much better. -- Laurie Anderson % 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 % Perhaps the biggest disappointments were the ones you expected anyway. % Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. -- John Keats % Push where it gives and scratch where it itches. % Reality always seems harsher in the early morning. % Reality does not exist -- yet. % Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth? -- Patrick Sky % Reality is for people who lack imagination. % Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity. -- Alvy Ray Smith % Reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle science fiction. % Reality is nothing but a collective hunch. -- Lily Tomlin % "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". -- Philip K. Dick % Remember, Grasshopper, falling down 1000 stairs begins by tripping over the first one. -- Confusion % Rule of Life #1 -- Never get separated from your luggage. % Seeing is believing. You wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't believed it. % Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter. -- Long Chen Pa % So little time, so little to do. -- Oscar Levant % Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. -- Seneca % Sometimes you get an almost irresistible urge to go on living. % Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only 'certain' standard. If you mistake what is relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth. -- Chuang Tzu % Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it. -- "Buddhist Symbolism", Symbols and Values % Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging. -- Martin Luther % 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" % That that is is that that is not is not. % That, that is, is. That, that is not, is not. That, that is, is not that, that is not. That, that is not, is not that, that is. % The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. -- A. Camus % The best you get is an even break. -- Franklin Adams % "The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain." -- G. Fitch % The chief cause of problems is solutions. -- Eric Sevareid % The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions. -- Alfred Adler % The days are all empty and the nights are unreal. % The door is the key. % The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity. ... Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god of the center. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died. -- Chuang Tzu % The farther you go, the less you know. -- Lao Tsu, "Tao Te Ching" % The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions. -- Maurice Chapelain, "Main courante" % The first requisite for immortality is death. -- Stanislaw Lem % The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. -- Sophocles % The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate. -- Marcus Terentius Varro % The major sin is the sin of being born. -- Samuel Beckett % The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. -- Lao Tsu % The more you complain, the longer God lets you live. % The moss on the tree does not fear the talons of the hawk. % The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. -- H. L. Mencken % The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions. % The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of oneself but of one's ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach it and are delighted. -- Nietzsche % The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it. -- J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" % Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. -- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion" % The Poems, all three hundred of them, may be summed up in one of their phrases: "Let our thoughts be correct". -- Confucius % The price of success in philosophy is triviality. -- C. Glymour. % The questions remain the same. The answers are eternally variable. % The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. -- Damon Runyon % The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses. -- Francis Bacon % The savior becomes the victim. % The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. % The state of innocence contains the germs of all future sin. -- Alexandre Arnoux, "Etudes et caprices" % The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon. -- Franz Kafka % The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. -- Oscar Wilde % The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie. -- Lenny Bruce % The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it. -- Stanley Kubrick % The truth you speak has no past and no future. It is, and that's all it needs to be. % The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % There are no accidents whatsoever in the universe. -- Baba Ram Dass % There are no winners in life, only survivors. % There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of discovering them over and over and over. -- David Nichols % There is more to life than increasing its speed. -- Mahatma Gandhi % There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering. -- Cato % There is no cure for birth and death other than to enjoy the interval. -- George Santayana % There is no sin but ignorance. -- Christopher Marlowe % 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's only one everything. % To get something clean, one has to get something dirty. To get something dirty, one does not have to get anything clean. % To give happiness is to deserve happiness. % To give of yourself, you must first know yourself. % To have died once is enough. -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) % To lead people, you must follow behind. -- Lao Tsu % Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always. -- Albert Schweitzer % Truth is hard to find and harder to obscure. % Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth. -- Milton % 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 men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things, with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that toast always falls on the buttered side," said one. "Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the dry side. "So, what have you to say for your theory now?" "What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side." % Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. -- Euripides % We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it. -- Yates % We have nowhere else to go... this is all we have. -- Margaret Mead % 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 be afraid. This is a terrible place. -- John Berryman % We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) % We're all in this alone. -- Lily Tomlin % We're mortal -- which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful -- but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for? -- Ensign Flandry % "We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "For you the world is weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must accept responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it." -- Don Juan % Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. Time passed, unheeded. Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes. -- Wayfarer % Well, you know, no matter where you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai % "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. % What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. -- Nietzsche % What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. % What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -- Ursula K. LeGuin % What we Are is God's gift to us. What we Become is our gift to God. % Whatever occurs from love is always beyond good and evil. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. -- Gandhi % When it's dark enough you can see the stars. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, % When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is metaphysics. -- Voltaire % When the wind is great, bow before it; when the wind is heavy, yield to it. % When you are young, you enjoy a sustained illusion that sooner or later something marvelous is going to happen, that you are going to transcend your parents' limitations... At the same time, you feel sure that in all the wilderness of possibility; in all the forests of opinion, there is a vital something that can be known -- known and grasped. That we will eventually know it, and convert the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. So that then one's true life -- the point of everything -- will emerge from the mist into a pure light, into total comprehension. But it isn't like that at all. But if it isn't, where did the idea come from, to torture and unsettle us? -- Brian Aldiss, "Helliconia Summer" % When you die, you lose a very important part of your life. -- Brooke Shields % Who does not trust enough will not be trusted. -- Lao Tsu % Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know. -- J. Winter Smith % Wisdom is rarely found on the best-seller list. % [Wisdom] is a tree of life to those laying hold of her, making happy each one holding her fast. -- Proverbs 3:18, NSV % With listening comes wisdom, with speaking repentance. % Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. -- Socrates, quoting Plato [Huh? That's like Johnson quoting Boswell] % Work Hard. Rock Hard. Eat Hard. Sleep Hard. Grow Big. Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em. -- The Webb Wilder Credo % Yes, but which self do you want to be? % You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. -- R. Bach, "Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul" % You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove. -- Tim Leary % You can get *anywhere* in ten minutes if you drive fast enough. % You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks. % You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. -- Jeannette Rankin % You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra % You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. % You can't get there from here. % You can't mend a wristwatch while falling from an airplane. % You can't push on a string. % You can't run away forever, But there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start. -- Jim Steinman, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" % "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 take it with you -- especially when crossing a state line. % You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down. -- Stanislaw Lem, "The Cyberiad" % You have all eternity to be cautious in when you're dead. -- Lois Platford % You have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. If you want to get anywhere, you'll have to run much faster. -- Lewis Carroll % "You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?" "Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass." -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" % You will always find something in the last place you look. % "You would do well not to imagine profundity," he said. "Anything that seems of momentous occasion should be dwelt upon as though it were of slight note. Conversely, trivialities must be attended to with the greatest of care. Because death is momentous, give it no thought; because victory is important, give it no thought; because the method of achievement and discovery is less momentous than the effect, dwell always upon the method. You will strengthen yourself in this way." -- Jessica Salmonson, "The Swordswoman" % Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life. % Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart, what is true. % Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in awhile and watch your answers change. -- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul % Your picture of the world often changes just before you get it into focus. % Your wig steers the gig. -- Lord Buckley % You may be marching to the beat of a different drummer, but you're still in the parade. % The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. -- Muriel Rukeyser % Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. -- Jean-Paul Sartre % There is a secret person undamaged within every individual. -- Paul Shepard % We are governed not by armies and police but by ideas. -- Mona Caird, 1892 % The first rule of all intelligent tinkering is to keep all the parts. -- Aldo Leopold, quoted in Donald Wurster's "Nature's Economy" % You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi % No people are all bad, just as none are all good. Tecumseh, (Shawnee) to his nephew Spemica Lawba 1790 % My reason tells me that land cannot be sold - nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away. Black Hawk, (Saulk) % Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? Tecumseh, (Shawnee) % Free yourself from negative influence. Negative thoughts are the old habits that gnaw at the roots of the soul. Moses Shongo, (Seneca) % ...everything on this earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. Mourning Dove, (Salish 1888-1936) % "Der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir" that is "The starry sky above me, and the Moral Law inside me." -- The epigraph on Kant's tombstone. % The words fly away, the writings remain. % I am what you will be; I was what you are. % The people rule. % Perhaps the remembrance of these things will prove a source of future pleasure. -- Virgil % Anyone who understands everything that comes out of fortune probably has a problem % If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. -- Anatole France % "Few sins are less forgivable in polite society than offering poor people products they actively seek." -- Katherine Mangu-Ward, "Education for Profit", Reason Magazine, July 2008 % Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) % A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? % A few hours grace before the madness begins again. % A gift of a flower will soon be made to you. % A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. % A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you. % A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. % A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. % A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. % Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. % Accent on helpful side of your nature. Drain the moat. % Advancement in position. % After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER! % Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. % Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. % All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly. % Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. % An avocado-tone refrigerator would look good on your resume. % An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. % Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. % Are you a turtle? % Are you ever going to do the dishes? Or will you change your major to biology? % Are you making all this up as you go along? % Are you sure the back door is locked? % Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. % Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance. % Avoid gunfire in the bathroom tonight. % Avoid reality at all costs. % Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. % Be careful! Is it classified? % Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10! % Be cautious in your daily affairs. % Be cheerful while you are alive. -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C. % 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. % Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life. % Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon. % Better hope the life-inspector doesn't come around while you have your life in such a mess. % Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. % Beware of a tall black man with one blond shoe. % Beware of a tall blond man with one black shoe. % Beware of Bigfoot! % Beware of low-flying butterflies. % Beware the one behind you. % Blow it out your ear. % Break into jail and claim police brutality. % Bridge ahead. Pay troll. % Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. % Caution: Keep out of reach of children. % Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. % Change your thoughts and you change your world. % Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate. % Chess tonight. % Chicken Little only has to be right once. % Chicken Little was right. % Cold hands, no gloves. % Communicate! It can't make things any worse. % Courage is your greatest present need. % Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. % Do not overtax your powers. % Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. % Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act -- hesitate. % Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. % Do what comes naturally. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. % Domestic happiness and faithful friends. % Don't feed the bats tonight. % Don't get stuck in a closet -- wear yourself out. % Don't get to bragging. % Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. % Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. % Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. % 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 look now, but the man in the moon is laughing at you. % Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. % Don't plan any hasty moves. You'll be evicted soon anyway. % Don't read any sky-writing for the next two weeks. % Don't read everything you believe. % Don't relax! It's only your tension that's holding you together. % Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. % Don't worry so loud, your roommate can't think. % Don't Worry, Be Happy. -- Meher Baba % Don't worry. Life's too long. -- Vincent Sardi, Jr. % Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? % Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition? % Everything that you know is wrong, but you can be straightened out. % Everything will be just tickety-boo today. % Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator. % Excellent day to have a rotten day. % Excellent time to become a missing person. % Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. % Exercise caution in your daily affairs. % Expect a letter from a friend who will ask a favor of you. % Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. % Fine day for friends. So-so day for you. % Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. % 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 % Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. % Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. % Give him an evasive answer. % Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. % Give your very best today. Heaven knows it's little enough. % Go to a movie tonight. Darkness becomes you. % Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. % Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. % Good day to deal with people in high places; particularly lonely stewardesses. % Good day to let down old friends who need help. % Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor. % 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. % Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. % Hope that the day after you die is a nice day. % If you can read this, you're too close. % If you learn one useless thing every day, in a single year you'll learn 365 useless things. % If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure. % If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair. % If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow! % If your life was a horse, you'd have to shoot it. % In the stairway of life, you'd best take the elevator. % Increased knowledge will help you now. Have mate's phone bugged. % Is that really YOU that is reading this? % Is this really happening? % It is so very hard to be an on-your-own-take-care-of-yourself-because-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you grown-up. % It may or may not be worthwhile, but it still has to be done. % It was all so different before everything changed. % It's a very *__UN*lucky week in which to be took dead. -- Churchy La Femme % It's all in the mind, ya know. % It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. % Just because the message may never be received does not mean it is not worth sending. % Just to have it is enough. % Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. % Keep it short for pithy sake. % Lady Luck brings added income today. Lady friend takes it away tonight. % Learn to pause -- or nothing worthwhile can catch up to you. % Let me put it this way: today is going to be a learning experience. % Life is to you a dashing and bold adventure. % "Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. % Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. % Long life is in store for you. % Look afar and see the end from the beginning. % Love is in the offing. Be affectionate to one who adores you. % Make a wish, it might come true. % Many changes of mind and mood; do not hesitate too long. % Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. % Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you. % Never give an inch! % Never look up when dragons fly overhead. % Never reveal your best argument. % Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year. % Of course you have a purpose -- to find a purpose. % People are beginning to notice you. Try dressing before you leave the house. % Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. % Questionable day. Ask somebody something. % Reply hazy, ask again later. % Save energy: be apathetic. % Ships are safe in harbor, but they were never meant to stay there. % Slow day. Practice crawling. % Snow Day -- stay home. % So this is it. We're going to die. % So you're back... about time... % Someone is speaking well of you. % Someone is speaking well of you. How unusual! % Someone whom you reject today, will reject you tomorrow. % Stay away from flying saucers today. % Stay away from hurricanes for a while. % Stay the curse. % That secret you've been guarding, isn't. % The time is right to make new friends. % The whole world is a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes. -- George Gobel % There is a 20% chance of tomorrow. % There is a fly on your nose. % There was a phone call for you. % There will be big changes for you but you will be happy. % Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. % Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". % This life is yours. Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself. % This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. % Time to be aggressive. Go after a tattooed Virgo. % 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 life. % Today is the last day of your life so far. % Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. % Today is what happened to yesterday. % Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson % Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest. % Tomorrow, this will be part of the unchangeable past but fortunately, it can still be changed today. % Tomorrow, you can be anywhere. % Tonight you will pay the wages of sin; Don't forget to leave a tip. % Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree. % Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live in eucalyptus trees. % Truth will out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) % Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today. % Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. % Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances. % Try to relax and enjoy the crisis. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % Try to value useful qualities in one who loves you. % Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week. % Tuesday is the Wednesday of the rest of your life. % What happened last night can happen again. % While you recently had your problems on the run, they've regrouped and are making another attack. % Write yourself a threatening letter and pen a defiant reply. % You are a bundle of energy, always on the go. % You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here. % You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are. % You are always busy. % You are as I am with You. % You are capable of planning your future. % You are confused; but this is your normal state. % You are deeply attached to your friends and acquaintances. % You are destined to become the commandant of the fighting men of the department of transportation. % You are dishonest, but never to the point of hurting a friend. % You are fairminded, just and loving. % You are farsighted, a good planner, an ardent lover, and a faithful friend. % You are fighting for survival in your own sweet and gentle way. % You are going to have a new love affair. % You are magnetic in your bearing. % You are not dead yet. But watch for further reports. % You are number 6! Who is number one? % You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. % You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward. Therefore you have few friends. % You are sick, twisted and perverted. I like that in a person. % You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep. % You are standing on my toes. % You are taking yourself far too seriously. % 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 attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity. % You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. % You can do very well in speculation where land or anything to do with dirt is concerned. % You can rent this space for only $5 a week. % You could live a better life, if you had a better mind and a better body. % You definitely intend to start living sometime soon. % You dialed 5483. % You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy. % You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one. % You enjoy the company of other people. % You feel a whole lot more like you do now than you did when you used to. % You fill a much-needed gap. % You get along very well with everyone except animals and people. % You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to leave it behind. % You have a deep appreciation of the arts and music. % You have a deep interest in all that is artistic. % You have a reputation for being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. A pity that it's totally undeserved. % You have a strong appeal for members of the opposite sex. % You have a strong appeal for members of your own sex. % You have a strong desire for a home and your family interests come first. % You have a truly strong individuality. % You have a will that can be influenced by all with whom you come in contact. % You have an ability to sense and know higher truth. % You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself. % You have an unusual equipment for success. Be sure to use it properly. % You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to metal objects which are not fastened down. % You have an unusual understanding of the problems of human relationships. % You have been selected for a secret mission. % You have Egyptian flu: you're going to be a mummy. % You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business. % You have literary talent that you should take pains to develop. % You have many friends and very few living enemies. % You have no real enemies. % You have taken yourself too seriously. % 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 have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact. % You learn to write as if to someone else because NEXT YEAR YOU WILL BE "SOMEONE ELSE." % You like to form new friendships and make new acquaintances. % You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled. % You look tired. % You love peace. % You love your home and want it to be beautiful. % You may be gone tomorrow, but that doesn't mean that you weren't here today. % You may be infinitely smaller than some things, but you're infinitely larger than others. % You may be recognized soon. Hide. % You may get an opportunity for advancement today. Watch it! % You may worry about your hair-do today, but tomorrow much peanut butter will be sold. % You need more time; and you probably always will. % You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll be dead. % You never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems. % You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. % You now have Asian Flu. % You own a dog, but you can only feed a cat. % You plan things that you do not even attempt because of your extreme caution. % You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. % You prefer the company of the opposite sex, but are well liked by your own. % You recoil from the crude; you tend naturally toward the exquisite. % You seek to shield those you love and you like the role of the provider. % You shall be rewarded for a dastardly deed. % You should emulate your heroes, but don't carry it too far. Especially if they are dead. % You should go home. % You single-handedly fought your way into this hopeless mess. % You teach best what you most need to learn. % You too can wear a nose mitten. % You two ought to be more careful--your love could drag on for years and years. % You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like. % You will always have good luck in your personal affairs. % You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home. % You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. % You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part. % You will be aided greatly by a person whom you thought to be unimportant. % 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 audited by the Internal Revenue Service. % You will be awarded a medal for disregarding safety in saving someone. % You will be awarded some great honor. % You will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize... posthumously. % You will be called upon to help a friend in trouble. % You will be divorced within a year. % You will be given a post of trust and responsibility. % You will be held hostage by a radical group. % You will be honored for contributing your time and skill to a worthy cause. % You will be imprisoned for contributing your time and skill to a bank robbery. % You will be married within a year, and divorced within two. % You will be married within a year. % You will be misunderstood by everyone. % You will be recognized and honored as a community leader. % You will be reincarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier. % You will be run over by a beer truck. % You will be run over by a bus. % You will be singled out for promotion in your work. % You will be successful in love. % You will be surprised by a loud noise. % You will be surrounded by luxury. % You will be the last person to buy a Chrysler. % You will be the victim of a bizarre joke. % You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. % You will be traveling and coming into a fortune. % You will be winged by an anti-aircraft battery. % You will become rich and famous unless you don't. % You will contract a rare disease. % You will engage in a profitable business activity. % You will experience a strong urge to do good; but it will pass. % You will feel hungry again in another hour. % You will forget that you ever knew me. % You will gain money by a fattening action. % You will gain money by a speculation or lottery. % You will gain money by an illegal action. % You will gain money by an immoral action. % You will get what you deserve. % You will give someone a piece of your mind, which you can ill afford. % You will have a long and boring life. % You will have a long and unpleasant discussion with your supervisor. % You will have domestic happiness and faithful friends. % You will have good luck and overcome many hardships. % You will have long and healthy life. % You will hear good news from one you thought unfriendly to you. % You will inherit millions of dollars. % You will inherit some money or a small piece of land. % You will live a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money. % You will live to see your grandchildren. % You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door mayonnaise salesman. % You will meet an important person who will help you advance professionally. % You will never know hunger. % You will not be elected to public office this year. % You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears. % You will outgrow your usefulness. % You will overcome the attacks of jealous associates. % You will pass away very quickly. % You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard this message. % You will pioneer the first Martian colony. % You will probably marry after a very brief courtship. % You will reach the highest possible point in your business or profession. % You will receive a legacy which will place you above want. % You will remember something that you should not have forgotten. % You will soon forget this. % You will soon meet a person who will play an important role in your life. % You will step on the night soil of many countries. % You will stop at nothing to reach your objective, but only because your brakes are defective. % You will triumph over your enemy. % You will visit the Dung Pits of Glive soon. % You will win success in whatever calling you adopt. % You will wish you hadn't. % You work very hard. Don't try to think as well. % You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough to worry. % You would if you could but you can't so you won't. % You'd like to do it instantaneously, but that's too slow. % You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people. % You'll be sorry... % You'll feel devilish tonight. Toss dynamite caps under a flamenco dancer's heel. % You'll feel much better once you've given up hope. % You'll never be the man your mother was! % You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately, they're not all recommended. % You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier to do. % You're a card which will have to be dealt with. % You're almost as happy as you think you are. % You're at the end of the road again. % You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. % You're currently going through a difficult transition period called "Life." % You're definitely on their list. The question to ask next is what list it is. % You're growing out of some of your problems, but there are others that you're growing into. % You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!! % You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny. % You're working under a slight handicap. You happen to be human. % You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. % Your aim is high and to the right. % Your aims are high, and you are capable of much. % Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a thing he tells you. % Your best consolation is the hope that the things you failed to get weren't really worth having. % Your boss climbed the corporate ladder, wrong by wrong. % Your boss is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. % Your boyfriend takes chocolate from strangers. % Your business will assume vast proportions. % Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion. % Your depth of comprehension may tend to make you lax in worldly ways. % Your domestic life may be harmonious. % Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). % Your goose is cooked. (Your current chick is burned up too!) % Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and your soul devout. % Your ignorance cramps my conversation. % Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. % Your love life will be happy and harmonious. % Your love life will be... interesting. % Your lover will never wish to leave you. % Your lucky color has faded. % Your lucky number has been disconnected. % Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. % Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of good news soon. % Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of new developments. % Your motives for doing whatever good deed you may have in mind will be misinterpreted by somebody. % Your nature demands love and your happiness depends on it. % Your object is to save the world, while still leading a pleasant life. % Your own qualities will help prevent your advancement in the world. % Your present plans will be successful. % Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong. % Your reasoning powers are good, and you are a fairly good planner. % Your sister swims out to meet troop ships. % Your society will be sought by people of taste and refinement. % Your step will soil many countries. % Your supervisor is thinking about you. % Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded. % Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner. % Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. %