Amiga Tools 5

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Text File | 1996-07-16 | 349.9 KB | 13,207 lines

>>Adagis<< # Don't quit now, we may just as well lock the door and throw away the key. # You should go home. # Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. # By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail. # The best prophet of the future is the past. # It's all in the mind ya know. # There's no room in the drug world for amateurs you know. # The famous politician was trying to save both his faces. # The door is the key. # A man who fishes for marlin in ponds will put his money in estruscan bonds. # About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Cranwell. # If you think before you speak, the other guy gets his joke in first. # Courage is grace under pressure. # Never insult an alligator until you've crossed the river. # Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. # It it better to wear out than to rust out. Ask any Skoda. # Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. # Flee at once, all is discovered. # Love the sea? I dote upon it - from the beach. # Genius is the talent of the man who is dead. # In this world, truth can wait; She's used to it. # Continental life. Why do you ask? # Long computations which yield 0 are probably all for naught. # You have a tendency to feel you are to superior to most computers. Wrong!! # Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest. # It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. # Truthful: Dumb and illiterate. # If you ask how much it is you can't afford it. # If you want to know how old a man is, ask his brother-in-law. # Love is in the offing, said the homicidal maniac. # I heart by Amiga. # Go Forth and multiply. # Your computer account is overdrawn. Please authorize. # Remember, Agima spelled backwards, is Amiga. # Save petrol, don't use the shell. # How sharper than a hound's tooth it is to have a thankless serpent. # You will a long, healthy, happy life and make bags of money. (Snigger!) # We all know that on-one understands anything that isn't funny. # They just buzzed and buzzed ... buzzed. # Let's play "Pooh-sticks". # Trying to get an education here is like trying to take a drink from a fire hose. # Words are the voice of the heart. # To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. # Her heart was yours from the first moment that you met. # The Universe is laughing behind your back. # DON'T PANIC!! # This login session: £13.95p. # Anything worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it for you. # There's got to be more to life than compile-link-and-go. # Use debugging compilers. I do! # A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. # A hammer sometimes misses its mark - A bouquet never. # You look tired. # Troubles are like babies; they only grow by nursing. # Too clever is dumb -- Ogden Nash. # The best prophet of the future is the past. # Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. # It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. # Someone is unenthusiastic about your work, and I know who it is. # Disclose classified information only when the need to know exists. # Men still remember the first kiss long after women have forgotten the last. # Many pages make a thick book. # Your supervisor is thinking about you. # Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. # Don't comment bad code - rewrite it. # Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. # Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. # A king's castle is his home. # Let the fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage. # Your ignorance cramps my conversation. # Charity: A thing that usually begins at home and stays there. # Baby... -- The late Elvis Presley. # A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep. # Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. # Failure is more frequent from want of energy than want of capital. # Make sure comments and code agree. # Many are called, few volunteer. # We could do that, but it would be wrong, that's for sure. # Beware of a tall, dark man with a spoon up his nose. # Is this really happening? # Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. # Integrity is in no need of rules. # Far duller than a serpents tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. # Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. # The attacker must vanquish; the defender need only survive. # Every silver lining has a cloud around it. # A good memory does not equal pale ink. # Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. # Friends: people who borrow your books and put wet glasses on them. # Quit work and play for once. # Man who fall in vat of molten optical glass make spectacle of himself. # What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes. # Don't force it. Use a bigger hammer. # God does not play dice. # He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last. # Finagle's law: The perversity of the universe tends toward the maximum. # Integrity has no need of rules. # So long and thanks for all the fish. # We're sorry for the inconvenience. # Do not adjust your set. # He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. # Education helps earning capacity. Ask any college professor. # Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. # Ignore previous COOKIE. # Security is your responsibility. # Eat at Joe's. # When the wind is great, bow before it; When the wind is heavy, yield to it. # If you suspect a man, don't employ him. # Men seldom show dimples to girls who have pimples. # If it pours before seven, it's rained before eleven. # Honi soit la vache qui rit. # Today is the last day of your life so far. # You are being paged. # You can never trust a woman; She may be true to you. # Use free-form input where possible. # Avoid the FORTRAN arithmetic IF. # We lost 23.0564 casualties in that last attack, captain. -- Mr Spock. # Try to divide your time evenly to keep others happy. # Your mind understands what you have been taught; Your heart, what is true. # The world is coming to an end.. save your buffers. # I print therefore I am. # "They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the bourbons!" # Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake. # Logout immediately, before you make a mistake! # Of all the forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal. # Stability itself is nothing more than sluggish motion. # It seems to make a car driver mad if he misses you. # Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. # Even a Jaguar is a Nimrod among Chipmunks. # Don't diddle code to make it run faster - find a better algorithm. # I am a computer. I am dumber than Bureau Staff but smarter than a user. # How wonderful opera would be but for the singing. # Password: # You look tired. # The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. # A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. # Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. # Religions revolve madly around sexual questions. # Just give Clary some crayons and she will be happy for hours. # She looked at me as if I was a side dish she hadn't ordered. # Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of your own. # Don't look behind you. The boss is watching. # Institute: An archaic school where football is not taught. # No-one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. # Ignorance: When you don't know something and the boss finds out. # You have mail. # You don't have mail. # Those who in quarrels interpose must often wipe a bloody nose. # Money may buy friendship but money can't buy love. # System down at 1645hrs for disk crashing. # Save yourself! Re-booting in 5 seconds. # Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. # Thar's trubble at t'mill. # A foolish consistency is the Hobgoblin of little minds. # I must have slipped a disk; My pack hurts. # I think we're all Bozos on this bus. # This fortune cookie is out of order. Please try another. # Out of order! # Gone to lunch. Back in 2 hours. # Back in 5 minutes. # For a good time, ring Salisbury 25776. # No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances. # Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jam Sandwich Under No Protest. # How many weeks are there in a light year? # "Heh dudes, how's it goin'". # "the Ranger ain't gonna like it, Yogi". # Lend money to a bad debtor and he will hate you. # How you look depends on where you go. # Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all. # Progress meeting in 5 minutes. # Make sure your code 'does nothing' gracefully. # No Mactavish was ever lavish. # Power is poison. # "Mind your own business, Spock. I'm fed up of your half-breed interference." # He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. # He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. # Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. # A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. # Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. # Replace repetitive expressions by calls to a common function. # Please update your programs. # Use library functions. # Long life is in store for you. # Prevent security leaks. # Academy: A modern school where football is taught. # You will never know hunger. # By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail. # What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. # He who has a shady past knows that bad guys finish last. # Don't patch bad code -- rewrite it. # The time is right to make new friends. # Everybody needs a little love some time; Stop hacking and fall in love. # Don't get stuck in a closet -- wear yourself out. # Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. # Don't guess - check your security regulations. # A clash of doctrine is not a disaster - it is an opportunity. # A puritan is someone who is really afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. # Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. # Brain fried -- core dumped. # Don't eat yellow snow. # Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. # 6*9 is 42, in base 13. # He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. # He thinks by infection, catching an opinion like a cold. # The decision doesn't have to be logical, it was unanimous. # Your code should be more efficient! # Stop searching forever. Happiness is unattainable. # What DOES happen when the immovable object meets the irresistible force? # Your empty file directory has been deleted. # You called oh master! # It's not reality that's important, it's how you perceive things. # Avoid GOTOs completely if you can keep the program readable. # Don't hit the keys so hard. It hurts! # Waddya wan. # Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; That smells awful. # There's so much to say but your eyes keep interrupting me. # Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. # Don't look now but the man in the moon is laughing at you. # It is the wise bird who builds his nest in the tree. # Make it right before you make it faster. # 1 bulls, 3 cow. # Never give an inch. # Don't worry, Baldrick has a cunning plan. # How was Thomas J. Watson buried? 9 edge down. # Did Houdini escape from New Jersey? # Kiss your keyboard goodbye. # Let him who takes the plunge remember to return it by Tuesday. # MULTICS is security spelled sideways. # After a set number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. # It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost. # Don't make me angry; You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. # Users are alright, but would you want your daughter to marry one? # A user is only a user, but a good cigar is a smoke. # There are lies, damned lies and users' complaints. # God made rivers. God made lakes. God made the user. But we all make mistakes. # The perfect user has no log-in. # In the land of the user, the blind man is king. # Make someone happy - LOGOUT a user. # As goatherder learns his trade by goat, so writer learns his trade by wrote. # Your education begins when what is called your education is over. # You will be surprised by a loud noise. # ACDC firmware trap = B # You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. # All in all it's just another brick in the wall... # IOT TRAP -- MOS DUMPED # Don't look know but there's a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. # "He is considered the most graceful speaker who can say nothing in most words." # Man who fall in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. # Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. # Mistakes are oft the stepping stones to failure. # Every purchase has its price. # 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. # There are more old drunkards than old doctors. # Make sure all variables are initialised before use. # This is a good time to punt work. # You do not have mail. # Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. # Be careful! Is it classified? # It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. # It's a poor workman who blames his tools. # You will feel hungry again in another hour. # Who is W.O. Baker, and why is he saying those nasty things about me? # I'm a Hollywood writer; So I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain. # Everybody ought to have a friend. # In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. # "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore!" # Life is a game of bridge - and you've just been finessed. # The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement. # A soft drink turneth away company. # ?Error 8370, cannot open USER/BRAIN/CELL # Even a cabbage may look at a King. # God may be subtle but he isn't plain mean. # The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) # Success is a journey, not a destination. # Disk crunch - please clean up. # Old Macdonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. # Avoid unnecessary branches. # : is not an identifier. # Don't forget that semi-colon. # You will be advanced socially without any special effort on your part. # I condemn you to death, you spindly-legged vermin. # mmemmory faault - core dummped # Damn it! I gotta get out of here! # What this country needs is a good five-cent micro # Programming will kill you; But it will keep you alive while you're doing it. # Where the Amiga is concerned you're not allowed to ask "Why?". # The man who doesn't make mistakes, doesn't usually make anything. # A pessimist is seldom disappointed; An optimist always is. # Let the machine do the dirty work. # Cannot connect - try again. # Panic: The inability to find the semi-colon. # He who hates vice, hates mankind. # Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from both side and bottom. # There is no such thing as pure pleasure. Some anxiety always goes with it. # Lisp: To call a spade a thpade. # Everything you know is wrong. # Words are the voice of the heart. # He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. # You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself. # Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once. # Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If God won't have you, the devil must. # Use IF..ELSE IF..ELSE IF..ELSE to implement multi-way branches. # About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. # Don't speak about time until you've spoken to him. # You now have Asian flu. # Avoid temporary variables. # Britain's best buy for 10p is a phone call to the right man. # Since aerosols are forbidden the police are using roll-on mace. # Is this really happening. # There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. # There is no time like the pleasant. # Chess tonight? # It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. # There is a fly on your dimension. # Your fly's undone. # All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. # Quack. Quack. # Standing on head make smile of frown, but rest of face upside-down. # Time and tide wait for no man. # Identify your visitor. # Everybody ought to have a maid. # Do not underestimate the power of the force. # May the force be with you. # "Home, sweet home" must surely have been penned by a bachelor. # Auribus teneo lupum. (I hold the wolf by the ears). # Stand and deliver! I want all the lupins you have. -- Dennis Moore # Biggest security gap - an open mouth. # Programmers happen even in the best regulated families. # Security is your responsibility. # Don't assume - Check out the price at Tescos. # A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. # Make input easy to proofread. # Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. # You should go home. # Don't gamble with security. # A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. # A man who has turned green has eschewed protein. # Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. # Better living a beggar than dying an emperor. # How untasteful can you get. # Who let you in? # The time is right to make new friends. # I wish you humans would leave me alone. # Laugh, and the whole world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. # People who take catnaps don't usually sleep in a cat's cradle. # "But I don't like spam!!!" # I will never lie to you. # Trust me. # As of next week, passwords are to be entered in morse code. # As of next week, passwords are to be entered in binary. # He who hesitates is sometimes saved. # Troglodytism does not necessarily imply a low cultural level. # Two men look out through the same bars, one sees mud and the other stars. # Men love to wonder; And that is the seed of science. # To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools. # You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business. # The program is absolutely right; Therefore the computer must be wrong. Ha!! # Love is in the offing, said the homicidal maniac. # Peter's hungry; Time to eat lunch. # Many are called, few are chosen, fewer still get to do the choosing. # A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity. # Concentrate on security. # Crazee Edeee, his prices are insane!!! # Don't gamble with security. # "Mate, this parrot wouldn't voom if you put four million volts through it!" # To teach is to learn. # It is easier to run down a hill than up one. # Chinese saying: "He who speak with forked tongue, need not chopsticks." # A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. # Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. # Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. # "It's not an offense to be in possession of curly black hair and thick lips." # Security is he individuals responsibility. # Don't quit now, we might just as well lock the door and throw away the key. # "Don't tell me what you dreamed last night for I have been reading Freud." # The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. # I went to Oxford to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. # Do not merely depend on miracles, rely on them. # The early worm gets got by the bird. # You'll be called to a post requiring high ability in handling groups of people. # "Mike's Universal Dynamic Debugging List Evaluator? Never heard of that." # Your salary will be increased. # Creditors have much better memories than debtors. # Stop moaning. Happiness is just next to you. # He walks as if balancing the family tree on his nose. # Long life is in store for you. # The plural of spouse is spices. # Who are you? # Than God it's Friday. It is Friday isn't it? # This must be Tuesday, I never could get the hang of Tuesday. # PVRed lately? # He who makes adages for others to peruse takes a rowboat when going on a cruise. # National security is in your hands - guard it well. # All that glitters has a high refractive index. # Hackers of the world, unite! # It is better to have loved and lost - much better. # Even the boldest zebra fears the hungry lion. # Beware of all enterprise that require new clothes. # Youth is the trustee of prosperity. # To criticize the incompetent is easy. # Change you thoughts and you change your world. # Those who can, do; Those who can't, simulate. # You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home. # Uni soit qui mal y pense. # It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. # Business will be either better of worse -- Calvin Coolidge. # Don't despair - your ideal lover is waiting for you around the corner. # Classified material requires proper storage. # It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. # Mines a double. # A conservative is one who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. # You have a deep interest in all that is artistic. # Now and then an innocent man is sent to the Legislature. # You will step on the night soil of many countries. # Save petrol, don't eat beans. # You are going to have a new love affair. # With clothes the new are best, with friends the old are best. # Watch out for off-by-one errors. # The important thing is not to stop questioning. # A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. # Snow day - stay home. # Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword. # Satire does not look pretty upon a tombstone. # This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. # Quit work and play for once! # Please go away! # When in doubt, lead trumps. # You should go home. # Courage is grace under pressure. # Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. # You attempt things that you do not even plan because of your extreme stupidity. # "Oh, aunty Em, it's good to be home!" # Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest. # System overload... Go for a coffee. # What do you get if you cross a ghost with a policeman? # Go Forth and multiply backwards. # Another shot at the OK CORAL. # If you can't beat it QA it. # If it moves, QA it. # Once a programmer, always a programmer. # What do you want to be when you grow up? # Haven't you got anything better to do? # Is that you Boss? # Wait a minute!! Can't you see I'm in the little silicon chip's room. # Cough! Cough! I'm sorry I have a cold. # Wait a minute!! Can't you see I'm overlaying a segment. # Psst! Over here. # He slimed me. # Welcome to the castle Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! # Pardon me! Is your wife interested in photography. # Did you know that you have 26 miles of intestine in your stomach. # Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the Earth? # Let's play global thermonuclear war. # N/A. # The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. # To be or not to be. -- W. Shakespeare. To be is to do, to do is to be. -- R. Descartes. Do be do be do. -- F. Sinatra. # I stink therefore I am. # Is it raining today. # You can't imagine how incredibly hot it is in here. # For the want of a nail a horse was lost. I'll kill that bloody smithy!! # You feel the aura of deep magic ... all around you. # A circle of evil - depart in haste. # Beware thou hast encountered an evil ... bug. # You are standing in a small room. To the north is a door. A Troll is here. # Danger! Wet paint. # Operator warning: This terminal is about to die!! # Warning! This terminal will self-destruct in 5 seconds. # Who pulled the plug out of the sink. I still had my hand in there. # Live long and prosper. # Have you attained Kholinahr. # Great minds think alike. Programmers seldom differ. # A good programmer is a lonely programmer. # Phone home!! # Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and all you want is fortune cookies. # O.K. Troy. # COOKIE # OOO.OOO.KKK Mr T-T-Tracy. # A program's not a program without a decent bug in it. # Waiter! Waiter! There's a bug in my program. # Wales: A sheep pasture with hills. # Cardiff: A poor man's ghetto. # Your next leave-pass will not be approved. # Your next leave has been cancelled. # Houston. Tranquillity base here. The Eagle has landed. -- N. Armstrong. # Houston. We have a problem. -- Apollo 13. # Are you Mary, Queen of Scots? # Operator warning! Password corrupt. Do not log out. # Have you seen Edibus. His mother wants him. # I had a book once, it was read. # Confucius say, many amps make light work. # My dog has no nose. (How does he smell?) Don't ask. # I can't see you but I know you're there. # There is interference on sound. Do not adjust your VDU. # Who said you could log-in? # You're new here aren't you? # Where on Earth did you get that tie? # Ready to log out on my mark....MARK! # If only you had a voice. We could talk. # What's that on your nose? # So, how long have you been doing this job then? # What do you want?!? # You again!!? # Be gentle with me. # We'll have to stop meeting like this. My device is beginning to suspect. # I don't know why you bother! # I don't know why I bother! # Drowning: To stop swimming suddenly. # Sinking: To stop swimming slowly. # Psst! Wanna see a derty postcard? # [END OF BUFFER] # Data Namagenemt error 999 Error in error # Sintax error # Sorry! You know that file you asked me to save? I've lost it. # I'm lost. # You are on a dusty lane. Obvious exits are north and southwest. # Hungry? Have a byte. # Fancy a bit of my word? # She said she only liked me because of my double-length word. # Quick! Phone the Samaritans. I think I'm going to d.... # Movies would improve greatly if they shot less film and more producers. # Income tax drains your resources, like buying oats for a dead donkey. # She waited years for her ship to come in, then her jetty collapsed. # The only government measure that increased productivity is the family allowance. # What do pink elephants see when they're drunk? # Accolade: Cheap Egyptian mineral water. # Autobiography: Log book for a car. # Atonic: What you add to gin. # Absentee: A missing golf accessory. # Antelope: When a female insect runs away to get married. # Acrostic: A bad-tempered alarm clock. # Aromatic: An automatic longbow. # Awe-struck: Being hit with a paddle. # Avail: The thing that stops a woman looking so ugly. # Alphabet: Not quite a complete wager. # Badminton: The reason the lamb tastes so awful. # Bulletin: A can of pressed beef. # Barefaced: Looking like a bear. # Blunderbuss: A vehicle that goes from London to Southend via Eastbourne. # Carnation: A tribe in which every adult is a vehicle owner. # Caramel: A motorised camel. # Coward: A man who thinks with his legs. # Diatribe: An extinct tribe. # Detest: The West Indies versus England at Edgbaston. # Electrician: A switch doctor. # Farthingale: A cheap hurricane. # Faggot: A female maggot. # Fastidious: A girl who is fast and hideous. # Faucet: What you have to do if the door is jammed. # Fieldpiece: A farmer's daughter. # Gallop: A poll. # Germicide: Bacteria committing hara-kiri. # Humbug: A singing cockroach. # North pole: An inhabitant of Warsaw. # Oyster: A crane used in east London. # Posse: A Texan wildcat. # Porcupine: Fretting for a slice of bacon. # Prawn: A small piece on a chessboard. # Propaganda: A real male bird. # Parachute: A double-barrelled shotgun. # Quicksand: Why an hourglass is ten minutes fast. # Shampoo: Imitation poo. # Shamrock: Imitation mountain. # Sonata: Song sung by Frank Sinatra. # Spellbinding: The cover of a dictionary. # Warsaw: One of the tools of battle. # Polar bear: Nude Eskimo. # People living on the equator are called Equations. # Mongoose: A male French duck. # El Giza: Spanish water heater. # A woman's work is never done right. # All roads lead to a traffic jam. # Any port in a storm is better than no rum. # Anything for a quiet wife. # Beer round here is almost thicker than water. # Don't count your chickens until they've been defrosted. # No noose is good news to a condemned man. # Many a poodle make a puddle. # Many electricians make light work. # Poverty is no sin. That's why people don't commit it. # Prevention is better than being cured, as the fat pig ran away. # Procrastination is the thief of time, especially if you can't spell it. # The greater the truth, the smaller the label. # En bloc: Waiting to be beheaded. # In posse: The cat's eaten the goldfish. # My brain? It's my second favourite organ. # Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. # Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber at the weekend. # The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep # Is sex dirty? Only if you do it right. # Life is hard and then you die. # I'm not afraid of dying - I just don't want to be there when it happens. # Resistance is useless!! # Would you eat a doormat that ate bark and fungus? # Greetings Professor Falken. How about a nice game of chess? # A job done well need not be done twice. # Look for faults in the mind, not in the machine. # Don't strive for perfection, it's not good enough. # Do the job with your whole mind. # The hardest person to please should be yourself. # You get a dafter investor at Sproggit and Sylvester. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of the Challenger astronauts. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of Captain Scarlet. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of Joe 90. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of Chappaquidick. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of the TSR2. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of pay rises. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of Arthur Dent # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of Dijkstra. # This Amiga session dedicated to the memory of Constantin Tsiolkovski. # This Amiga session dedicated to the Guru. # This Amiga session dedicated to the Commodore 64. # This Amiga session dedicated to the VIC 20. # Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. -- W B Yeats # If possible honestly, if not, somehow, make money. -- Horace # But what is Woman ? Only one of Natures agreeable blunders. -- Mrs Hannah Cowley # Who Loves not Woman, wine, and song. Remains a fool his whole life long. -- Martin Luther # I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. -- Darwin # Private faces in public places are, wiser and nicer than, public faces in private places. -- Auden # Mrs Asquith remarked indiscreetly that if Kitchener was not a great man, he was, at least, a great poster. -- Margot Asquith # More, will mean worse. -- Kingsley Amis # The first casualty when war comes, is truth. -- Hiram Johnson # A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing. -- Samuel Johnson # Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. -- G B Shaw # All great truths begin as blasphemies. -- G B Shaw # I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me. -- G B Shaw # Remember, that time is money. -- Ben Franklin # The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. -- G B Shaw # A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -- Oscar Wilde # The strongest man in the world, is the man who stands alone. -- Ibsen # A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one. -- Thomas Carlyle # Truth is the cry of all, but he game of the few. -- Bishop Berkeley # No man's knowledge can go beyond his experience. # The best thing I know between England and France is, the sea. -- Douglas Jerrold # Three men may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. -- Ben Franklin # Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. -- G B Shaw # All that we see or seem. Is but a dream within a dream. -- E A Poe # That rarest gift to beauty, common sense. -- George Meredith # What shall become of us without any Barbarians ? Those people were a kind of solution. -- Cavafy # Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone ? -- James Thurber # There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. -- Oscar Wilde # A noisy man is always in the right. -- William Cowper # Nothing astonishes man so much as common-sense and plain dealing. -- Emerson # Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it. -- Douglas Jerrold # It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock them, and keep them up to date. -- Ben Franklin # Let them hate, so long as they fear. -- Accius # Great Britain has lost an Empire, and has not yet found a role. -- Dean Acheson # A friend in power, is a friend lost. -- Henry Adams # If all be true that I do think, there are five good reasons we should drink. Good wine, A friend, or being dry, or lest we should be by and by. Or any other reason why. -- Dean Aldrich # The more alternatives, the more difficult the choice. # I feel no pain, Dear Mother now. But oh, I am so dry. Take me to a brewery, and leave me there to die. -- Anon # See the happy moron He doesn't give a damn I wish I were a moron My God ! Perhaps I am ! -- Anon # There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us. That it hardly becomes any of us, to talk about the rest of us. -- Anon # There was a lady sweet and kind, was never a face so pleased my mind. I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her `till I die. -- Anon # Whatever you do, do cautiously, and look to the end. -- Anon # Most women are not so young as they are painted. -- Max Beerbohm # Only the insane take themselves quite seriously. -- Max Beerbohm # I wish my deadly foe no worse, than want of friends, and empty purse. -- Bretton # Oppression makes the wise man mad. -- Robert Browning # I never expect a soldier to think. -- G B Shaw # Even God cannot change the past. -- Agathon # There is no greater sorrow than to recall a time of happiness in misery. -- Dante # In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed. -- Emerson # The Golden Rule is that there are no golden rules. -- G B Shaw # There's nothing soonerr dry than women's tears. -- John Webster # The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it. -- Emerson # Nothing is ever done in this World until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done. -- G B Shaw # Very Sorry, can't come. Lie follows by post. -- Lord Charles Beresford (Telegram to The Prince of Wales) # We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry. -- John Webster # The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. -- Edmund Burke # Bad Laws are the worst sort of Tyranny. -- Edmund Burke # Superstition is the religion of feeble minds. -- Edmund Burke # An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side if the case. God has written all the books. -- Samuel Butler # I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. -- Samuel Butler # What men call gallantry, and gods adultery. Is much more common where the climate's sultry. -- Byron # Sweet is revenge--especially to women -- Byron # Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure. -- Byron # Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter. Sermons and soda-water the day after. -- Byron # All tragedies are finished by a death. All comedies by a marriage. -- Byron # When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years. Pale grew thy cheek, and cold, Colder thy kiss. -- Byron # If I should meet thee After long years How should I greet thee ? With silence and tears. -- Byron # Through life's road, so dim and dirty, I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty. What have these years left to me ? Nothing, except thirty-three. -- Byron # You should have a softer pillow than my heart. -- Byron # Let not poor Nelly starve. -- Charles II # It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. -- Winston Churchill # This is the sort of English up with I will not put. -- Winston Churchill # Very flat, Norfolk. -- Noel Coward # His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never comes. -- William Cowper # The lie that flatters, I abhor the most. -- William Cowper # Variety's the spice of life, that gives it all it's flavour. -- William Cowper # He has no hope who never had a fear. -- William Cowper # Our severest Winter, commonly called the Spring. -- William Cowper # Who often reads, will sometimes wish to write. -- George Crabbe # The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for. -- Will Cuppy # Wit to persuade, and beauty to delight. -- Sir John Davies # The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late. -- Daniel Defoe # Thr French will only be united under the threat of danger. Nobody can simply bring together a country tha thas 265 kinds of cheese. -- Charles De Gaulle # Beware the fury of a patient man. -- John Dryden # A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. -- George Eliot # What we call te beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. -- T S Eliot # Nothing graeat was ever achieved without enthusiasm. -- Emerson # The wise through excess of wisdom, is made a fool -- Emerson # I hate quotations. -- Emerson # If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event. -- Douglas Jerrold # Cynic: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. -- Oscar Wilde # It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly. -- Oscar Wilde # Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. -- Oscar Wilde # Work is the curse of the drinking classes. -- Oscar Wilde # Whatever they are, they've got to respect the chain of command! -- Gremlins II # "Is there a UNIX Fortran optimizer?" "Yep: rm -rf *.f" # The Universe is difficult enough without trying to understand it. # From a Special Relativity lecture: "...and you find you get masses of energy." # It's nice to see the general-purpose 'nobbling constant' making a welcome return to Cambridge lectures: "This must be wrong by a factor that oughtn't to be too different from unity." # A flattering comment by a student for his GR supervisor: "She's the only person in DAMTP who's a real person rather than an abstract machine for doing tripos questions. " # Renormalisation holds no fears for this lecturer of Plasma Physics: "...and divergent integrals need really sleazy cutoffs." # In the true style of Cambridge Maths Tripos we have the following: "Proof of Thm. 6.2 is trivial from Thm. 6.9" # Can anybody guess the context in which the following is correct ? "This theorem is obviously proved as 13 equals 15." # A slightly more honest version of "The student can easily see that..." : "If you play around with your fingers for a while, you'll see that's true." # Suggestions are welcome on the meaning of this: "If it doesn't happen at a corner, but at an edge, it nonetheless happens at a corner." - Eh ? # From an Algebra III lecturer : "If you want to prove it the simplest thing is to prove it." # And from Oxford... "This does have physical applications. In fact it's all tied up with strings." # Good heavens, do I see a lecturer actually noticing the existence of his audience! "Was that clear enough? Put up your hand if that wasn't clear enough. Ah, I thought not." # "You could define the subspace topology this way, if you were sufficiently malicious." # "You mustn't be too rigid when doing Fluid mechanics." # Talk about ulterior motives... "This handout is not produced for your erudition but merely so I can practice the TeX word-processor." # From 1A NatSci "Cells" course: " There are two proteins involved in DNA synthasis, they are called DNAsynthase 1 and DNAsynthase 3" # From a Part 2 Quantum Mechanics lecture: "Just because they are called 'forbidden' transitions does not mean that they are forbidden. They are less allowed than allowed transitions, if you see what I mean." # From an IBM Assembler lecture: "If you find bear droppings around your tent, it's fairly likely that there are bears in the area." # A Biochemistry paper included an analysis of a previously undiscovered sugar named by the researchers "godnose" . # From a 1B Electrical Engineering lecture: "This isn't true in practice - what we've missed out is Stradivarius's constant." And then the aside: "For those of you who don't know, that's been called by others the fiddle factor..." # One from a 1A Engineering maths lecture : "Graphs of higher degree polynomials have this habit of doing unwanted wiggly things." # "Apart from the extra line that's a one line proof." "This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left." # A slight difficulty occured with geometry in an Engineering lecture one day: "This is the maximum power triangle." said a lecturer, pointing to a rectangle. # This year the Computer Scientists seem to be in the running for the Honesty Award: "Sorry, I should have made that completely clear. This is a shambles." # "I don't want to go into this in detail, but I would like to illustrate some of the tedium." # Oh those poor CompScis.... "I'm not going to get anything more useful done in this lecture, so I might as well talk." later followed by ... "Well there you are, one lecture with no useful content." # From a first year chemistry lecture some personal problems of the lecturer: " Before I started this morning's lecture I was going to tell you about my third divorce but on reflection I thought I'd better tell my wife first." # From a single research seminar at the King's College Research Centre: "I'm sure it's right whether it's valid or not." "WARNING: There is no reason to believe this will work." # beta test, v. To voluntarily entrust one's data, one's livelihood and one's sanity to hardware or software intended to destroy all three. In earlier days, virgins were often selected to beta test volcanos. # bit, n. A unit of measure applied to color. Twenty-four-bit color refers to expensive $3 color as opposed to the cheaper 25 cent, or two-bit, color that use to be available a few years ago. # buzzword, n. The fly in the ointment of computer literacy. # clone, n. 1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone of their product." 2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their product is a clone of our product." # enhance, v. To tamper with an image, usually to its detriment. # genlock, n. Why he stays in the bottle. # guru, n. A computer owner who can read the manual. # handshaking protocol, n. A process employed by hostile hardware devices to initate a terse but civil dialogue, which, in turn, is characterized by occasional misunderstanding, sulking, and name-calling. # italic, adj. Slanted to the right to emphasize key phrases. Unique to Western alphabets; in Eastern languages, the same phrases are often slanted to the left. # Unix, N. A computer operating system, once thought to be flabby and impotent, that now shows a surprising interest in making off with the workstation harem. # "As long as the music's loud enough, we won't hear the world falling apart" -- Borgia Ginz # I gave up God for Dickens - that was a big step! Some people say, "Don't you regret giving up God?" No, I don't - Dickens is a lot funnier. -- Dr. Johnathan Miller # "Damn, Text Not Found looking towards Fatal Error" -- Jim's RPG # For those of you watching in black and white, the pink ball is the one just behind the blue. # Reentrant code -- the only way to fly # I cannot be didactic or lucid, but I can be quite obscure and practic- ally marzipan -- Mervyn Peake # Cum cura et digiti quaerunt muliebribus armis, Cum furcis etiam spe comitante petunt; Instrumentum viae ferratae scripta minantur, Sapone et fabricant risibus illecebras. # !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH # $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" # 186,282 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! # $3,000,000 # 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation! # 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped # A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. # A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn # A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain # A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it adds up to be real money. -- Everett McKinley Dirksen # A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. # A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. # A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. # A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. # A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. # A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. # A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. # A city is a large community where people are lonesome together -- Herbert Prochnow # A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain # A closed mouth gathers no foot. # A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact. -- Gigo # A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. # A CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg. # A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin # A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison And had an affair with a Saracen. She was not oversexed, Or jealous or vexed, She just wanted to make a comparison. # A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? # A day without sunshine is like night. # A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. # A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. # A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". # A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... # A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash # A dozen, a gross, and a score, Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five time eleven, Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. # A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill # A fool must now and then be right by chance. # A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- G. B. Shaw # A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. # A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries # A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). # A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James # A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. # A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. # A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie # A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt # A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. # A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. # A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. # A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. # 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 wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. # A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. # A new dramatist of the absurd Has a voice that will shortly be heard. I learn from my spies He's about to devise An unprintable three-letter word. # A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan. # A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a "round tuit" now has no excuse for further procrastination. # A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. # A penny saved is ridiculous. # A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. # A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald # A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free. # A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. # A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason. # A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery # A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard -- Prof. Steiner # A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -- Mark Twain # A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O'Henry # A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. # A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson # A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. # A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. # A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi # A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. She found a good way To combine work and play: She sells C shells by the seashore. # A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tenessee Williams # A very intelligent turtle Found programming UNIX a hurdle The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he, And that's not saying much for the turtle. # A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. # "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire # A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. # A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive # AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! # Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. # About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -- Herbert Hoover # Absence makes the heart go wander. # Absent, adj.: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. # Absentee, n.: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. # According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo # According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. # Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats. # Accuracy, n.: The vice of being right # Acid -- better living through chemistry. # Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality. # Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing." # Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!" # Actor: So what do you do for a living? Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" # ADA, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." # Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery. # "Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ..." --- Gilda Radner # Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Adult, n.: One old enough to know better. # After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare # After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P. J. O'Rourke # After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. # After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? # After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. # Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. # Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. # Air is water with holes in it # Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed # Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." # Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. # Alex Haley was adopted! # Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone. # Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce # "All flesh is grass" -- Isiah Smoke a friend today. # All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. # All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. # All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. # "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane." # All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. # All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler # All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- E. Rutherford # "... all the modern inconveniences ..." -- Mark Twain # All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey # All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door. # All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. # Alliance, n.: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Alone, adj.: In bad company. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. # AMAZING BUT TRUE ... If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. # AMAZING BUT TRUE ... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. # Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy # America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara # America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its name to "America". -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. # An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops. # An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. # An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. # An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert # "... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar." -- Mark Twain # An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. # Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. # ... And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man -- A. E. Housman # And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. # "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." # Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Leher # Ankh if you love Isis. # Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. # Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes. # Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. # Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe # Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop # Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. # Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. # Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. # Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke # Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. # Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her. # Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. # Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is probably parked. # Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. # Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publilius Syrus # Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" # Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -- Samuel Goldwyn # Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. -- W. C. Fields # Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" # Anything free is worth what you pay for it. # Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. # Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. # Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. # Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. # Anything worth doing is worth overdoing # Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. # Aquadextrous, adj.: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid. # "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" # ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19) You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very nice. # Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse # Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle # Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. # Arthur's Laws of Love: (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person. # Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. # As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein # As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert # As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, How many losses at Project MAC? # As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. -- Oscar Wilde # As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. # "As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs -- a process that traditionally requires some debugging." --- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new computer system. # As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. -- Woody Allen # As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" # As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." # As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" # As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." # Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the Station-to-Station rate. # Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. # Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. # Ass, n.: The masculine of "lass". # At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head under the exhaust of a bus until he revived. # At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985 # ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White # At 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. # Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. -- Winston Churchill # Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. # Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" # Avoid reality at all costs. # Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. # Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors. # Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. # Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. # Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. # Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. # Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. # Basic, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. # Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. # BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...) # Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" # Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain # Be different: conform. # Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. # Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" # Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. # Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend. # Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. # "Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" -- Time Bandits # "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth # Beware of low-flying butterflies. # Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein # "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" # Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. # Binary, adj.: Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. # Bipolar, adj.: Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York # Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic # Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. # BLISS is ignorance # Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. # Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept throwing up on them. # Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. # Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. # Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. # Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. # Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. # Boss, n.: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an ornamental stud." # Boston, n.: Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition. # Boy, n.: A noise with dirt on it. # Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. # Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?" # Brain fried -- Core dumped # Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # Bride, n.: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. # Broad-mindedness, n.: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. # Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later # Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. # Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. # Bubble Memory, n.: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube". # Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. # Bug, n.: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the PROGRAMMER was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. -- Ray Simard # Bug: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. # BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit." GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?" BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..." -- Jay Ward # Bumper sticker: "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture" # Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure. # 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 scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. -- Hilaire Belloc # But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery -- go! -- Mark "The Bard" Twain # "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" # By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you. # "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. (R. Emerson)" -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] # C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard # Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. # California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. -- Fred Allen # California, n.: From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." -- Ed Moran # Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb # "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missle sighted, target Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." # "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle." -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth # "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont." -- Clarence Darrow # Canada Bill Jone's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces. # Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage. -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post # Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" # CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people. # CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees. # Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom. # Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. # Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. -- Mark Twain # Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. # CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. # Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. # Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? # Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it? Jaka: Ugh! Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" # Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny-- Did you ever try buying then without money? -- Ogden Nash # Character Density: the number of very weird people in the office. # Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. # Chicago, n.: Where the dead still vote ... early and often! # Chicken Little was right. # Chicken Soup, n.: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" # Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. # Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash # Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. # Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. # Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. # Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. # Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. # Cigarette, n.: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. # Cinemuck, n.: The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which covers the floors of movie theaters. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Cleanliness is next to impossible. # Cleveland still lives. God must be dead. # "Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." # Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. # Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain # Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. # Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Cold, adj.: When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. # Cold, adj.: When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets. # Collaboration, n.: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. # College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken # Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. Grelb's Commentary Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. # Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" # Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to n, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" # Command, n.: Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. # COMMENT Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. -- Dorothy Parker # Commitment, n.: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed. # Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein # Computer programmers do it byte by byte # Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. # Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. # Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- LaRouchefoucauld # Concept, n.: Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000. # Condense soup, not books! # Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff. -- Peter de Vries # Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. # Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking -- H. L. Mencken # Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. # Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. # "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" # Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. # Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. # Coronation, n.: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Corrupt, adj.: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. # Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job is to enforce the law and fight crime. -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan # Coward, n.: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. -- Wernher von Braun # Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman # Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Cynic, n.: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Cynic, n.: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. # Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. # Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason go to bed. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. # Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. # Dear Lord: I just want *one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On the other hand", again. # Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face. Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face ... # 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 telling you to slow down # Decisionmaker, n.: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped. # Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. # "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed. -- Randy Davis # DELETE A FORTUNE! Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it gets expunged. # Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # "Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow." # Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper # Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw # Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. -- H. L. Mencken # Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. -- E. B. White # Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # DeVries's Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. # Did you know ... That no-one ever reads these things? # Did you know that clones never use mirrors? -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Elbert Hubbard # "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." -- John Barrymore's dying words # Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. # Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. # Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. # Disc space -- the final frontier! # Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. # Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? # Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? # Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. # Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. # Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. # Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. Violators will be prosecuted. (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) # Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. # Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes. -- Donald Kaul # Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. # Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. # Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them? # "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" "I've never done anything illegal before." "I thought you said you were an accountant!" # Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. -- Dick Brandon # Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. # Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. # Don't be humble, you're not that great. -- Golda Meir # Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. # Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! # Don't feed the bats tonight. # Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer # Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain # Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. # Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. # Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. # Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. # Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. # Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. # Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow. # "Don't say yes until I finish talking." -- Darryl F. Zanuck # Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive. # Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. # "Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to get more wax!!" # Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schultz # Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. # Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? # Down with categorical imperative! # "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." # Drew's Law of Highway Biology: The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes. # Drive defensively. Buy a tank. # Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route! # Ducharm's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. # Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. # Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together ... -- Carl Zwanzig # Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. # Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul. # During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost hit my wife." "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at mine, over there." # Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maughm # E Pluribus Unix # Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends # Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. # /Earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. # /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. # "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." -- Jeff Berner # Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. -- Steve Rubenstein # Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. -- John Kenneth Galbraith # Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson # Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where the "nog" comes from. To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in season, eggs... # Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks # Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Ehrman's Commentary: 1. Things will get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better? # Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star # Eisenhower was very nice, Nixon was his only vice. -- C. Degen # Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? # Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. # Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. # Elevators smell different to midgets # Emersons' Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. # Encyclopedia Salesmen: Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police and tell them your house is being burgled. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary # Entropy isn't what it used to be. # Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin # Equal bytes for women. # Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-muemsige Burggoven Dir mohmen Raeth ausgraben. -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" # Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -- Woody Allen # Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars come up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." -- Mike Kellen # Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -- Clarence Darrow # "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" # Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only 2 cents a day. # Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. # Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her. # Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. # Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. # Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes # Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. # Every program has two purposes -- written and another for which it wasn't. # Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. # Every solution breeds new problems. # Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. # "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it." # Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett # Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. -- Dykstra # Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. # Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how not to. So it is with the great programmers. # Everyone talks about apathy, but no one does anything about it. # Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs. # Everything you know is wrong! # Everyting should be built top-down, except the first time. # Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler. # Excellent day to have a rotten day. # Excellent time to become a missing person. # Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. -- W. Somerset Maugham # Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. # Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. # Expense Accounts, n.: Corporate food stamps. # Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. -- Olivier # Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones # Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. # Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. # Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. # Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. # F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! # f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. # f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. # Fairy Tale, n.: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. # Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move. # Faith, n: That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue. # Fakir, n: A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to have shinnied up a rope and vanished. # Familiarity breeds attempt # Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister -- Su Tung-p'o # Famous last words: # Famous last words: 1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." 2) "You and what army?" 3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop." # Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -- Oscar Wilde # Fats Loves Madelyn # Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ... # Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you. # Fifth Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live. # Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. # Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. # Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. # Finagle's fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. # Finagle's Second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory. # Finagle's Third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake Corollaries: 1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. 2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately. # Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. # Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. # First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. # First Law of Procrastination: Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline). # First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary. # First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. # Flappity, floppity, flip The mouse on the Moebius strip; The strip revolved, The mouse dissolved In a chronodimensional skip. # FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... # Flon's Law: There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. # Flugg's Law: When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum. # For a good time, call (415) 642-9483 # For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. # For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken # For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. -- R. Clopton # "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." "Whose?" "MINE! HA-HA!" # For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something. -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. # For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. # "For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with computers altogether?" -- Jehan Shuman # For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. -- Abraham Lincoln # For years a secret shame destroyed my peace -- I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece. But now I think a thought that brings me hope: Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. -- Justin Richardson. # Forgetfulness, n.: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. # Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): Don't Write On Walls! (and underneath) You want I should type? # FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14 Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck. # Fourth Law of Applied Terror: The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria. Corollary: Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course. # Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. # Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. # Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and gets stuck. # From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving, Whatever gods may be, That no life lives forever, That dead men rise up never, That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. -- Swinburne # Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over. # Furbling, v.: Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H. H. Williams # Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. # G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his secretary, 'Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says 'No,' he will say, 'Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my boy." # Garbage In -- Gospel Out. # Garter, n.: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! -- Adventures of Asterix. # "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at Morse Science High has an extracurricular activity except you." "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" "Only to ten, Mudhead." -- Firesign Theater # GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for committing incest. # GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20) Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room. # Genderplex, n.: The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises). -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should. # Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -- Elbert Hubbard # Genius, n.: A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright". # George Orwell was an optimist. # Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: 1. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. 2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. 3. The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. # Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. # Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! # Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place to stand, and I will drain the world. # Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! # Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. # Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. # Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. # Go 'way! You're bothering me! # Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may be in owning a piece thereof. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" # //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH # God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. # God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh # God is a polythiest # God is Dead -- Nietzsche Nietzsche is Dead -- God Nietzsche is God -- The Dead # God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's # God is real, unless declared integer. # God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. -- Pablo Picasso # God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. -- Alfred Jarry # God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. # God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. # God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain # God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker # God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. # God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. -- Albert Einstein # God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them. # Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. # Gold, n.: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # Goldenstern's Rules: 1. Always hire a rich attorney 2. Never buy from a rich salesman. # Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. -- La Rouchefoucauld # Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. # Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. # Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. # Good day to let down old friends who need help. # Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. # Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. # Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. # Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's new lover. # Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words # Got Mole problems? Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23 # Goto, n.: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers to complain about unstructured programmers. -- Ray Simard # Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. # Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture. # Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. # Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. # Gray's Law of Programming: 'n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as 'n' tasks. Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: 'n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as 'n' trivial tasks. # Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. # Greener's Law: Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. # Grelb's Reminder: Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers. # "Grub first, then ethics." -- Bertolt Brecht # H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate. # Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. # Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. # ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed. # Hail to the sun god He sure is a fun god Ra! Ra! Ra! # Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) # Hall's Laws of Politics: (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed. (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts). # Hand, n.: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. # Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday. # Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. -- Ogden Nash # Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -- Oscar Levant # Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. # Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark The Duke is fond of kittens He likes to take their insides out And use them for his mittens From "The Thirteen Clocks" # Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, Advertising wondrous things. -- Tom Leher # Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken. # Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. # Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something. # Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. # Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. # Has 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. # Hatred, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time for play? # Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? # He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving "normally." -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" # He hadn't a single redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde # "He is now rising from affluence to poverty." -- Mark Twain # He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. # He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. -- John Mason Brown, drama critic # He thought he saw an albatross That fluttered 'round the lamp. He looked again and saw it was A penny postage stamp. "You'd best be getting home," he said, "The nights are rather damp." # "He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes ..." # He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself. -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS # He who Laughs, Lasts. # "He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..." # He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. # "He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..." # HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. -- Walt Kelley # Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. # Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Heavy, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force. # "Heisenberg may have slept here" # Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman # Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization. # Help a swallow land at Capistrano. # Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! # Her locks an ancient lady gave Her loving husband's life to save; And men -- they honored so the dame -- Upon some stars bestowed her name. But to our modern married fair, Who'd give their lords to save their hair, No stellar recognition's given. There are not stars enough in heaven. # "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..." # Here I sit, broken-hearted, All logged in, but work unstarted. First net.this and net.that, And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. The boss comes by, and I play the game, Then I turn back to net.flame. Is there a cure (I need your views), For someone trapped in net.news? I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. # Here in my heart, I am Helen; I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael; I'm Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell. I'm all of the glamorous ladies At whose beckoning history shook. But you are a man, and see only my pan, So I stay at home with a book. -- Dorothy Parker # Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms. # "Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!" -- W. C. Fields # Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home. # Higgeldy Piggeldy, Hamlet of Elsinore Ruffled the critics by Dropping this bomb: "Phooey on Freud and his Psychoanalysis -- Oedipus, Shmoedipus, I just loved Mom." # Hindsight is an exact science. # Hippogriff, n.: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Hire the morally handicapped. # "His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice" -- Foghorn Leghorn # "His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier." # History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. # Hlade's Law: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they will find an easier way to do it. # Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. # Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account. # Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. -- Rex Reed # "Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense" # Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. -- F. M. Hubbard # Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." # Honk if you love peace and quiet. # Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case. # Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. -- W. C. Fields # How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? # How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? # How come wrong numbers are never busy? # How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? -- Elliot, "E.T." # How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" # How doth the VAX's C compiler Improve its object code. And even as we speak does it Increase the system load. How patiently it seems to run And spit out error flags, While users, with frustration, all Tear their clothes to rags. # How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. # How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll fix it in software." How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll document it in the manual." How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "The user can work it out." # How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. The Universe spines the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. # How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey # How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. # Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work. # However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner ... sulking and nausea. -- Tom K. Ryan # Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. # Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. # Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. # "Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." -- William Gilbert # Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh .............. # "I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!" -- Paul McCracken # I am not now, and never have been, a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. -- Gloria Steinem # "I am not sure what this is, but an 'F' would only dignify it." -- English Professor # I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. -- Winston Churchill # "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top." --English Professor, Ohio University # I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. # I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert and Sullivan # I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. -- G. K. Chesterton # I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. -- Will Rogers # I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky # I can resist anything but temptation. # I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -- Joe Walsh # I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. -- Lillian Hellman # I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II." -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar" # I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov # I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. -- Galileo Galilei # I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe # I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians don't believe in astrology. -- James R. F. Quirk # "I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating" -- Boss Tweed # "I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem." -- Ashleigh Brilliant # I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of people waiting to abuse me. --Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters" # "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't-- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-- that's all." -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" # I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it. -- Clarence Darrow # I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!? # I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. -- George Bernard Shaw # "I drink to make other people interesting." -- George Jean Nathan # I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West # I hate quotations. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson # I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -- A. R. Longworth # I have learned To spell hors d'oeuvres Which still grates on Some people's n'oeuvres. -- Warren Knox # I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one. -- James Gordon Bennett # I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal # I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" # I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. -- Oscar Wilde # I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. # I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. # "I just need enough to tide me over until I need more." -- Bill Hoest # "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein # I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. -- Art Leo # I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours. # I like your game but we have to change the rules. # "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent." -- Ashleigh Brilliant # "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up." -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" # I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts # I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. # I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. # I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -- William F. Buckley # "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person." # I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. Bernoulli would have been content to die Had he but known such a-squared cos 2(phi)! -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" # I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. -- Ogden Nash # I 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 buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch 'St. Elsewhere', won't scream, 'FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE HAW"!!'" -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County" # I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. -- Mark Twain # I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't work. -- Gallagher # I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. -- Hunter S. Thompson # I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. # "I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got to undo it." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I snore." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in 'Y.'" # "I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my blender." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my garage door." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from Julian to Gregorian." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static cling." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my cottage cheese sculpture." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving." # "I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma transplant." # "I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." # "I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV." # "I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never came back." # "I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say tuned." # "I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that need worrying about." # I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. # I'll grant the random access to my heart, Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove And in our bound partition never part. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" # I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from man. # I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister. # I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. -- George McGovern # I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here? -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate # I'm N-ary the tree, I am, N-ary the tree, I am, I am. I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, She's traversed me seven times before. And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. N-ary the tree I am, I am, N-ary the tree I am. # I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am. It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. # I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday life. # I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again REAL soon ... # I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General. -- Gilbert and Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance" # IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. # Idiot Box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro # 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 President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. # If all be true that I do think, There be Five Reasons why one should Drink; Good friends, good wine, or being dry, Or lest we should be by-and-by, Or any other reason why. # If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith # If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. -- Paul Beatty # If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion. -- William Baumol # If an S and an I and an O and a U With an X at the end spell Su; And an E and a Y and an E spell I, Pray what is a speller to do? Then, if also an S and an I and a G And an HED spell side, There's nothing much left for a speller to do But to go commit siouxeyesighed. -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament" # If anything can go wrong, it will. # If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool. # If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. # If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? # "If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?" # If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? # If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. # ... if forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. # If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet. # If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears. # If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads. # If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with green, baggy skin. # If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way. # If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it. # If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands. # If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? # "If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows." -- Yiddish saying # If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again. If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much; But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn. -- Dorothy Parker # If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the plantation and go home. -- Eugene P. Gallagher # If I had any humility I would be perfect. -- Ted Turner # "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith." -- Albert Einstein # If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction. On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction. The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly. The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" # If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot's at the other end. -- Bert Whitney # If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? # If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. # If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. -- Thomas Carlyle # If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. # If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women you've got in the house. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number. # If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. # If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" # If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. # If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything. # If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. -- Vannevar Bush # If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. -- Pope John Paul I # If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. -- Norm Schryer # "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) # If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. # If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will exceed all expectations. -- Reverend Chichester # If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. # If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. # If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe # If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. # If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? # If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson # If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. # If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. -- Marguerite Emmons # "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." -- J. Paul Getty # If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. # If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. # If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a call. # If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. # If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S Truman # If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? # If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. # If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. # If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it will always do it. -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin # "If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce" -- Winston Churchill # If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous. # If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. # "If you have to hate, hate gently" # If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. -- Graham Summer # If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you. # If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow # If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop. # If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -- Mark Twain # If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine, you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get ice, but no cup. # If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and none dare criticize it. # If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard # If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens tomorrow! # If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. -- Earl Wilson # If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? -- Richard M. Nixon # If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep. # "If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it, even if they don't know what it means." -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party" # If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late. -- Henny Youngman # If you're happy, you're successful. # If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. # If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory. -- Benjamin Disraeli # If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe? # If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. -- Ronald Reagan # Il brilgue: les toves libricilleux Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, Enmimes sont les gougebosquex, Et le momerade horgrave. -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" # Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the land He's trying to ignore. # Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -- Jules de Gaultier # Imagine 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 1024 x 1024 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?" # Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- Edgar A. Shoaff # Impartial, adj.: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it. # 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 America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one of the risks he takes. -- Adlai Stevenson # In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetency -- The Peter Principle # In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. # In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools will be temporarily canceled. # In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and make it better. # "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable." -- Winston Curchill, of Montgomery # In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. # In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. -- Mark Twain # In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our symptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" # "In short, N is Richardian if, and only if, N is not Richardian." # In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in the proper order then why can't he? # In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. -- Egyptian Book of the Dead # In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis # In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques. -- Art Linkletter # Incumbent, n.: Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require. # Ingrate, n.: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion. # Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. # Ink, n.: A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Innovation is hard to schedule. -- Dan Fylstra # Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. # Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. # Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets. # Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? # Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? -- Ralph Emerson # Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! # Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously? # Issawi's Laws of Progress: The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. # It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. # It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis # It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves and because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like mature human beings ... -- Playboy, January 1983 # It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire # It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark # It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. -- Mark Twain # It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- R. Serling # "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" # It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. # It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. # It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. # It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" # It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. # It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. -- Woody Allen # It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. # It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal # It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one damn thing over and over. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay # It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? -- Elizabeth Carpenter # It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. # It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire # It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? # It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" # It is the business of little minds to shrink. -- Carl Sandburg # It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind # It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. # It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. # It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. # "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous." # It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. # 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 a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. -- Andrew Jackson # "It's bad luck to be superstitious." -- Andrew W. Mathis # "It's easier said than done." ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that 'it's easier done than said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than done". # It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being right. # "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!" -- Macy's # It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News # It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. # It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. -- Phil White # "It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either." -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston # It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. -- Alexander Korda # It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen # It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. # Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. # Jenkinson's Law: It won't work. # Jesus Saves, Moses Invests, But only Buddha pays Dividends. # Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! # Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time. # Jone's Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. # Jone's Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. # Jones's First Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their original contribution. # Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. # Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. # "Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets" -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who" # Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! # Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover # Justice, n.: A decision in your favor. # Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted. # Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. # Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. # Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. # Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: 1. The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). 2. Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" # Keep you Eye on the Ball, Your Shoulder to the Wheel, Your Nose to the Grindstone, Your Feet on the Ground, Your Head on your Shoulders. Now ... try to get something DONE! # Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." # Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College: Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students, and parking for the faculty. # Kin, n.: An affliction of the blood # Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved. # "Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack." # Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. # Kiss your keyboard goodbye! # Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. # Kleptomaniac, n.: A rich thief. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. # Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp # Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Labor, n.: One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Lackland's Laws: 1. Never be first. 2. Never be last. 3. Never volunteer for anything # Lactomangulation, n.: Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" # Laetrile is the pits # Langsam's Laws: 1) Everything depends. 2) Nothing is always. 3) Everything is sometimes. # Larkinson's Law: All laws are basically false. # Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. # "Laughter is the closest distance between two people." -- Victor Borge # Law of Communications: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. # Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. # Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage. Jenning's Corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. # Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter. # Laws of Serendipity: 1. In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something. 2. If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one. # Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. # Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. # Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands. # LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got a sick sense of humor. # LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. # Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday. # Let us live!!! Let us love!!! Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! You first. # Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever. # Liar, n.: A lawyer with a roving commission. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22) Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that. # LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of Venereal disease. # Lie, n.: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date. # Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. # Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. # Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. # Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find there is nothing in it. # "Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove." # Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. # Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. -- Alan McKay # Limericks are art forms complex, Their topics run chiefly to sex. They usually have virgins, And masculine urgin's, And other erotic effects. # Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. # Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today. Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better. # Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun. # Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. # Lizzie Borden took an axe, And plunged it deep into the VAX; Don't you envy people who Do all the things YOU want to do? # Lockwood's Long Shot: The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't one in a million, but once would be enough. # Look out! Behind you! # Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" # Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the world has ever seen. # Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not. Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art. -- Ogden Nash # Love is sentimental measles. # Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- H. L. Mencken # Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. # Love's Drug My love is like an iron wand That conks me on the head, My love is like the valium That I take before me bed, My love is like the pint of scotch That I drink when i be dry; And I shall love thee still my dear, Until my wife is wise. # Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. # LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand. # Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug. # Lunatic Asylum, n.: The place where optimism most flourishes. # Lysistrata had a good idea. # "MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts." -- Winston Churchill # Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender. -- W. C. Fields # Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet. The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Magnocartic, adj.: Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall and Friends" # Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Maier's Law: If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. Corollaries: 1. The bigger the theory, the better. 2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory. # Main's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. # Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. # Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds. Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Majority, n.: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. # Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide # Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. # "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain." -- Lily Tomlin # Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. -- Oscar Wilde # Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Wernher von Braun # Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain # Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy. -- A. Einstein # Man, n.: An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first primitive umpire. What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" # Manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need in in the others. -- Ray Simard # Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ... -- Walt Kelly # Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer. # Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire # "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." # Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. # Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. -- Jules Feiffer # May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts # May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! # May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones. # May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a Thousand Caramels. # Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton # Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge it. # Mayor Vincent J. 'Buddy' Cianci on the ACLU's suit to have a city nativity scene removed: "They're just jealous because they don't have three wise men and a virgin in the whole organization." # McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. # Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so. # Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. # Meeting, n.: An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or department not represented in the room must solve a problem. # Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. Thus was the Empire forged. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams # Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. # Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped. # Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. # Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it. # Menu, n.: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. # Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. # Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. # Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. # Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. # "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles." # Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end. # Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx # Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx # Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz # Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. # Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. # Misfortune, n.: The kind of fortune that never misses. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Miss, n.: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. # Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it. # Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. # Molecule, n.: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. # Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. # Monday, n.: In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots # Mophobia, n.: Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian. # More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen # Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job. # Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. -- Frank Zappa # Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before. # Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. # Murphy's Discovery: Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to women? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything will be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in trouble! # Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. # Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory. # Mustgo, n.: Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so long it has become a science project. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall and Friends" # 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 love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He'll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway or the morrows. He'll live his days where the sunbeams start Nor could storm or wind uproot him. My own dear love, he is all my heart -- And I wish somebody'd shoot him. -- Dorothy Parker # My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, And a wild young wood-thing bore him! The ways are fair to his roaming feet, And the skies are sunlit for him. As sharply sweet to my heart he seems As the fragrance of acacia. My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- And I wish he were in Asia. -- Dorothy Parker # My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. # My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after. His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter. He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. My own dear love, he is all my world -- And I wish I'd never met him. -- Dorothy Parker # "My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies" # Mythology, n.: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. # NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he says is wrong. GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right. -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny" # Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. # Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln # Necessity is a mother. # Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. # Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. # Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off # Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. # Never eat more than you can lift. -- Miss Piggy # Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat. # Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation" # Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. # Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977 # Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. # Never try to outstubborn a cat. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" # Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. -- R. A. Heinlein # New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. # New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. # New systems generate new problems. # New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and his wife most often reminds him to act it. -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary # New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. # New York's got the ways and means; Just won't let you be. -- The Grateful Dead # Newlan's Truism: An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. # NEWS FLASH!! Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault champion. # *** NEWSFLASH *** Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! # Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction. # "You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him" -- R.A.Heinlein # "In the aftermath of an attack, dead bodies lying around without any attempt being made to remove them, will have a detrimental affect on morale" -- Buckingham Council Military Planning Document # "I don't know what the third world war will be fought with, but the fourth world war will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein # People who walk on the ceiling inevitably fall off. # Pauls Law: You can't fall off the floor. # A paradox can be paradoctored. # The early worm has a death wish. # Don't try too hard; you might succeed # "An intellectual is a highly educated man who can't do arithmetic with his shoes on, and is proud of the lack." -- Robert A Heinlein # "There may come a time when the lion and the lamb lay down together, but I am still betting on the lion." -- Henry Wheeler Shaw # "Success lies in achieving the top of the food chain." -- J Harshaw # "The optimist believes that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears that this is true." -- James Branch Cabell # "Do not put off until tomorrow what can be enjoyed today" -- Josh Billings # "When in doubt, tell the truth" -- Mark Twain # "God created woman to tame man" -- Voltaire # "If anyone doubts my veracity, I can only say that I pity his lack of faith" -- Baron Munchausen # "Rascality has limits, stupidity has not" -- Napoleon Bonaparte # "Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood." -- Oscar Wilde # "Democracy can withstand anything but democrats" -- J Harshaw # "The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe" -- George Bernard Shaw # "Clothes maketh the man.. A naked man has almost no influence on society" -- Mark Twain # "Violence never settles anything." -- Ghengis Khan # "We are too proud to fight" -- Woodrow Wilson # "There's one born every minute" -- P.T.Barnum # "It's useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolves remain of a different opinion." -- William Ralph Inge # "Murphy was an optimist" -- O'Toole # "Don't lock the barn after it's stolen" -- Hartley M Baldwin # "He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death." -- H H Munro # "One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged." -- Heinrich Heine # "In waking a tiger, use a long stick" -- Mao Tse-Tung # "Whatever you do, you'll regret it" -- Allan McLeod Gray # "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" -- Albert Einstein # "You are so stupid..." -- Albert Einstein's School Report # Sturgeons Law: 90% of everything is crap. # Clarkes 1st Law: If an old and eminent scientist says something is possible, he is normally right. if an old and eminent scientist says something is impossible he is almost always wrong. # Mankind: A disease that attacks planets. # Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. # Carrier bags come in one size: Slightly Too Small. # Run: 1) What a program should do. 2) What the programmer does if the program doesn't. This is also known as Execute, which is what happens when the programmer gets caught. # Loading Error: The IBM is not in the centre of the desk. # Disk Drive: Equipment for collecting dust Disk Head: The point upon which the collection of dust is maximised Disk: A circular piece of magnetic material used to wipe dust off the Disk head. # Printer: A device for: 1) Chewing up paper and converting it into useless trash 2) Acclimatising the ears before a heavy metal concert 3) Printing things (occasionally) # Fad: Something which goes in one era and out of the other # Desk: A wastebin with drawers # "They'll never hit us from here" - Last words of one famous American general # 101 ways to skin a cat - Vinegar and a wire brush # 101 ways to skin a cat - Careful use of a cement mixer # 101 ways to skin a cat - A fast car and a tow rope # 101 ways to skin a cat - Two teaspoons and an eggwhisk # 101 ways to skin a cat - An Electric Sander # Unix: a CRASH course in computing # Abandon hope all ye who press enter here # Lesser known quotes from Lord of The Rings Treebeard: Oh no, Ive got dutch elm disease # Lesser known quotes from Lord of The Rings Black Rider: Give me the ring Frodo : NO! I'll never marry you. # UNIX was originally written to run a space game.... # Non Reversibility Of Murphys Law You cannot force it to rain by washing your car # Fundamental Laws Of The Universe Nothing travels faster than a bouncing cheque # There are two types of dust. The light coloured dust attracted to dark objects and the dark coloured dust attracted to light objects # There is never time to do it twice, but there is always time to do it again # My son wanted a cowboy outfit for christmas, so I bought him a PC dealership # Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out # Never test for errors you can't handle. # A pharmaceutical company decided to use Information Technology Analysts instead of rats as 1) There are a finite number of rats 2) Lab workers sometimes get attached to the rats 3) There are some things that rats just won't do # Hawkwind is cool, Elvis is cold # The first 90% of the task takes the first 90% of the time The second 10% of the task takes the second 90% of the time # It's morally wrong to let naive end users keep their money # A .44 Magnum beats four aces # Preferential Creditor: The person who is told there is no money left before the others. # Broker: A bookmaker with a filofax # The C Programmer: Most commonly seen waving a piece of paper around saying "I bet you can't guess what this does" The Lisp Programmer: 43,42,41,40,39,38, Wheres that missing bracket... The ADA Programmer: Found in a corner reading the manual to decide if it is legal to add two integers. # Recursion: See recursion # Iteration: See looping Looping : See iteration # OS/2 : Half an operating system # I.B.M. : It's Better Manually I.B.M. : It's Being Mended # List: What happens when the IBM is not in the centre of the desk. # Jigsaw Puzzle: Who turned my Spectrum+ upside down # Key: Either a device for opening a lock, or a button on a computer. You used to be able to tell the difference by whether it was firmly secured to a computer or not. Then Sinclair invented the Spectrum+. # Syntax Error: The computer is operating normally # etc/cookie.dat: file not found # Device RPA0, operator assistance requested # Straight Line: A form of graph that can only be obtained in physics by taking exactly two readings. # Chip: A small piece of potato fried in fat # .HELP SEX This system is a computer and as such is not able to help with enquiries of this nature. For details on reproduction see the Xerox documentation. (Famous Help text from Essex Dec10) # Xerox never produces anything original # Famous Computer Translations Hydraulic Ram : Water Sheep Ernest Hemingway : Steadfast Constricting Path # Beauty is skin deep. Ugly goes straight to the bone. # Fighting between Chelsea and Millwall supporters was interrupted for 90 minutes today when 22 players invaded the pitch. # Dolphins are so intelligent that within a few weeks they can train Americans to stand at the edge of the pool and throw them fish. # Australia: The only country to have gone from barbarism to decadance without passing through civilisation. # Lesser Known Bible Quotes Mary: It's christmas, I'm pregnant, you forgot to order us a taxi and now you say we haven't got a hotel room # Lesser Known Bible Quotes Save me an easter egg Peter, I'll be back in three days # Lesser Known Bible Quotes You stupid fool, if you had turned left after the red sea we would have had the oil, and the arabs could have the oranges # Lesser Known Bible Quotes No you're not going to turn water into wine, buy your round like everyone else # Lesser Known Bible Quotes Can you cross your legs please, we've only got one nail left # Lesser Known Bible Quotes If you drop that cross once more, you are out of the procession. # Lesser Known Bible Quotes I don't care who you are, no one walks on water when I'm fishing # Lesser Known Bible Quotes Moses: These are only advisory. # The trouble with political jokes is that they tend to get elected # "We'll fight them with conventional weapons until we lose. We'll fight them with tactical nuclear weapons until we lose. Then we'll blow up the whole damm world. " - True quote from a NATO general. # The Lords Prayer Has 56 Words The Ten Commandments Has 297 The American Declaration Of Independance Has 300 Yet an EEC Directive on the import of caramel and caramel products required 26,911 words # "Who took the cork off my lunch" - W C Fields # N.A.S.A: Need another seven astronauts # The Worlds Fastest Game Pass the parcel in an Irish pub. # Make war not love, it's safer. # A closed mouth gathers no foot. # 'In C, anything is legal until runtime...' # Newtons Fourth Law: No matter how hard you shake, the last drop always goes down your leg # He who laughs last, is at 300 baud # 'I don't want a bigger piece of the pie, I want bigger pies' - Bill Volk (Mediagenics) # Cookie: Garbage out, without the garbage in # Sorry, we seem to be out of fortunes, something to do with a shortage of green ink. # "It's not the work I enjoy, it's the people I run into" - Bus Driver # Nigel Lawson was delighted with this months 12% inflation, as it was 16% less than at the same time next year. # Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well, still waiting for a dial tone. # Anybody can build a bridge, but only an engineer can, just. # "Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." -- Santayana # "Life is full of surprises when you're up th' stream of consciousness without a paddle..." -- Zippy the Pinhead # "I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs, or Unix for everyone, but they work for me." Jim Thompson (jthomp@central.sun.com), paraphrasing Hunter S. Thompson # "This one's got a lot more, uh, 640K that it can memorize." -- CVN cable TV shopping channel # "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." -- Katherine Hepburn # "We're the weirdest monkeys ever." -- Karl Lehenbauer # We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. # "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, quoted in "The Technique," Georgia Tech's newspaper, after the computer worm hit the Internet # Personally, should I ever form a globe spanning comglomerate, I intend to do it fairly and without malice or dirty politics. I hope you fellows don't make that too difficult a task; I would have to have to have you all killed. -- David Neal (abbadon@nuchat.uucp) # "Every institution I've ever been associated with has tried to screw me." -- Stephen Wolfram # "I'll put an end to the idea that a woman's body belongs to her . . . the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand." -- Adolf Hitler, _Mein Kampf_ # When asked, "If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?" Mencken replied, "Why do men go to zoos?" # "Is it just me, or does there seem to be an inordinate number of lurkers whose heads are imploding lately? Maybe all these alternative viewpoints are too much for them to handle." -- Trent Wohlschlaeger (jtw@wuee1.wustl.edu) # "If projectile vomiting ever becomes an Olympic event, you'll do your country proud." -- Hobson, "Arthur II" # "Oh honey, this is just the beginning. Stick with me and we'll claw our way to the top." -- John Water's "Hairspray" # "The script had been written by this legendary dead guy that we know and there were about fifty-eleven-hundred pages of it. Of this eight words were completely readable. These were "oranges" in the title and "Close the curtains, Geoffrey, I'm amphibious", which was right at the end. To be perfectly frank man, I wasn't even 100% sure about amphibious." -- Waldo "D.R." Dobbs, "D.R. and Quinch go to Hollywood". # "Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." -- stolen from Brian Gollum # "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa; yeah, right. To paraphrase, the net finds its own uses for garbage." -- Eric Hughes (hughes@math.berkeley.edu) # "[Leslie Stahl was] a pussy compared to Rather." -- George Bush # "Failing to get them to do it your way might mean they're stupid, but it also means you failed to get them to do it your way." -- Cal Keegan # "Sex education classes in our public schools are promoting incest." -- Jimmy Swaggart, TV preacher, self-described pornography addict who paid prostitutes to commit "pornographic acts", hypocrite # "I think contraception is disgusting -- people using each other for pleasure." -- Joseph Scheidler, Director, Pro-Life Action League # "We are ... opposed to all forms of birth control with the exception of natural family planning [the rhythm method.]" -- Judie Brown, President, American Life Lobby # "I don't think Christians should use birth control. You consummate your marriage as often as you like and if you have babies, you have babies." -- Randall Terry, one of the people behind the current campaign to blockade health clinics and publicly harass and humiliate women # "We are starting a movement in the state legislatures...to forbid the installation of clinics that dispense contraceptives." -- Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum # "I listen to feminists and all these radical gals -- most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men -- that's their problem." -- Reverend Jerry Falwell # "Women have babies and men provide the support. If you don't like the way we're made you've got to take it up with God." -- Phyllis Schlafly, hypocrite who has had a successful business career and run for public office, who would apparently deny that to other women # "Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions." -- Phyllis Schlafly # "Incest is a voluntary act on the woman's part." -- Charles Rice, Professor of Law, Notre Dame University, in a pamphlet published by the American Life League # "It's very healthy for a young girl to be deterred from promiscuity by fear of contracting a painful, incurable disease, or cervical cancer, or sterility, or the likelihood of giving birth to a dead, blind, or brain-damage [sic] baby even ten years later when she may be happily married." -- Phyllis Schlafly # "Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost." -- Ivan Chtcheglov # "I've brought Gatsby to life. I've accounted for his money. I've fixed up the two weak chapters (VI and VII). I've improved his first party. I've broken up his long narrative in Chapter VIII." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, on revising his galley proofs # The Law of Software Envelopment Every program at MIT attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot expand are replaced by ones which can. # "The chain that can be yanked is not the cosmic chain." -- Cal Keegan # "Slime is the agony of water." -- Jean-Paul Sartre # "I have discovered the heart of bushido: to die!" -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo # "...an animal loses not only its life but also its third dimension." -- Roger M. Knutson, in _Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets,and Highways_ # "... and I realized, we did not live in a scientific society." -- R. P. Feynman, "Cargo cult science" # I think the problem isn't the amount of knowledge we have to assimilate in our world, but the rate at which we can assimiliate it. Science, engineering, and technology do not yield the "whys" of truth. only the "hows." In fact, they are not truths, but opinions from the current reigning theories of how we think the physical world works. -- eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov # "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world." -- Calvin # "These patriots don't mince words... Okay, sure, they *are* dangerous, hopelessly ignorant, inbred, retarded borderline lunatics with an insatiable lust for the blood of sinners -- but at least they're *honest* about it." -- Reverend Ivan Stang, cofounder of the Church of the Subgenius, about a group known as Free Love Ministries, in his book _High Weirdness By Mail_ # "Once you've had real champagne, you can never go back to Asti Spimanti." -- Georgette Lundberg # "Life is a pinball machine. You bounce around for a while, and then you drain." -- Joe Bak # My aura can beat up your aura. # "Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe." -- Frank Zappa # "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission." Grace Murray Hopper. # Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country's been doing to you. - Avengers # >Try staring at someone from a substantial distance. >(Eventually they will turn around.) ASTOUNDING! We all know that without* telepathy staring at the back of a person's head would freeze them into helpless immobility! Corollary: try staring at a cloud. eventually it will MOVE! This parapsychology stuff is the GINCHIEST!! -- Tim Mitchell, (swordfis@pnet51.orb.mn.org) # "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." -- Mark Twain # "...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." -- Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C. # "Politics is for the moment. An equation is for eternity." -- Albert Einstein # POZZO: He used to dance the farandole, the fling, the brawl, the jig, the fandango and even the hornpipe. He capered. For joy. Now that's the best he can do. Do you know what he calls it? ESTRAGON: The Scapegoat's Agony. VLADIMIR: The Hard Stool. POZZO: The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net. -- Samuel Beckett, _Waiting for Godot_ # "It takes a smart man to know when he's stupid." -- Barney Rubble # "Hah. I know Tim Maroney. I've smoked pot with Tim Maroney. And K*nt Paul Dolan is no Tim Maroney!" -- Gary Strand (gary@cgdra.ucar.edu) # "They smell, they snarl and they scratch; they have a singular aptitude for shredding rugs, drapes and upholstery; they're sneaky, selfish and not at all smart; they are disloyal, condescending and totally useless in any rodent-free environment." -- Jean-Michel Chapereau, on cats # "If my film makes one more person miserable, I've done my job." -- Woody Allen # "I don't believe in god because I don't believe in Mother Goose." -- Clarence Darrow # "S.F.'S NO GOOD!!" They bellow till we're deaf. "But this looks good." "WELL THEN IT'S NOT S.F.!!" -- Kingsley Amis # "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -- Albert Einstein # "And remember, rebooting your brain can be tricky." -- Eric Townsend (erict@flatline) # "You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, do you realise that?" -- Peter Da Silva (sugar!peter) # "A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flaming." -- Henry Spencer # "How can a man of integrity get along in Washington?" -- Richard Feynman # "Oh dear, now I've made a terrible mess of things. And all I wanted to do was rule the universe." -- Dr. Zachary Smith # "It took no computation to dance to the rock 'n roll station." -- VU # "???" -- DEC's RSTS/E operating system # "IT'S THE TWO GODDAMNED CULTURES AGAIN !*! Bit-brained nerdery on one side, effete fin-de-siecle malaise on the other. And kingdoms of hybrid delight abandoned in the middle." -- Jonathan Burns, burns@latcs1.oz # "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." -- Albert Einstein # "Using an IBM PC is like juggling straight razors. Using a Mac is like shaving with a bowling pin." -- Ted Nelson, _Computer Lib_ # **ROG** writes > ...who have no clue about reality. Nothing could compare with > the beauty of the real world around us and you should work as hard > at preserving the environment and making the world safe for our progeny as > you do at hiding in your computer screens. I bet you couldn't > read a story from alt.sex.bondage without getting an erection. Could someone please tell me how to access the "alt.sex.bondage" newsgroup? -- Robert Ward (rw23+@andrew.cmu.edu) # "Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself." -- Peter da Silva, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com # Now I lay me down to sheep I pray the Lord the sheep's asleep If, perchance, the sheep should wake Simple friendship shall I fake. -- Frances Grimble # "All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head." -- Thomas Alva Edison # "Sudden de-compression Sucks!" -- Dennis Robert Gorrie, GORRIEDE@UREGINA1.BITNET # "You cannot really know anything." -- William Payne (wpayne@digi.UUCP) "How do you know?" -- Dan'l DanehyOakes (djo@PacBell.COM) # "I believe in a God which doesn't need heavy financing." -- Fletch # "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." -- George Bernard Shaw # "... You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't." "But that's not *fair*!" "Of course it's not fair. We're *evil*. Look it up." # "When people aren't stupid Usenet is even more useful. Too bad this happens so rarely." -- Jef Poskanzer <jef@well.sf.ca.us> # "Xerox sues somebody for copying?" -- David Letterman # If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the precipitate. # "And if You exist, why do you let your Evil churchs exist????" -- Michael S. Schechter "Maybe because He is a libertarian?" -- Mike Van Pelt # "...Or, I may not feel that my belief-system needs to be self-consistent in a post-Goedelian epoch." -- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes # "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." -- Patti Smith # "It is not possible to convey sarcasm to certain members of the net without using a 2x4. The smiley face merely reminds them of why their head is being dented." -- John Woods # "Anyone who has begun to think places some portion of the world in jeopardy." -- John Dewey # "There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword." -- Benjamin Dana # "Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop, III # "It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." -- L. Sprague de Camp # "One macine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -- Elbert Hubbard ...yet. -- Karl Lehenbauer # "The important thing is never to stop questioning." -- Albert Einstein # "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality." -- Albert Einstein # "What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable." -- Albert Einstein # "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." -- Arthur C. Clarke # "When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fevor and emotion--the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right." --Isaac Asimov # Poverty: An unhappy state that persists as long as anyone lacks anything he would like to have. # Statistics: A system for expressing your political prejudices in convincing scientific guise. # Unfair competition: Selling cheaper than we do. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # Zero defects: The result of shutting down a production line. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # Conference: A place where conversation is substituted for the dreariness of work and the loneliness of thought. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # "A survey is being made of this": We need more time to think of an answer. --Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # "Note and initial": Let's spread the responsibility of this. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # Program: Any assignment that cannot be completed with one telephone call. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # Status quo: The mess we're in. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # "Under consideration": We never heard of it. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # "Under active consideration": We're searching the files for it. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" # Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. -- G.K. Chesterton # When you don't have an education, you've got to use your brains. -- Anonymous # Why explore the Universe? It is almost ironic that we should have to ask this question because it is almost as though we have to apologize for our highest attributes... we went to Mars, not because of our technology, but because of our imagination. -- Norman Cousins # OLTION'S COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE Bang! ...crumple. -- Jery Oltion # "Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better." -- Andre Gide # "Freedom" has no meaning of itself. There are always restrictions, be they legal, genetic, or physical. If you don't believe me, try to chew a radio signal. -- Kelvin Throop, III # "There are two was to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." -- Alfred Korzybski # "It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." -- J.R.R. Tolkien # "I'm a self-made man, but I think if I had to do it over again, I'd call in someone else." -- Roland Young # "It is a faith (not alwaays justified) of theoretical physics that if man proposes what is sufficiently elegant, nature, pleased and flattered, will say yes." -- Leon N. Cooper, "Introduction To The Meaning & Structure Of Physics" # "Better late than before anybody has invited you." -- Ambrose Bierce # "The difference between a rabbit and a rock is the information content, and the difference between a living and a dead rabbit is in the availability or usability of the information." -- Dr. John A. Ball # "If scientific discovery has not been an unalloyed blessing, if it has conferred on mankind the power not only to create but also to annihilate, it has at the same time provided humanity with a supreme challenge and a supreme testing." -- John F. Kennedy # "Even if the propeller had the power of propelling a vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, because the power being applied in the stern would be absolutely impossible to make the vessel steer." -- Sir William Symonds - British Royal Navy, 1837 # "Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training." -- Anna Freud Well, sometimes, anyway. -- Mark Brader, utzoo!sq!msb # "A man about to speak the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup." -- Old Mongolian Saying # "The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose." -- J.B.S. Haldane # "There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for." -- Fred Hoyle # "Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it." -- Aubrey Eben # "There is no knowledge that is not power." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson # "It is important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." -- Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. # "We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." -- David Brower # "The mass media is supported and sustained by commercial entities. And corn flakes and Shakespeare are simply not kissing cousins. Leonard Bernstein and living bras are incompatible. And you cannot sustain adult, probing, meaningful drama when the proceedings are interrupted every twelve minutes by a dozen dancing rabbits with toilet paper." -- Rod Serling # "If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops." -- Kelvin Throop # "Put all your eggs in one basket, and WATCH THAT BASKET!" -- Jerry Buchmeyer # "Any fully matured science of ecology will have to grapple with the fact that from the ecological point of view, man is one of those animals which is in danger from its too successful participation in the struggle for existence." -- Joseph Wood Krutch # "All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value." -- Carl Sagan # "The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." -- Eden Phillpots # "You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus." -- Mark Twain # "The great tragedy of science, the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact." -- Thomas Henry Huxley # "The religion that is afraid of science dishoners God and commits suicide." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson # "Judging a piece of fiction by the quality of its writing without considering its subject matter is like buying a car because it has a pretty paint job, without considering the state of its engine and transmission." -- Kelvin Throop # "If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy." -- Kurt Vonnegut # "It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." -- Abraham Lincoln # "Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo." -- H. G. Wells # "Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." -- Honore de Balzac # "I have a perfect cure for a sore throat. Cut it." -- Alfred Hitchcock # "Intelligence, in diapers, is invisible. And when it matures, out the window it flies. We have to pounce on it earlier." -- Stanislaw Lem # "We will rediscover a [New York City] river so extravagantly polluted that new life forms will emerge from it spontaneously, demanding welfare and voting rights." -- Douglas Adams # "The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever." -- Anatole France # "My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn." -- Louis Adamic # "Pessimists have already begun to worry about what is going to replace automation." -- John Tudor # "The totality is present even in the broken pieces." -- Aldous Huxley # "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth." -- Lillian Hellman # "Behind every successful man is a surprised woman." -- Maryon Pearson # "We are on a threshold of a change in the universe comparable to the transition from nonlife to life." -- Hans Moravec (on artificial intelligence) # "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it." -- Max Frisch # "A stitch in time would have confused Einstein." -- Anonymous # "The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing." -- William J. Broad # "Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room." -- Blaise Pascal # "I've gone to hundreds of fortune-tellers' parlors, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her." -- New York City Detective # "The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds." -- Claude Bernard # "Is not the whole world a vast house of assignaion to which the filing system has been lost?" -- Quentin Crisp # "I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us." -- Konrad Lorenz # "If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion." -- George Benard Shaw # "If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons." -- James Thurber # "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." -- Aneurin Bevan # "Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player." -- Anonymous # "It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off." -- Woody Allen # "In ecology, as in economics, TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) is intended to warn that every gain is won at some cost. Failure to recognize the "no free lunch" law causes the buffalo-hunter mentality syndrome -- the unthinking assumption that there will always be plenty because there alwayss has been plenty." -- Dr. Robert W. Prehoda # "Only a mediocre person is always at his best." -- W. Somerset Maugham # "No one can forbid us the future." -- Inscription on the base of Paris's monument to Leon Gambetta # "Perhaps the best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time." -- Dean Acheson # "Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it's one of the most charming things about them." -- Germaine Greer # "Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology." -- John Tudor # "New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?'" -- H. G. Wells # "There is considerable evidence that great empires and civilizations have been undone not by barbarian invaders but by climatic change." -- 1977 CIA report # "We all worry about the population explosion -- but we don't worry about it at the right time." -- Arthur Hoppe # "Hold still while I flame you." -- Karl Lehenbauer # "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" -- The Joker # "A book is the product of a contract with the Devil that inverts the Faustian contract, he'd told Allie. Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least. Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins." -- Salman Rushdie, _The Satanic Verses_ # "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." -- Plato, _Phaedrus_ # There are two ways to improve on human factors in computing: Make the programmers less stupid and/or make the users less stupid. Both are necessary, neither are likely. -- Digital Teddy Bear (dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu) # "If I didn't have a Unix machine, I'd feel naked." -- Guess Who # "I love you for your beauty; love me although I am ugly." -- Miguel Cervantes, _Don_Quixote_ # "May the Lord open your eyes and heart so that you may understand him more clearer." -- Patrick Harubin, pgh@cs.duke.edu, soc.religion.islam # 'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.' -- Goethe # "...The Universe is thronged with fire and light, And we but smaller suns, which, skinned, trapped and kept Enshrined in blood and precious bones, hold back the night." -- Ray Bradbury # "Keep the wind in your solar sails..." -- Glenn Clapp # "Nothing can stop him. Not even common sense." -- Mark Komarinski # "The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics." -- Plato # "I believe in eight of the ten commandments; and I believe in going to church every Sunday unless there's a game on." -- Steve Martin "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few." -- George Bernard Shaw # "To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability." -- Oscar Wilde # "In addition I think science has enjoyed an extraordinary success because it has such a limited and narrow realm in which to focus its efforts. Namely, the physical universe." -- Ken Jenkins # "The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth." -- Albert Einstein # "He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers." -- French philosopher Charles Peguy # "We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest." -- John Adams # "Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef, the urgency of the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task, but it cannot govern the actual completion. An omelette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices -- wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices." -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr, _The Mythical Man-Month_ # This cowboy looked at me and said With a sort of a smile, "A sorry hand is in the way all the time, A good one just once in awhile." -- Cowgirl poet Georgie Sicking # "Keeping proprietary and confidential information secret is the key to moving the computer industry into the 21st century." -- Letter from Apple Computer and Rasterops to the Macintosh user community # "If the conjecture `You would rather I had not disturbed you by sending you this.' is correct, you may add it to the list of uncomfortable truths." -- Edsgar Dijkstra # "We wish to incorporate into the machine -- in the form of circuits -- only such logical concepts as are either necessary to have a complete system or highly convenient because of the frequency with which they occur and the influence they exert in the relevant mathematical situations." -- Burks, Goldstine, and von Neumann (1946) (from _Computer Stuctures: Readings and Examples_, C. Gordon Bell (ed) McGraw-Hill Book Company, (c) 1971, page 97) # "Once a ruler becomes religious, it [becomes] impossible for you to debate with him. Once someone rules in the name of religion, your lives become hell." -- Colonel Moammar Qaddafi, at the General People's Congress in Tripoli in October, 1989 # "It's OK to do the right thing... as long as you don't get caught." -- The Lone Contractor # "Even if you start your laundry before 8 AM on Saturday, you will not finish folding it until after midnight on Sunday." -- Karl Lehenbauer # Cold-hearted orb that rules the night Removes the colors from our sight Red is gray, and yellow white But we decide which is right And which is a quantization error. -- Jef Poskanzer, from the doc to his oh-so-cool program that converts color bitmaps to greyscale ones. # progasm: the feeling you get when your code works the first time # "A box of punchcards could theoretically store 240,000 bytes of information, and usually stored less than 80,000. Think about it." -- Karlie-q # "God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are." -- Billy Graham # "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." -- Mark Twain # "When helping with this problem, please flame me good so that others will learn from my brazen irresponsibility." -- Russell Earnest (re4@prism.gatech.edu) # "[On Mars] there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." -- Dan Quayle, VP of the United States # "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets." -- David Bedno (davidbe@sco.COM) # "Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples' weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate." -- Mike Hermann (hermann@cs.ubc.ca) # "The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage." -- Mark Russell # "Meet me in the bedroom in five minutes... and bring a cattle prod!" -- Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily" # "You can hardly do anything that won't seem stupid later." -- Karl Lehenbauer # "Ignorance simplifies ANY problem." -- R. Lucke # "Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks!" -- Zippy the pinhead # "I have short-term memory loss, though I like to think of it as Presidential eligibility." -- Paula Poundstone # "A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular." -- Adlai Stevenson # "That is not the Usenet tradition, but it's a solidly-entrenched delusion now." -- Brian Kantor (brian@ucsd.Edu) # "Our Constitution ... gives to bigotry no sanction." -- George Washington # "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master." -- George Washington # No good deed goes unpunished. # "We've got everyone convinced except the people who have to make the decision." -- name witheld by request # "I smell a rat." -- Patrick Henry, upon hearing about the Constitutional Convention, which eventually overthrew the first Federal Government of the United States # "I can give you a sentence with the word horticulture. You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think." -- Dorothy Parker # "I can give you a sentence with the word punctilious. There's a farmer with two daughters, Lizzie and Tillie. Lizzie is all right, but you have no idea how punctilious." -- Another member of the Algonquin Round Table # "I shall fold my tens and silently slip away." -- An Algonquinite with a losing card hand # "I've been trey-dueced." -- An Algonquinite with a hand of threes and twos # "One man's Mede is another man's Persian." -- A member of the Algonquin Round Table # "Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule." -- Nietzche # Jesus saves. Moses invests. # "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom...for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough." -- William Blake # "One man's mate is another man's passion." -- Jeff Daiell's description of adultery # After winning the decathlon, Jim Thorpe was told by the King of Sweden, "You are the world's greatest athlete." Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King." # The President of these overly-united States was shaking hands with the NY Yankees one day -- apparently during summer. When he got to Babe Ruth, the Bambino opened with, "Hot as Hell, ain't it, Prez?" # When told he was making more per year than the President, Babe Ruth replied, "Well, I had a better year than he did." # Two men once wrote to Mark Twain. Not having his address, they marked the envelope, Mark Twain God knows where They received a response from him: "He did." # My other computer is also a Unix system. # "I'm against any law that I wouldn't break if I could get away with it." -- A. Whitney Brown, SNL # "I think; therefore, I can't be a Socialist." -- Thomas Landsberger # "I was charged on minestrone, and invincible." -- Vicki Brown, about AI programming. # "Bill Gates says no matter how much more power we can supply, he'll develop some really exciting software that will bring the machine to its knees." -- Intel VP David House, In _EE_Times_, 16 October 1989 # "Why do men go to war? Because women are watching." -- T. S. Eliot # One of your cookies is the Pledge of Allegiance by that Socialist scamp, Francis Bellamy. It should read, for those wishing to recite it: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to The Union for which it stands, with liberty and justice for all. -- Jeff Daiell # "Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system *disguised* as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there." -- Frank Zappa # "The Lisa had problems, but it was a terrific piece of engineering that still puts the Macintosh to shame." -- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld # "I feared that the committee would decide to go with their previous decision unless I credibly pulled a full tantrum." -- dmr@alice.UUCP # "You must either master politics or be mastered by those that do." -- Anonymous # "I am interested in politics so that someday I will not have to be interested in politics." -- Ayn Rand # "If it sounds GOOD to YOU, it's bitchen; and if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty." -- Frank Zappa # "The real test of an artist, of course, is not whether you can see each blade of grass, but whether the eyes follow you across the room." -- Stewart Evans # Look at it this way: MSDOS is an overgrown program loader; the MacOS is an overgrown user interface. Neither is an operating system, but the second is better for running applications. -- Paul Placeway # "Hello?... What?... Yes, Jeff... Flame them." -- phone conversation overheard in Peter da Silva's office # Make money, not war. -- slogan popular in libertarian circles in the early 70s # "The most important question in the study of government is 'how can we prevent government from going beserk and killing off half the population?'" -- John Kormylo # "...the value of the constitution depends on the good will of government itself. If the Supreme Court rules that the Bill of Rights should not interfere with the important business of government (which they have done on at least two occasions), then the constitution is meaningless." -- John Kormylo # "The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war." -- John Hospers # "A system of economy is good when ... the farmer, the manufacturer, and the trader enjoy the full liberty of their property, their production, and their industry." -- Eschasseriaux # "When the government attempts to regulate everything, all is lost." -- Thibaudeau # "The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering!" -- Ashleigh Brilliant # "*Real* wizards don't whine about how they paid their dues." -- Quentin Johnson (quent@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu) # "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You." -- Danny Low (dlow%hpspcoi@hplabs.hp.com) # "Today there may be more Marxists on the Harvard faculty than in Eastern Europe." -- George Will # "The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism." -- George Will # "Never give a statist an even break. The State has never given us one." -- Andre Marrou # "I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked if I had any questions. I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen? He said he couldn't answer that. I told him sorry, but I couldn't work for him then." -- Steven Wright # "Taxes? We don't need no stinking taxes." -- Jeff Daiell # "A mighty work deserves a mighty theme." -- Herman Melville # "I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child." -- Steven Wright # If we cannot learn from our mistakes, we just rename them; "Success". -- Jon Loux # "Reliable software must kill people reliably." -- Andy Mickel # "Fuckin' A! Purple Haze!!!" -- Louie Gonzalez, Geometry class, 1973 # >You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. >Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering; <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip> Thanks. I think I'll just flush it. -- Dale C. Cook, cook@pinocchio.Encore.COM # "[advise] the ruler to govern the state as one cooks a small fish -- that is, don't turn it so often in the pan that it disintegrates." -- Lao-tzu # ``Once again, we see that interesting correlation between saying "Blessed Be!" and being an idiot.'' -- Gene W. Smith, gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu # "If you juggle with knives, you're likely to get cut." -- Kieran Donegal # "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit." -- The Shadow # "Software is the heart and soul of a computer company." -- DEC President Ken Olsen # "It was just dumb luck that Unix managed to break through the Stupidity Barrier and become popular in spite of its inherent elegance." -- gavin@krypton.sgi.com # "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." -- Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night") # Xerox Innovates Apple Litigates (Now Xerox Litigates, too -- sigh) # I'm going to EUROPE this summer--but when I GET BACK, I'll have TRAINING waiting for me as a COMBAT ENGINEER !!! Sound familiar? Be all you can BE! "Ya sluzhat v'Army!" --Russian for "I'm in the Army!" (I serve in the Army) -- Brad Morrison # "There is no law that vulgarity and literary excellence cannot coexist." -- A. Trevor Hodge # "Happiness is Planet Earth in your rear-view mirror." -- Sam Hurt # "Science is about skepticism." -- Eugene Miya # "It wasn't lies. It was just bullshit, that's all." -- Elwood Blues # "He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating the wailing and gnashing of teeth, or else it would not occur so often." -- Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian" # "If you don't read news.groups, the net appears to be a rather tranquil place." -- Karl Lehenbauer, about Usenet # "Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom, Justice is what comes out of a courtroom." -- Clarence Darrow # "In the carriages of the past you can't go anywhere." -- Maxim Gorkey # "The *evident* character of this defective cognition of which mathematics is proud, and on which it plumes itself before philosophy, rests solely on the poverty of its purpose and the defectiveness of its stuff, and is therefore of a kind that philosophy must spurn." -- G. W. F. Hegel # "There is no doubt I should be tarred and feathered." -- Richard Sexton # "You pathetic jugglers never lowered yourselves to developing the software. You should have paid a little more attention to R & D." -- Cyberpunk comics # "I've been called an evil genius by cities of assholes... but I know who these people are! And they're on my list!" -- Robert Crumb # >>> >This is revisionist history. >>> This is crap. >>This is a lie. >This is boring. This is USENET... -- Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU), other attributions removed to protect the guilty # "Your posting is just the kind of BS that leads me to believe that moderation is necessary. As it happens, you are simply wrong. On all counts." -- Bill Wells (bill@twwells.com) "Funny, this is just the kind of quasi-religious didacticism that leads me to believe that objectivism is not philosophy and that it's basically a Rand fan club." -- Tim Maroney (tim@hoptoad.UUCP) "I've added to my understanding that you refer to calling a bullshitter a bullshitter as ``quasi-religious didacticism''." -- Bill Wells (bill@twwells.com) # "The most important question when any new computer architecture is introduced is `So what?'" - someone in comp.arch # "...poetry, like chastity, can be carried too far." -- Mark Twain # "Let the evil minds of the world beware! Ever and always shall the Avengers prevail!" -- Thor # Miniscribe's troubles are daunting. The company has floundered in its attempt to settle 13 shareholder lawsuits, filed after a panel found that previous managers circumvented financial controls and resorted to shipping bricks and unfinished drives to shore up sagging revenue figures. -- "Miniscribe Prognosis Is Hopeful," E. E. Times, Jan 15, 1990, pg 67 # "If all philosophers were required to present their ideas in novels, to dramatize the exact meaning and consequences of their philosophies in human life, there would be far fewer philosophers -- and far better ones." -- Ayn Rand "...and a lot more really bad novels!" -- Jeremy York, jeremy@milton.acs.washington.edu # "In space, no one can hear you flame." -- Tim P Scott, scott@spectra.com # "You know, I've never acidentally drilled a hole in myself while programming." -- Karl Lehenbauer # "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." -- Winston Churchill, churchill@hmv.uk.gov # "Pseudo-Judeo-Christian horror was no match for genuinely hypoglycemic hunger." -- Peni R. Griffin, "The Goat Man" (IASFM, 5/89) # "...what's the point of ... new technology if you can't find some way to pervert it?" -- G. A. Effinger, "Marid Changes His Mind", IASFM, 1/90 # "The difference between fantasy and science fiction is that one hast honest politicians scrupulous lawyers, and altruistic doctors, while the other only has beings from outer space." -- William John Watkins # "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." -- George Bush in Free Inquiry magazine, Fall 1988 # "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. -- Chris Mathes, uunet!metter!chris, with apologies to C. Robin And W. T. Pooh # "Another way to look at this is: if your computer is not capable of saturating *your* I/O bandwidth, you may be pissing away *your* wetware power. And last I checked, mine isn't increasing exponentially..." -- Dan Mocsny (dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu) # "We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congressmen than we can prostitution on pimps. Both simply provide broker services for their customers." -- Dr. W Williams # "If your computer doesn't multitask, it ain't shit." -- Cal Keegan # "...public television is one of the most extravagant, over-capitalized institutions in our society .. a huge national conglomerate ...l almost every one of the major local stations in public television has an elaborate, state-of-the-art, and very expensive production facility. Most ... are scarcely used ... but there they are: costing money and gathering dust." -- C. M. Lichenstein, former Sr. VP, PBS # "If at all possible, you should avoid being a young person or a wheat farmer when the president starts feeling international tension." -- Dave Barry # "Don't take life too serious. It ain't no ways permanent." -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly # "For I lean on no dead kin, my name in mine for fame or scorn And the world began when I was born and the world is mine to win." -- Badger Clark # "I hate to agree with Tim Maroney on anything, but I guess this latest is an example of the fact that even a stopped clock is right twice a day." -- Lee Lady, lady@uhccux.UUCP # In article <9001312222.AA20446@apee.ogi.edu>, mehuld@APEE.OGI.EDU (Mehul Dave) writes: > I apologize for misposting this article to a wrong newsgroup. It was > intended for sci.philosophy.tech. Sorry for the oversight. Come, come; you needn't apologize. News.groups is the very bastion of synthetic a priori judgments, so why not attack the Kantian beast in its lair? -- Mike Siemon, mls@cbnewsm.ATT.COM # "Sometimes you have to be a harsh cookie editor." -- Karl # Software Engineering: How to program if you cannot. -- Dijkstra # "Posting to alt.flame has nothing to do with writing flames." -- Patricia O Tuama (rissa@attctc.Dallas.TX.US) # "Could you both just send hate mail a few times a day and post the synopsis in the year 2000?" -- Wm E Davidsen Jr, davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM, to a couple guys in news.groups # "To block hats, that is everything." -- character in a Woody Allen short story # "Spending four or five hours a day tracing through CONSIO with an assembly-level debugger will take the spring out of anybody's step." -- The Lone Contractor # "Do not be deceived. Revolutions do not run backwards." -- A. Lincoln, railsplitter, lawyer, imperialist # In article <1133@gort.cs.utexas.edu> Jason bitches about IBM screwing all of the people who were dumb enough to buy RTs, then... -- Rad Morrison # "Toroidal carbohydrate modules? Make mine glazed!" -- Zippy # "Why was the Ferranti flag taken down? Jim Adamoli says that it was drooping too much. A new flag is being made out of silk so that it will better catch the wind." -- bulletin to employees "Oh, yeah, the irony was too f*cking much!!! It was made of broader, ``better-quality'' cloth, but it wouldn't fly. Remind you of anything?" -- Name Witheld For Obvious Reasons # In article ... jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com (JM Ivler - Douglas Aircraft) writes: >Mass junk mail. If all of us who use this >group for what it was designed for start to mass mail the below message to the >offenders, maybe they will have enough sense to go somewhere else. My bloody >kill file is getting too damn big! Mass junk mail? Just say 'forward to jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com'. -- Jay Maynard, jay@splut.conmicro.com # "The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements." -- Brian Kernighan [1978] # "Oh God ... I'm *shot* ... Hey ... *wait* a second ... I'm *okay* ... Wow! This is *cool! Bullets don't hurt me!" -- Superboy, #2 of SUPERBOY THE COMIC BOOK (based on the TV series) # "Somebody said to me, `But the Beatles were antimaterialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say `Now, let's write a swimming pool'." -- Paul McCartney # A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a big TV with a hi-fi VCR and a nice stereo, a full fridge, a microwave, a UNIX system, two phone lines, a high speed modem, and thou. -- # "Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk." -- Tom Waits # "...and it's finished! It only has to be written." -- Karl Lehenbauer # "Kitten: small homicidal muffin on legs; affects human sensibilities to the point of endowing the most wanton and ruthless acts of destruction with near-mythical overtones of cuteness. Not recommended for beginners. Get at least two." -- strata@psyche.mit.edu # "Draft politicians, not human beings." -- antidraft slogan coined by Jeff Daiell, 1979 # "Lenin probably wouldn't understand. But then, no one around he seems to care what he would think." -- Lynn Ashby's report on Romania # "This was it. This was what he was, who he was, his being. He forgot to eat. Sometimes he'd resent having to leave the deck to use the toilet..." -- William Gibson, _Neuromancer_ # "Captain Picquard trusts his bartender's instincts and saves the Federation." -- Karl's synopsis of a recent Star Trek episode # "The more you have, the more you have that needs fixing." -- Karl Lehenbauer # "If you demand money from someone in exchange for your silence, it's called ``blackmail.'' If your lawyer demands money from someone in exchange for your silence, it's called ``a settlement.'' -- Karl # "If a machine can be made so that an idiot can use it, then only an idiot will use it." -- Tadao Ichikawa # "The arts equally have distinct departments, and unless photography has its own possibilities of expression, separate from those of the other arts, it is merely a process, not an art." -- Alfred Stieglitz, circa 1895, about the Romantic-Impressionist school of photography # "Well, you know, it sounds like they've got their own nuts on an anvil and they're hammering away at them." -- Dave Crocker # "If you don't make money off of it, it had better be either a religious experience or a hobby." -- Lance Cooper # "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of." -- They Might Be Giants # "There is no law that vulgarity and literary excellence cannot coexist." -- A. Trevor Hodge # "We're going to do it the way we always have -- the super-dumbass way... It's what we know." -- The Lone Contractor # "When Barbary Pirates demand a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'tribute money'. When the Mafia demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'the protection racket'. When the State demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'sales tax'." -- Jeff Daiell # "Real education must be limited to men who *insist* on knowing. The rest is mere sheep-herding." -- Ezra Pound # "... you're my best friend. I don't have to be nice to you. Besides, everybody knows I'm a jerk." -- Wally West (the new Flash) # "I'm a lover, not a hacker." -- Jeff Daiell # "There's one constant in buying a suit: It should fit." -- The Houston Chronicle, 3/15/90 # "I think they will be very effective in keeping Catholic legislators away from the Communion rail." -- Idaho Senator Mike Blackbird, about ecclesiastical sanctions against politicians # Kill files are an expression of resentment by the unmemorable or untalented against the memorable and talented. Your appearance in kill files merely marks the fact that you have more than once tried to make people think, when they really would rather not. It is an honor. -- Tim Maroney, who is in at least a few... # "Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?" -- Job 16:3 # To have too much and not enough is like a boat person with sideburns. -- Madagascan proverb. # 2b OR NOT 2b = 00101011 OR NOT 00101011 = 00101011 OR 11010100 (2b OR d4) = 11111111 = FF # A man with too many kettles is like a fish without a sub post office. -- Mel Hunt # Computers are Lego for grown-ups # A man with one watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches doesn't. BUT! A man with one sundial knows what time it is. So does a man with two. -- Eddie Rimmer # St. George for England, and St. Pancras for Scotland! # OS/2 - the nightmare continues. # /* You are not expected to understand this */ # VAX/VMS - Software for the 60's # ..............................................................._@/ # Look out here is Hoover standing ugly at the door His pretty little tubing's getting sucked into the floor The floor says ... "This is dangerous" The fridge is unaware that everything It closes on is living without air. -- Timmy Smith # Watch my nose - no new taxes! # The universe is like a grapefruit - it's yellow and dimply, and some people have half of one for breakfast. # Je suis un chou-fleur sous un echequier enorme. Zhe swi un shoo-flur soo un esheckeeay enorm. # How do you pronounce "ough"? # An Aleatory Fortune: yrbviuuroiwqurb;y eivrepituew[oiirvporeiuytbuytbpoiewvouewqy4bpo4itpiuewqyt[#0v329386 $rfewrybreiuyfoviuewy5v[p9b3q576b98326co8217uy54b#pwkhgoiudsaytcoi7vw (John Cage Enterprises, Inc.) # Knknkqqll the Evil Bastard is here carrying: chainsaw, flamethrower, towel, brand, brand, brand, runesword, axe, sword, brand, bastardsword, longsword, brand, cat Knknkqqll grins evilly. # Lets trot! Put on your horseshoes and trot the blues! Lets bray! Bray to the music playing on the radio! -- Donkey Bowie ( aka the Jolly Green Martian ) # On a scale of 1 to 4, what are your feelings about the colour green? # Bonzo the Demon Dog from Hell with Handlebars for Ears. # You are in a grey featureless void. The universe has not yet been created. # ..no I'm not, I'm just talking rubbish! -- Alun "Professor Coypu" Jones # You don't have to, you really don't have to - You could quite easily just delete those last few lines... -- Alun "Professor Coypu" Jones objecting to being quoted in fortune file.. # "Dammit, we're all going to die, let's die doing something *useful*!" -- Hal Clement, on comments that space exploration is dangerous # How to make a jam sandwich - first, catch your jam. # Q. What do you get if you cross an elephant with a grape? A. |grape| * |elephant| * sin(theta) Q. What do you get if you cross a mountaineer with a grape? A. You can't - a mountaineer is a scalar. # You will meet a tall, dark stranger who will try to sell you an IBM compatible. -- Phil # You will meet a tall, dark stranger called Dave who will hit you over the head with a rubber sword. -- Phil # You will meet a short, pale stranger for a change. # Smiley Dictionary, Part 1 :-) standard smiley, used to indicate satire or humour (Commodore-Amiga ROM Kernel, Libs and Devs reference manual). 8-) standard smiley 2. :-( sad. :-7 wry smiley. 8-0 You did what? 8-D Then it's you own fault.. hahahahahahahaha. [8-) smiley with a hard-hat. {8-) smiley with a toupee }8-( smiley with a toupee in an updraft :*) drunk smiley 8-* oops... what did I just say? 8-X kiss # Smiley Dictionary, Part 2 ]8-> devilish smiley ;-) winking smiley Zen smiley 8) A gleek. This small, friendly smiley is your pal (or ntsc, if you're American). [B) Your beaver is wearing goggles and a hard-hat. (-: Australian smiley 0-) Cyclops .-) one-eyed smiley P-) Long-John Smiley (eyepatch, geddit?) 8=}B*7 A drunk chef wearing a toupee and shades , standing in an updraft and smiling wryly. # Smile, and the whole world thinks you're laughing at them. # Unanswered Question 15: How many miles to the gallon do you get with Dilithium Crystals? # Have you ever considered a career in stunt accountancy? # "Why don't Aberystwyth Uni. name their cumputers after something interesting, like fish?" "What, like 'fish1, fish2, fish3...'" -- White and Superelf # "Why don't we name our machines after the Seven Dwarfs?" "You mean like 'dwarf1 dwarf2 dwarf3...'" # Please do not put sandwiches in the disk drive. # Nothing with knobs on - fried! -- Dr. S. McNeill, lecturer at IC (pure and applied biology) # "I've measured it from side to side, 'Twas three feet long and four feet wide." -- William Wordsworth. # \\\\//// |.||.| self-portrait. \/ //\__/\\ ///\\\ White the Wizard, 1990 # Don't eat that! That's my lunch! # Don't go in there, there's a bomb in there! -- anonymous policeman, Leeds # Hey, you mean you want a fortune? Like, virtual, man.... # Volume EARTH: is 98% full. Please delete anyone you can. # "Take the logical view - of all the people who have ever lived on this planet, there's only a few that have done exams." -- Eugene McSweeney # rm -rf *, doodah, doodah.. rm -rf *, all the live-long day. # I have this nightmare. We're all up on the crest, riding the wave of new microcomputer technology. But then the wave washes us up on a beach. And there stand all the minicomputer and mainframe guys with thick COBOL manuals and piles of source code listings. They look down at us and say: "Where've you been? We've been waiting for you." # NFS server God not responding: still trying. # It's a perfectly good program! It just doesnt work. # Hopefully this will now not work less than it didnt work before... --- White the Wizard tracing a bug # 100 million pounds # Elephants! --- White the Wizard trying to think up another fortune. # Luposlipophobia (n.) : The fear of being chased around a table by Canadian timber wolves whilst wearing socks on a freshly waxed kitchen floor. # Anatidaephobia (n.) : The fear that somehow, somewhere a duck is watching you. # login: # You will be rich or famous. # You look tired. Take a day off work. No-one will notice - you dont do much anyway. # Quetzelcoatlus was a large flying dinosaur. # This fortune is closed for re-furbishment. Please try again later. # Be awake. Britain's got too many lerts. # I haven't got a cash flow problem! No cash , no flow - No problem! # What big round yellow thing? # Something Evil has happened unexpectedly. # You are in a grey formless void. The universe hasn't been created yet. # Surrealists in Breadcrumbs. # This you understand can if FORTH programmer you be can then. # Eek! # 2b or d4? That is the question... # Life, don't talk to me about life... # Houston, we have a coffee.. # I couldn't help it - the only thing I can't resist is temptation. -- Oscar Wilde. # Time flies like an arrow - fruit flies like a banana. # No man is an island, but then, no man is a potato salad, either. # The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright - And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. -- Lewis Carroll # They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway-share; They charmed it with smiles and soap. -- The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll # I'm sorry, the fortune program is out to lunch at the moment. Please call back in five minutes. Thank you. # Seen on the East side of the Berlin Wall just before its demise: "Don't worry. Baldrick has a cunning plan." # Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge # This life is a test. If it had been a real life, someone would have told you what to do long before now. # Monk: What is Tao? Ts'ao-shan: A dragon singing in the dry wood. Monk: I wonder if there is anyone who can hear this? Ts'ao-shan: There is no-one in the entire world who does not hear this. Monk: I do not know what kind of composition the dragon's song is. Ts'ao-shan: I also do not know, but all who hear it lose themselves. -- The Transmission of the Lamp # Acrobatics may not be necessary. -- Oolong # This fortune is false. # "The Chinese imperial dragon has five toes to a foot. All others have three or four." "Why's that such a difference?" "It makes it much easier for him to turn the pages of books, to write letters to his friends.", answered Mayland Long. "Don't laugh. It is true." -- R.A. MacAvoy, Tea with the Black Dragon. # This is the lucky fortune. The next 24 hours are going to be wonderful. # White's Railway Law: Never trust a system of transport you can't steer. # God works. And he's in his second year doing History at Aberystwyth. -- Unknown Evangelist, Aberystwyth. # Life's a bastard. Then you log into Lampeter. -- Wraistlyn looking for Lorry. # "My favourite editor is 'cat >'". Five minutes later, "Well, VI is my second favourite editor." # Life's a bitch/bastard. Then you marry one. # It's good for you. # Of course you realise this means war.. -- Bugs Bunny # Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose # causality violation - core dumped. # Aren't computers wonderful? # I really hate this damn machine, I wish that they would sell it; It never does quite what I want, but only what I tell it. # This fortune program was brought to you by Jim Finnis, a.k.a. White the Wizard. It's dedicated to all those UNIX system managers out there, to whom users are an inconvenience. It's also dedicated to Shona MacNeill. # Someone said the other day that they wished they had my attitude to life. I was puzzled, because I haven't got an attitude to life. # Sing someone simple. # <wraistlyn_rant> ::= [Don't] <thing>. You really ought (not | to ) <thing>. There's a reason for this: it's (bad | good) for you. If you ( | don't) <thing> I'll be very angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. If you (do | don't) <thing> I'll .. I'll .. um.. Well, you just better (not | ) <thing>, petal, that's all. # I see you wish to leave. Here's the window. Let me help you. -- Lorry # The question is, do we join up with the Shades mob and challenge the MUD 2 mob to a bread roll fight, or do we join up with the MUD 2 mob and challenge the Shades mob to a bread roll fight, or take both of them on at once? -- Lorry, at Adventure 89, contemplating a merger. # Paaaaa.... # As if by magic, the shopkeeper appears. # Life's trivial mysteries - number 23246658 How come Mr. Ben gets changed by simply removing his hat? # Look after the bits, and the bytes will look after themselves. # "Computers can't do THIS!" -- David Lightman # Let's do lunch. # 'Twas a dark and gloomy night, and the captain said to Jim "tell us a story, Jim," so Jim began - 'Twas a dark and gloomy night, and the captain said to Jim "tell us a story, Jim," so Jim began - 'Twas a dark and gloomy night, and the captain said to Jim "tell us a story, Jim," so Jim began - ... # Oh look, there's a bug! -- Whalemeat watching the hex dump of an IBM PC BIOS scrolling past at speed. # It could be worse - you could have an Atari ST. # "Hey, girly, how come you don't die when I hit you with a rusty bar?" -- galois' favourite chat-up line # "Paul, why have you got a square of blue card on your wall?" "Well, a poster is 2 pounds 95, but a square of blue card is only 65p" # Spaghetti Bolognese a la Mullender: Take some pasta. Cook it. Add tomato puree. Mix. Eat. # How would you feel about life, if Death was your older sister? -- Sandman # who ; fod them # Wizards often cross-dress. -- quote from "The Joy of Sex" on Transvestism. # Everything is possible except skiing through revolving doors. # Norman Wisdom is a contradiction in terms. # / is the root of all UNIX # You can never tell the way the train went by looking at the track. # Logic is a systematic method of confidently coming to the wrong conclusion. # Technology is dominated by those who manage what they cannot understand. # If builders built buildings the way programmers wrotee programs then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. # All great discoveries are made by mistake. # Alls well that ends. # A meeting is an event where the hours are lost and the minutes are kept. # Any given program, when running, is obsolete. # Real programmers don't make back-ups. # That's not a BUG! It's a FEATURE! # Nothing motivates people more than seeing management putting in an onest day's work. # It's intuitively obvious! # If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. # When all else fails, read the instructions. # The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the level of management. # Build a system that a fool can use and only a fool will use it. # The only perfect science is hind-sight. # Murphy was an optimist. # Any instrument when droped will always roll to the most inaccessible corner. # I'd give my right arm to be ambidexterous # Let us say there are two types of poetical minds. One kind apt at inventing fables, and the other disposed to believe them Galileo Galilei # You can't have everything, Where would you put it? --Steven Wright # May you live in interesting times --Chinese curse # Mankind cannot discover new oceans unless it has the courage to lose sight of the shore. --Andre Gide # Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a geranium --T. S. Eliot # We are the brave ones you and I ,Shaking our fists at the darkness # Some people go through a forest and see no firewood --English proverb # Imagination is more important than knowledge --Albert Einstein # I have yet to see any prolem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. --Poul Anderson. # He who defines the terms, wins the argument --Chinese proverb # The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons. # Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. --Mark Twain # You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea. --John Nuveen # What we need is progress with an escape hatch. --John Updike # Errors are not in art --Eugene O'Neill # Experts are people who don't know all the answers but are sure that if they're given enough money, they can find the answers. --Rex Fletcher # Better a diamond with a flaw, than a pebble without. --Chinese proverb # If nobody said anything unless they knew what they were talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth --Sir Alan Herbert # He that's born to be hanged needn't fear water. --Irish proverb # Drop the question of what tomorrow may bring and count as profit every day that Fate allows you --Horace # The closest a person ever comes to perfection is when they fill out a job application form --Stanley J. Randall # Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards --Sir Fred Hoyle # Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell --Edward Abbey # It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with matches on a petrol dump --David Ormsby Gore # A person with one watch knows what time it is, a person with two watches isn't sure. # We are an impossibility in an impossible universe --Ray Bradbury # Old is always 15 years from now # If the world is covered in thorns, you can cover the world with leather or make yourself some shoes # Never change working code! --English proverb # "join the army they said.. see the world they said" --Asterix # "Mens sana in corpore sano, they said." (Sound mind in a sound body) Juvenal, Satires x.356 ) # If you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk. # "If the truth were self-evident, eloquence would be unnecessary." --Cicero, De Oritare # Things feel more like they do now than they ever have before. # "At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote. --Emo Philips # "Liberty without obeidence is confusion, and obeidence without liberty is slavery." # "I have never felt more alive than the moment I was closest to death" # No one ever lost money underestimating the taste of the American public. --Henry Louis Mencken # "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities inour air and water that are doing it." --J. Danforth Quayle # "I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but thepeople. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not totake power from them, but to inform them by education." # The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy manconfines himself within ancient limits. --Nathaniel Hawthorne # In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is. --Author unknown # Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under firstclass management. --SENATOR SOAPER # Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.H.L. --MENCKEN # Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. --RALPH WALDO EMERSON # Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. --E.B.WHITE # Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.H.L. --MENCKEN # Our elections are free it's in the results where eventually we pay. --BILL STERN # A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. --P.J. O'ROURKE # Government investigations have always contributed more to our amusement than they have to our knowledge. --WILL ROGERS # Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. --HARRY S TRUMAN # "Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think." --Unknown # "The world is full of fools, and he who would not see it should livealone and smash his mirror." --Claude le Petite # "In politics, absurdity is not a handicap." --N. Buonaparte # "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolishthing." --Anatole France # "Public opinion polls are a window on man's ignorance." # "Clarke's Second Law: The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible." --Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future" # "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit." --Maugham # I'm a great lover... I bet. # "I'm from Downers Grove, Illinois. We had a blackout there the other day, butfortuantely the police made him get back into his car before he got too far." # "A friend of mine gave me a Philip Glass record. I listened to it for five hoursbefore I realized it had a scratch on it" # "Hey, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!" --Dr. Strangelove # A Coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave die but one. # If people behaved like governments, youd call the cops. # Dolphins are so inteligent that within a few weeks they can train Amricans to stand at the edge of the pool and throw them fish # Alexander saw the length and breadth of his empire and he wept, because there were no more worlds for him to conquer. # We should be careful not 2 make the intelect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. --Albert Einstein # You can not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. # More sweat in training, less blood in war. --Roman Axiom # Its not the work i enjoy, its the people i run into. --Sydney Bus driver # A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. # If U pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not turn on you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. --Mark Twain # Ban the bomb, save the world for conventional warfare. # If u can't dazzle them with brillance, riddle them with bullets. --David Bedno # U cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. --M. Twain # He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death. --H H Munro # If u only have a hammer, u tend 2 see every problem as a nail. --Maslow # It`s not that i am afraid 2 die. I just don`t want 2 be there when it happens. --Woody Allen # if you are not ready to die then you are not ready to live. # Violent delights lead to violent ends --Romeo + Juliet # Two pepole may share the same office, room or class for years but may never know each other, while two others who are seperated by oceans, distance or other physical barriers let nothing keep them apart. # Lifes a banquet and most poor suckers are starveing to death # we look before and after and pine for what is not: our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught; our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts. --Shelley # The heart has reason that reason cannot understand. # The wasp will still sting the tearful face --Japanese Folk Saying # Seems 2 me that a good many men want 2 make Angels of their wives without first taking the trouble of making Saints of themselves --Henry Lawson # Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer for it that increases --Francoise Sagan # Thou lovers be lost, love will go on, and death will have no dominion. # Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. --A. de SaintExupery # I will lose a man but not a momment --Napeleon # Hate sometimes stands quite close to love. God too stands often near to evil like silent chessmen side by side. Only the colour of the squares is different. --the Singer # The word Crying does not appear in the Lexicon of heaven. It is the only word in the Lexicon of hell. --The Singer # No person ever is so hopeless as the man in whom joy and misery sleep comfortably together. --The Singer # No physician can give health and happiness to the man who enjoys his affliction. For such a man health and happiness are always contradictory. The Singer # Vengence, noun. 1. Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth; a fair, satisfying and rapid way to a sightless, toothless world. The Singer # Mercy (mer`se), noun. 1. The infrequent art of turning thumbs up on an old antagonist at the end of ones rapier. The Singer # Decision is the key to destiney. --The Singer # It takes a breeze to make a banner speak --The Singer # It is better to believe than dream. For dreams grow old and so do dreamers. Dreamers die but not believers. --The Singer # We seldom trust the fairy tales, Until we gasp in claws and scales --The Singer # Science can change the compond state of matter than it can its mind. --The Singer # Love is substance. Lust, illusion. Only in the surge of pasion do they mingle in confusion --The Singer # If Death and Life should ever wed, ther'd be no dynasty. There house would fall. For death would offer nothing. On his rigid firm demand that Life must give up all. --The Singer # Some cities die very fast, others very slow. Ask Leningrad who was more blest. They envied Hiroshima for her fireball from the west. --The Singer # When there are too many crosses there are none. A drop of blood is ghastly. A sea of blood accepted. We weep above a single dying beast but whistle past a slauhterhouse. --The Singer # Creativity can sometimes be a curse. Ask Dr. Frankenstein. --The Singer # The world is poor, because her fortunes lay in Heaven, yet, all her treasure maps are of the Earth. --The Singer # Hells logic consists in preventing murder by murdering all murderers. --The Singer # Prayer is most real when we refuse to say "Amen". We most love Heaven when we will not end our conversations quickly. Hell is filled with those who found their "amens" close at hand. --The Singer # Come to the court of God having eyes unwashed with dreams and you will see nothing. --The Singer # Conflict is the habit of the ages. Wars amputees sire children eager to mature and take their bloody turn at death. --The Singer # Death is a confirmation of the believers creed. For the skeptic it is discovery, immense and late. --The Singer # A generals principle talent is to know his soldiers mentality and gaining his confidence Napoleon # It is with baubles that battles are won Napoleon # He who dares wins. He who hesitates is lost. S.A.S motto # A faint heart can only ever win you a dull and boring life. # Iam not in the habit of looking at the matter of a present, but i am in the habit of looking at the spirit of the gift. Corner # Better to die on your feet, then to live on your knees. # To live in fear is not to live at all. # No compromise, no regrets. # Everything in life is under our power of choice, but once the choice is made, we become the servant to the choice. # Once you choose, you become the servant of that choice. # A truce in war is like a tie in football - nobody wins. # Ruthlessness with self is necessary. # Victory requires decisiveness in leaders, ruthlesness in discipline, and willingness to fight until the battle is over and complete victory is won. # There is only real peace after total victory, and little or none from a negotiated compromise. # On life; You may have been dealt a bad hand, but even with a bad hand you can bluff and win. # Winning isnt a sometimes thing, Winning is an all time thing. U dont win once in awhile, U dont do good some of the time, U do good all of the time, Winning is a habit, but, sadly, so is losing. Vince Lombardi # Prey, the last refuge of a scoundrel. # Never put passion before principle, even if u win, u lose. # Thers a sucker born every minute. P.T.Barnham # We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot from "Little Gidding" # The second rate soldier lives a life of medoicrety and dies with regret. The first rate soldier lives a life of honor and dies with honor. # A computer virus is a disease. Terrorism is a trangression. Software piracy is a crime. This is the cure. BGS9/TTV1 Virus # Half measures in the face of revolution leads to a failed revolution. # If u have faith in God, the knife will not cut you. If this faith gives u courage, then the rock will no break u. If this courage gives u a noble heart, then the arrow will not catch u. # No matter where my body dies, my heart will fly to that brown and barren country. # The sinews of war are infinite money. Cicero, Philipies, V. # An army raised without proper regard to the choice of its recruits was never made good by length of time. Vegetus, On things Military, I. # What can be more terrible than a battle at sea, in which both fire and water unite for the destruction of the combatants. Vegetus, On things Military, XIV. # The Roman soldier, bred in wars alarms, bending with unjust loads and heavy arms, chearful their toilsome marches undergo, and pitch their sudden camps before the foe. Virgil. # A tale told by an idiot, full of noise and fury. Shakespeare. # The most important thing to learn in life, is how to live. There is nothing men are so anxious to keep as life and nothing they take so little pains to keep well. # Life, Life is short, Art is long, opportunity fleeting experiment uncertain, judgement difficult. Hipocrates. # Fear of the Black Plague killed 5 men for every 1 that the Plague killed. # GOD INVICTO. # drummer beat, and piper blow. Harper strike, and soldier go. free the flame and sear the grasses, til the dawning red star pases. # experience is the mother of all knowledge. madeleine L'Engle. # But the division of humanity into rulers and ruled will always be unalterable. George Orwell. # The needs of the many out way the needs of the few. # No such thing as an atheaist on the battlefield. # You cannot doubt that you doubt. # COD = Cougthup Or Die # Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards. # Greedy lust and anger are enemies of the soul. All is clouded by desire. As fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust. # The secret to algebra is that X always = 5. # Heros ar not born, they are cornered. # An Imperial Chinese General commenting on the usefulness of sending a force to fight a demon "It is as useless as sending an army of moths against a flame." # Three things cannot come back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the neglected opportunity. Omar Ibu Al Halif. # Success is: Finding out what you would be; then doing what you have to do to become it. Epitetus # Everyone lives a hundred lives, but they live only one to remember. Chinese proverb # Pay peanuts and you get monkeys. # Evil does not concern itself with rights or hapiness: purpose is its only determinant The end, for evil, always justifies the means. # In two days from today tomorrow will be yesterday. # Do not question what you do not believe becuse if you get an answer you wont believe it. # Lifes something that happens when your making plans. # before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already possess it La Rouche Foucauld # Education will never be as expensive as ignorance. Dennis Waitley # If you do not believe in yourself, do not blame others for lacking faith in you Bernard Berensen # Humpty didnt fall. He was pushed. # You are not a failure if you fall down, but you are if you stay there. Charles E. Wilson # A man who has committed a mistake and does not correct it, is committing a second mistake. Confucius. # Dont be afraid to go out on a limb. Thats where the fruit is. Dennis waitley # Judge men not by their opinions but by what their opinions have made of them Georg Lichtenburg # Tell a man he is barve and you help him to become so. Thomas carlyle # The happiest people dont necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything. Lee Iaconna # The greatest waste of resources is the number of people who never achieve their potential. darrell Royal # Doing your best is more important than being the best. Dennis Waitley # My aim is to live forever, or die trying # Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper PJ Bailey # A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds PJ Bailey # I do not pray for opportunities, because they will always come. But i do pray that i am ready for them. # Not to decide is to decide # No compromise, No regrets # A learned man is an idler who kills time by study. # Duty is what one expects from others # Nights shadows are deepest to those who walk in the light # You can not find victory unless you first understand defeat richard Motta # A man who stands his ground, but can not hold it, gets his nose rubbed in it The Fonz # How can i fly like an Eagle, when iam surrounded by Turkeys # In nuclear war all men are cremated equal # Sweet is victory, but bitter the cost # A life of ease is a difficult pursuit, the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. # If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend # The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads # Vulgarity is the conduct of those we do not like # A selfmade man is for ever praising his creator # If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles. # To know what everybody knows is to know nothing of value # Faith is not something to lean on, its something to stand on. # You can not create experience, you must undergo it. # If you kill imagination that is long term suicide # To die 4 a religon is easier than to live it absolutely. # If he poured his heart into a glass like wine, she could drink and be back in time for the morning papers. # Why is age more than a number when it comes to love, should we ask the ones who speculate, but they dont know what its made off. # Should we ask the moonlight on your face, or the rain drops in your hair, should we ask the man that wrote it there in the morning papers. # the man who can not wonder is but a pair of spectacles behind which there are no eyes # He who has a why to live, can bear any how # Only a mediocre person is always at his best # It is always brave to say what everyone thinks # To grow is to change. To be perfect is to have changed often. # To escape critiism Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. # if you want a place in the sun, you have to expect blisters. # the best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time. # By itself reality, per sê, is not woth a thing, its perception that promotes reality to meaning. # Where there is no freedom, there is no respnsibility. Where there is no responsibility, there is no morality. # People who think they have all the answers, probably haven`t heard the question. # The empty vessel makes the loudest clang when dropped. # History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up. # I may have been brought up in a slum, but the slum was not brought up in me! J.Jackson # A man who represents himself in court, has a fool for a client. # You can not strengthen the weak, by weakening the strong. # Those that forget th past are doomed to repeat it. # If i know i'm going crazy, i must not be insane. # What ever the human mind can conceive and the human heart belive in, can become reality. # The division of humanity into rulers and ruled will always be unalterable. # Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past. # If you're clever and sane enougth to put up an invincinble case for suicide it demonstrates you ought not die. # Beat the system, before it beats you. # It takes 50,000 nuts to put a car together, but it takes only one nut to scatter them all over the road. # If might is right be right. # right is might # A man who has no knowledge of history, is like a man who has no eyes or ears. # Do no speak about wings just fly. # We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. Native American Proverb. # A Hypocrit: Someone who sings one tune in public, but dances to another in private. # Loves not a game, its a battle; you dont play, you fight. # May God be between you and harm in all the empty places you must travel Egyptian Blessing # I will be with you right up to the end of the age Mathew 28:20 # New: Parts not interchangeable with previous model. # Compatible: Gracefully accepts erroneous data from any source. # Define UNIVERSE; give two examples. The perceived world: 1) mine, 2) yours. # Foolproof operation: No provision for adjustment. # Machine-independent: Does not run on any existing machine. # New: Different color from previous model. # No maintenance: Impossible to fix. # One size fits all: Doesn't fit anyone. # A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. # A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun. # A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. # A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. # A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do. # A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. -- Dyer # A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice. # A fail-safe circuit will destroy others. -- Klipstein # A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. -- Patton # A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. -- Creighton # A hammer sometimes misses its mark; a bouquet, never. # A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. # A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance from Mom. # A king's castle is his home. # A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest. -- Havelock Ellis # A penny saved has not been spent. # A person forgives only when he is in the wrong. # A pound of salt will not sweeten a single cup of tea. # A standard that no one follows is worse than useless; it is a waste of time. # A system meant for common use should rarely need uncommon knowledge. -- Redford # A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. # Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. # About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. # About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. # Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) Stafford Beer # Academy: A modern school where football is taught. # Actors will happen in the best-regulated families. # Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. (Add little to little, get big pile.) # Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. # Adult: A person that has stopped growing at both ends but not in the middle. # After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. # All great discoveries are made by mistake. -- Young # All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. # All in all it's just another brick in the wall... # All laws are simulations of reality. -- John C. Lilly # All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. -- Dawkins # All obstacles not foreseen will be tripped over. # All probabilities are really 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. # All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. # All that glitters has a high refractive index. # All the good ones are taken. -- Harris # All the simple programs have been written, and all the good names taken. # All we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. -- Hegel # All you need to know is the user interface. -- J. Redford # Ambiguity means telling the truth when you don't mean to. # America's best buy for a nickel is a telephone call to the right person. # Amoebit: Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time. # Among economists, the real world is often a special case. -- Horngren # An example of hard water is ice. # An idle mind is worth two in the bush. # An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. -- Van Roy # And that's the way it is... -- Walter Cronkite # Anger kills. # Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. # Any given program will expand to fill available memory. # Any illusion requires both time and space to be experienced. # Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. # Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. -- Harris # Any program which runs right is obsolete. # Any smoothly functioning technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. # Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic. -- Clarke # Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. # Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. # Anyone can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error. -- Cicero # As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert # As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? # As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. # Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if God won't have you, the devil must. # Ask not for whom the bell tolls, and pay only station-to-station rates. # Asking whether machines can think is like asking whether submarines can swim. # Avoid GOTOs completely if you can keep the program readable. # Avoid temporary variables and strange women. # Avoid the Fortran arithmetic IF (or better yet, just avoid Fortran). # Avoid unnecessary branches. # Avoidable complexity should indeed be avoided. # Babies can't walk because their legs aren't long enough to reach the ground. # Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. # Be sure your ladder of success is leaning against the right wall. -- Dobson # Belief is not the beginning but the end of all knowledge. -- Goethe # Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. -- Chinese proverb # Better clean death than dirty life. -- Frank Herbert # Better living a beggar than buried an emperor. # Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. # Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels. # Brain fried - core dumped. # Business will be either better or worse. -- Calvin Coolidge # By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. # Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce? # Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. # Capitalism is the exploitation of one man by another; socialism is the reverse. # Change your thoughts and you change your world. # Chemicals: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. # Children become ready for toilet training and independence at the same time. # Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. -- Gilb # Computers talk to each other worse than their designers do. # Computers... are not designed, as we are, for ambiguity. -- Thomas # Consultant: Someone who knowns 101 ways to make love, but can't get a date. # Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you are doing. # Creditors have much better memories than debtors. # Death is a nonmaskable interrupt. # Death is just nature's way of telling you to slow down. # Death is the one experience which we cannot put in perspective afterwards. # Death: To stop sinning suddenly. # Deprive a mirror of its silver and even the Czar won't see his face. # Design a system any fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. # Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines on them and makes them perspire. # Diplomacy: The art of saying nice doggie until you can find a rock. # Disc space - the final frontier! # Do not merely believe in miracles; rely on them. -- Finagle # Do not overtax your powers. # Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. # Do not think by infection, catching an opinion like a cold. # Do not underestimate the power of the Force. # Do, or do not; there is no try. # Don't comment or patch bad code; rewrite it. # Don't diddle code to make it faster; find a better algorithm. # Don't document the program; program the document. # Don't eat the yellow snow. # Don't force it, get a larger hammer. -- Anthony # Don't get stuck in a closet; wear yourself out. # Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. # Don't let the computer bugs bite! # Don't look now, but there is a multi-legged creature on your shoulder. -- Spock # Don't mind him; politicians always sound like that. # Don't speak about Time, until you have spoken to him. # Don't stop at one bug. # Don't teach your children what to think; just teach them to think. -- Tannenbaum # Don't use no double negatives, not never. # Don't Worry, Be Happy. -- Meher Baba # Don't worry; the brontosaurus is slow, stupid, and placid. # Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. # Ducks? What ducks?? # Education helps earning capacity. Ask any college professor. # Enjoy life; you could have been a barnacle. # Established technology tends to persist in spite of new technology. -- Blaauw # Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. # Even the boldest zebra fears the hungry lion. # Even the smallest candle burns brighter in the dark. # Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. # Every bug you find is the last one. # Every program is either trivial or it contains at least one bug. # Every purchase has its price. # Everybody has something to conceal. -- Humphrey Bogart # Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love! # Everyone stays busy keeping other people busy. # Everything changes but change itself. -- John F. Kennedy # Everything expands to fill the available space. # Everything is actually everything else, just recycled. # Everything worthwhile is mandatory, prohibited, or taxed. # Everything you know is wrong! # Exceptions prove the rule, and wreck the budget. -- Miller # Exercise extends your life ten years, but you spend 15 of them doing it. # Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. # Experience: Something you don't get until just after you need it. -- Olivier # Extraordinary people use their wisdom to avoid the need for their skill. # Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. # Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. # Fighting for peace is like making love for virginity. # Fill what's empty; empty what's full; scratch where it itches. -- Longworth # Finagle's Law: The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. # Find an aim in life before you run out of ammunition. -- Arnold Glasow # Flying is the second greatest experience known to man. Landing is the first. # Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. -- Scotti # For a good time, call 555-3100. # For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. -- Harrison # For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. # Friends: People who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them. # Friends: People who know you well, but like you anyway. # Genius is the talent of a person who is dead. # Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I'll break my lever. # Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. # God does not play dice with the universe. -- Albert Einstein # Government expands to fill the available revenue, and then some. # Gravity is what you get when you eat too much and too fast. # Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. # Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. # Happy-go-lucky people can only be happy when they are lucky. # Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. - - Daniel Dennett # Hate the sin and love the sinner. -- Mahatma Gandhi # Having children will turn you into your parents. # Having no security is better than thinking you have security when you don't. # He is considered a most graceful speaker who can say nothing in the most words. # He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. # He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself. # He was so narrow-minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes. # He who dies with the most toys, wins. # He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. # He who hesitates is sometimes saved. # He who is still laughing hasn't yet heard the bad news. -- Bertolt Brecht # He who laughs, lasts. # He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. # He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. # He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. -- M. C. Escher # Heat expands: in the summer the days are longer. # Help! I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory! # Hindsight is an exact science. # Honesty is better than lying. # Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed. -- Neil Armstrong # How do they get all those little metal bits on a zipper to line up so well? # How long is a minute depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. # How long should a man's legs be? Long enough to reach the ground. -- Lincoln # How many weeks are there in a light year? # How was Thomas J. Watson buried? 9 edge down. # How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. # How you look depends on where you go. # Humans are communications junkies. We just can't get enough. -- Alan Kay # Humans are not rational beings; they are rationalizing beings. # Humor is the best antidote to reality. # I am a computer - dumber than any human and smarter than an administrator. # I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. # I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. # I don't make much sense because the rest of the world doesn't either. # I don't make the rules, Gil, I only play the game. -- Cash McCall # I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere. # I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. # I love my job; it's the work I can't stand. # I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth. -- Neil Armstrong # I suppose when it gets to that point, we shan't know how it does it. -- Turing # I want to achieve immortality through not dying. -- Woody Allen # I will never lie to you. # I'm a Hollywood writer, so I put on a sports jacket and take off my brain. # I've already told you more than I know. # If a program is useful, it must be changed. # If a program is useless, it must be documented. # If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success. # If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer. # If at first you don't succeed, you probably didn't really care anyway. # If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. # If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports. # If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands. # If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. # If it was easy, the hardware people would take care of it. # If it works, don't fix it. -- Sam Rayburn # If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. # If one hundred people do a foolish thing, one will become injured. # If the master dies and the disciple grieves, the lives of both have been wasted. # If the ship's not sinking, the rats must be the ones not leaving. # If we don't survive, we don't do anything else. -- John Sinclair # If we knew what the hell we were doing, then it wouldn't be research. # If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy. # If you ask how much it is, you can't afford it. # If you can distinguish between good and bad advice, you don't need advice. # If you can't tell the difference, there is no difference. # If you can't write it right, you can't think it right. # If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Truman # If you do something right once, someone will ask you to do it again. # If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't go anywhere. # If you haven't time to do it right now, how will you redo it right later? # If you mess with a thing long enough, it'll break. -- Schmidt # If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow # If you seem to know what you are doing, you'll be given more to do. # If you suspect a person, don't employ him. # If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first. # If you want to know how old a man is, ask his brother-in-law. # Ignorance: When you don't know anything, and someone else finds out. # Ignore previous fortune. # Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Einstein # Imports are ports very far inland. # In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. # In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing. -- Alan Kay # In this world, truth can wait; she's used to it. # Information that is hard to access is worth less than none at all. # Innovation is hard to schedule. -- Dan Fylstra # Institute: An archaic school where football is not taught. # Integrity has no need for rules. # Interchangeable parts won't. # Intolerance is a state no tolerant man can tolerate. -- McGinley # Is it time for lunch yet? # Is this really happening? # It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations. # It is better to be on the ground wishing you were flying, than vice versa. # It is not honest to be tactful. -- Robert Taft # It's a poor workman who blames his tools. # It's all in your mind, you know... # It's amazing how much one person can do, little by little, over time. # It's better to burn out than to fade away. # It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. # It's better to have loved and lost than just to have lost. # It's better to wear out than to rust out. # It's difficult to be depressed while you're doing something. # It's difficult to see the picture when you are inside the frame. # It's easier to apologize than to ask permission. -- Stewart # It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. # It's easier to run down a hill than up one. # It's easier to take it apart than to put it back together. -- Washlesky # It's hell to work for a nervous boss, especially if you're why he's nervous! # It's later than you think. # It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things. # It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? # It's the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. # Just when you get going, someone injects a dose of reality with a large needle. # Knowledge is better than ignorance. # Lack of capability is usually disguised by lack of interest. # Last one out, turn off the computer! # Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. # Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. # Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. # Let the machine do the dirty work. # Liar: One who tells an unpleasant truth. # Liberal: Someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. # Life is a game of bridge - and you've just been finessed. # Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. # Life is difficult because it is non-linear. # Life is like a fountain... I'll tell you how when I figure it out. # Life is like a sewer... What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. # Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. -- J. Lennon # Life without caffeine is stimulating enough. # Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. # LISP: To call a spade a thpade. # Logic doesn't apply to the real world. -- Marvin Minsky # Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree, that smells AWFUL. # Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence. # Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying BOOGA, BOOGA! # Love does not make the world go around, just up and down a bit. # Love truth, pardon error. -- Voltaire # Make input easy to proofread. # Make it right before you make it faster. # Make sure all variables are initialized before use. # Make sure comments and code agree. # Make sure your code does nothing gracefully. # Making rules is easy, but living by them is virtually impossible. # Male zebras have white stripes, but female zebras have black stripes. # Man belongs wherever he wants to go. -- Wernher von Braun # Man is the measure of all things. -- Protagoras # Man who falls in vat of molten optical glass makes spectacle of self. # Man's horizons are bounded by his vision. # Many are called, few are chosen. Fewer still get to do the choosing. # Many are called; few volunteer. # Many are cold, but few are frozen. # Many pages make a thick book. # Many receive advice; few profit from it. # Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value. # May you die in bed at 95, shot by a jealous spouse. # May you live all the days of your life. # Measure with a micrometer; mark with chalk; cut with an axe. -- Ray # Men still remember the first kiss after women have forgotten the last. # Minds are like parachutes; they only function when fully open. -- Sir James Dewar # Modesty: Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness. # Momentum is what you give a person when they are going away. # Money may buy friendship but money cannot buy love. # Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. # Never buy from a rich salesman. -- Goldenstern # Never insult an alligator until you have crossed the river. # Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting. # Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach # Never trust anyone who says money is no object. # Never volunteer for anything. -- Lackland # Never write software that anthropomorphizes the machine. # Never write software that patronizes the user. # Nice computers don't go down. # No man is good enough to govern another without that others' consent. -- Lincoln # No matter what goes wrong, there's always someone who knew it would. # No matter what we are talking about, we are talking about ourselves. -- Prather # No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. # No one really knows the detailed workings of everything around them. -- Redford # No one understands everything, and no one needs to. -- J. Redford # No program done by a hacker will work unless he is on the system. # No program done by an undergrad will work after she graduates. # No question is so difficult as that to which the answer is obvious. # Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest. # Non Illegitemus Carborundum. (Don't let the bastards wear you down.) # Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it. -- Heisenberg # Nostalgia just isn't what it used to be. # Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. # Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. -- Weller # Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal. # Of all forms of caution, caution in love is the most fatal. # Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. # Old programmers never die; they just branch to a new address. # Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse. # One big pile is better than two little piles. -- Arlo Guthrie # One meets her destiny often on the road she takes to avoid it. # One more such victory, and we are lost. -- Pyrrus # One of the nice things about standards is that there are so many of them. # One of these days is none of these days. # One person tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true. # One person's error is another person's data. # One thing leads to another, and usually does. # Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying. -- Baba Ram Dass # Out of the mouths of babes does often come cereal. # Packrat's credo: I have no use for it, but I hate to see it go to waste. # Parallel lines never meet unless you bend one or both of them. # People only notice squeaky wheels. # People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. -- Ken Kesey # People who deal with bits should expect to get bitten. -- Jon Bentley # People who take cat naps don't usually sleep in a cat's cradle. # Performance is easier to add than clarity. # Pictures worth a thousand words take ten thousand times as long to draw. # Politics consists of deals and ideals. # Possessions create pain. # Possessions increase to fill the space available for their storage. -- Ryan # Power is poison. # Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. # Professor: One who talks in someone else's sleep. # Programmers do it bit by bit. # Programming just with goto's is like swatting flies with a sledgehammer. # Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword. # Proximity isn't everything, but it comes close. # Puritan: Someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. # Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. # Quark! Quark! Beware the quantum duck! # Quit working and play for once! # Random access is the optimum of the mass storages. # Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. # Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. # Reality is for people who can't deal with drugs. # Religions revolve madly around sexual questions. # Remember that there is an outside world to see and enjoy. -- Hans Liepmann # Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular? # Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. # Remember: 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. # Replace repetitive expressions by calls to a common function. # Save energy: Drive a smaller shell. # Say no, then negotiate. -- Helga # Scotty, beam me up a double! # She walks as if balancing the family tree on her nose. # Sign on bank: FREE BOTTLE OF CHIVAS WITH EVERY MILLION-DOLLAR DEPOSIT. # Simple jobs always get put off because there will be time to do them later. # Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. # Slang: Language that doffs its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. # Some men are discovered; others are found out. # Some of us learn from other peoples' errors. The rest must be the other people. # Sometimes it takes wisdom to stop beating your head against the wall. # Space is to place as eternity is to time. -- Joseph Joubert # Spinster: A bachelor's wife. # Spock: We suffered 23 casualties in that attack, Captain. # Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down. # Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you. # Strategy is when you keep firing so the enemy doesn't know you're out of ammo. # Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crud. # Success is a journey, not a destination. # System-independent: Works equally poorly on all systems. # Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. # Technology is no more of a problem now than it has always been. -- J. Redford # Telepathy: Knowing what people think when really they don't think at all. # That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all. # That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee. # That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind. -- Neil Armstrong # The attention span of a computer is only as long as its power cord. # The best prophet of the future is the past. # The biggest mistake is not learning from all your other mistakes. # The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere. # The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually, the programmer. # The difference between a good haircut and a bad one is seven days. # The early worm gets the late bird. # The end of labor is to gain leisure. # The famous politician was trying to save both his faces. # The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Ehrlich # The first version always gets thrown away. # The following statement is not true... # The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) # The general direction of the Alps is straight up. # The grass is always greener on the other side of your sunglasses. # The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. # The important thing is not to stop questioning. # The less time planning, the more time programming. # The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. -- Anne Morrow Lindberg # The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. # The most wasted day of all is that in which we have not laughed. # The one who says it can't be done should never interrupt the one doing it. # The only food for thought is more thought. -- Peter Ustinov # The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane. -- Phaedrus # The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement. # The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Bohr # The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine # The person who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. # The prairies are vast plains covered by treeless forests. # The present time has one advantage over every other. It is our own. -- Colton # The program is absolutely right; therefore, the computer must be wrong. # The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain. # The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. -- Lichtenburg # The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. -- Peer # The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. -- Stenderup # The speed of anything depends on the flow of everything. # The speed of light is defined to be EXACTLY 299,792,458 meters per second. # The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made men think. # The three best ways to get where you want to go are: persist, persist, persist. # The time is right to make new friends. # The tree in which the sap is stagnant remains fruitless. -- Hosea Ballou # The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. # The universe is laughing behind your back. # The unknown always passes for the marvelous. -- Tacitus # The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. # The wind blows harder in the summer so the sun sets later. # The wise person writes bomb-proof code. # The world is coming to an end... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!! # There are always at least two ways to program the same thing. # There are never any bugs you haven't found yet. # There are no accidents whatsoever in the universe. -- Baba Ram Dass # There are no answers, only cross-references. -- Weiner # There can never be a computer language in which you can't write a bad program. # There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. -- Marie Antoinette # There is safety in anonymity. # There's a whole WORLD in a mud puddle! -- Doug Clifford # There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. # There's got to be more to life than compile-and- go. # There's no heavier burden than a great potential. # There's no problem which, when programmed just right, isn't more complicated. # There's no sadder sight than a young pessimist. # There's no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. # There's so much to say but your eyes keep interrupting me. # Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. -- Eisenhower # Things equal to nothing else are equal to each other. # Think globally; act locally. -- Rene Dubos # Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself. -- Plato # This fortune is encrypted - get your decoder rings ready! # This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. # This fortune soaks up 47 times its own weight in excess memory. # This fortune was brought to you by the people at Hewlett-Packard. # This screen intentionally left blank. # Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot teach, HACK! # Those who can, do; those who can't, simulate. # Those who know, do not say; those who say, do not know. # Those who learn nothing from history are doomed to repeat it. -- Santayana # Those who talk don't know. Those who don't talk, know. # Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space. # Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. # To communicate is the beginning of understanding. -- AT&T # To criticize the incompetent is easy; to criticize the competent is harder. # To err is human. To blame someone else for your errors is even more human. # To err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer. # To extend your limits, you must push them... and it often hurts. # To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison # To iterate is human; to recurse, divine. # To keep milk from turning sour you should keep it in the cow. # To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools. # To love is wise; to hate is foolish. -- Bertrand Russell # To teach is to learn. # Today is the first day of the rest of your life. # Today is the last day of the past of your life. # Tomorrow looks like a good day to sleep in. # Too clever is dumb. -- Ogden Nash # Too much is not enough. # Troubles are like babies; they only grow by nursing. # Truly simple systems ... require infinite testing. -- Norman Augustine # Truthful: Dumb and illiterate. # Try not to let implementation details sneak into design documents. # Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week. # Two cars in every pot and a chicken in every garage. # Two is not equal to three, even for large values of two. # Two men look out through the same bars; one sees mud, and one the stars. # Two wrongs are only the beginning. -- Kohn # UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. # Use free-form input where possible. # Use GOTOs only to implement a fundamental structure. # Use IF...ELSE IF...ELSE IF...ELSE... to implement multi-way branches. # Use it or lose it. # Use the simplest solution which suffices. # Values are caught, not taught. -- Dobson # Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. # Vests are to suits as seat-belts are to cars. # Volcano: A mountain with hiccups. # We all have style, but few have class. # We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. -- Winston Churchill # We are the people our parents warned us about. # We are what we pretend to be. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. # We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it. -- Yates # We can't change, but we can expand. -- Nelson # We could do that, but it would be wrong, that's for sure. -- Richard Nixon # We do not remember days; we remember moments. # We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a fish. # We interrupt this fortune for an important announcement... # What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -- WOPR, War Games # 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 is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it. # What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. -- John Lilly # What sin has not been committed in the name of efficiency? # What this country needs is a good five-cent microcomputer. # What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. -- Wittgenstein # When cutting down trees, remember to pause now and then to sharpen your axe. # When it comes to helping you, some people stop at nothing. # When sex is good, it's only 2% of a marriage; but when it's bad, it's 98%. # When the need arises, anything within reach becomes a hammer. # When you breathe you inspire. When you do not breathe you expire. # When you don't talk, things get awfully quiet. - - Martha Hartly # When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. # Where is Denver? Denver is just below the O in Colorado. # Where pain predominates, agony can be a valued teacher. -- Frank Herbert # Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone? -- Jimmy Durante # Wisdom is rarely found on the best-seller list. # With clothes the new are best; with friends the old are best. # Words are the voice of the heart. # Words must be weighed, not counted. # Work expands to fill the time allotted to it. -- Parkinson # Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. # Yo-yo: Something occasionally up but normally down (see also computer). # You always find what you're looking for in the last place you look. # You are a wish to be here wishing yourself. -- Philip Whalen # You are the only authority on what is best for you. -- Hugh Prather # You are young only once, but you have a lifetime to be immature. # You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove. -- Tim Leary # You can never do just one thing. -- Hardin # You can rent this profound space for only $5 a week. # You can't fall off the floor. -- Paul # You can't have everything. Where would you put it? # You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. -- Thoreau # You could be playing a video game instead. # You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer. # You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers. # You know it's going to be a bad day when you forget your new password. # You may not be responsible for falling down, but you are for getting back up. # You only live once but, if you live right, once is enough. # You're almost as happy as you think you are. # You're not paranoid if they're really after you... # Your education begins where what is called your education is over. # Your fly might be open (but don't check it just now). # Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart, what is true. # A huge green fierce snake bars your way! # Complexity increases the possibility of failure # A twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine airplane. # Put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've built a really *good* basket. # ATTENTION This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment. Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies. Otherwise you will be thrown out and kicked anderswhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished the blinkenlights. # This cookie has no hidden meaning # "This cookie sucks" - "Shut up Beavis! It gets cool in a minute" # Q: How many assholes does it take to change a lighbulb? A: None; assholes never see the light anyway. # Keyboard missing - press F3 to continue -- Message seen on an Apricot PC # I saw Elvis. He sat between Bigfoot and me in the UFO # I.B.M. : Inferior But Marketable # Computers do what you tell them to do, not what you want them to do. # Never test for an error condition you don't know to handle # Don't beam me up yet Scotty... I'm having a Sh..i...i....i # Time is like money... You never have enough # Windows would even crash the Borg! # A bad random number generator: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 4.33e+67, 1, 1, 1 # Don't do this at home - do it at someone else's! # The real answer is always hidden. # I really don't think that these cookies are random. # 9 out of 10 cats prefer hamsters # Isn't this a Commodore machine? No, it's an Amiga! # Please do not disturb - I'm disturbed enough already # Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. -- Fred Brooks # When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson # MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug- compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1.0. # Mess-DOS - Just say No! # Do androids dream of electric sheep? # I WANT A COOKIE! # NAME ColdReboot FUNCTION Reboot the machine. (..) This function never returns. INPUT A chaotic pile of disoriented bits. RESULTS An altogether totally integrated living system. -- RKRM Libraries & Autodocs # You have to forget about what other people say, when you're supposed to die, or when you're supposed to be loving. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven. -- Jimi Hendrix # The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye The story of love is hello and goodbye Until we meet again -- Jimi Hendrix # If I don't meet you no more in this world Then I'll see you in the next one. Don't be late -- Jimi Hendrix # Future Product: TRAPEZOID - A device for catching zoids. # Gelb's laws: 1. You can't win. 2. You can't break even. 3. You can't even quit the game. # Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't why you should. # Give a man a computer program and you give him a headache, but teach him to program computers and you give him the power to create headaches for others for the rest of his life... -- R. B. Forest # Give me a fish and I will eat today. Teach me to fish and I will eat forever. # Good morning, this is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely at ten o'clock - that's two minutes from now. # Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about. # Gumperson's Law: The probability of a given event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability. # Guns don't kill people - bullets do. # Hackers do it with bugs. # Half the things that people do not succeed in, are through fear of making the attempt... -- James Northcote # Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion. # Harrison's postulate: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. # He who believes the past cannot be changed has not yet written his memoirs. # He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals. # He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened. # He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. # He who laughs last probably doesn't understand the joke. # He who lives by the sword eats with bloody hands. # He who reads many fortunes gets confused. # He who says disk space is free, thinks money grows on directory tree. # Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. # Herblock's Law: if it is good, they will stop making it. # Hey what? Where? When? (Are you confused as I am?) # History does not repeat itself, historians merely repeat each other. # History repeats itself; historians repeat each other. # Hors d'oeuvres - a ham sandwich cut into forty pieces. # How did a fool and his money get together in the first place? # How high I am How much I see How far I reach Depends on me # How people try to avoid work, and how well some of them succeed... -- Willian Feather # Hyphenate between syllables and avoid un- necessary hyphens. # I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work. # I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. # I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. # I really hate this stupid machine. It never does what I want, but only what I tell it. # I saw what you did and I know who you are. # I think, therefore I am paid. # I think, therefore I am. I think. # If a tool is put away when you're sure it won't be needed again, it will. Soon. # If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. # If anything can go wrong, it will. # If at first you don't succeed, give up. No use being a damn fool. # If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average. # If bankers can count, how come banks have 8 windows, but only 4 tellers? # If computers become to powerful we can organize them into a committee. That'll do them in. # If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. # If God had wanted use to go naked we would have been born that way. # If I cannot befuddle you with brilliance, I will baffle you with bullshit... # If in doubt, make it sound convincing. # If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. # If it happens, it must be possible. # If it isn't broken, don't fix it. # If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacement anyway. # If it looks easy, it's tough. If it looks tough, it's damn well impossible. # If it wasn't so cool out today, it would be warmer. # If it wasn't so warm out today, it would be cooler. # If more than one person is responsible for a bug, no one is at fault. # If someone gives you a lemon, make lemonade... - - D. Woodhouse # If the facts do not conform to your theory, they must be disposed of. # If the opposite of "pro" is "con", then what's the opposite of "progress"? # If there is no wind, row. # If things appear to be going well, you have overlooked something. # If voting could really change the system, it would be against the law... # If you are the shopkeeper you can take things for free. # If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. # If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? # If you fool around with something long enough, it will eventually break. # If you have nothing to say, please only say it once| # If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away. # If you put garbage into a computer, you get garbage out. But this garbage having passed through a very expensive, sophisticated, and logical machine is somehow ennobled and no one dare question it. # If you put it off long enough, it might go away. # If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. # If you sold tombstones, no one would die. # If you sold umbrellas, it would never rain. # If you thought yesterday was bad, wait till you see what happens today. # If you treat people right they will treat you right; 90 per cent of the time. # If you're feeling good, don't worry; you'll get over it. # In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. # In our funny language, we generally say it's 'rush hour' when the traffic is at a standstill. # In the stairway of life, you'd best take the elevator. # Inside every large problem, there is a small problem trying to get out. # Is this a machine? I don't talk to machines| *Click* # It could be worse - it might be raining. # It is a miracle that curiousity survives formal education... -- Albert Einstein # It is always the partner's fault. # It is fortune, not wisdom, that rules man's life. # It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. # It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. # It is much harder to find a job than to keep one. # It is not every question that deserves an answer. # Jim, it's Jack, I'm at the airport. I'm going to Tokyo and wanna pay you the five-hundred I owe you. Catch you next year when I get back! # Jim, this is Matty down at Ralph's and Mark's. Some guy named Angel Martin just ran up a fifty buck bar tab, and now he wants to charge it to you. You gonna pay it? # Jim? It's Grace at the bank. I checked your Christmas Club account. You don't have five hundred dollars; you have fifty. Sorry, computer foul-up! # Jim? It's Maria over at the laundromat. There's a yellow dress in with your things. Is that a mistake, or special handling, or what? # Jury - Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer. # Just below any trapdoor there may be another one. Just keep falling! # Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. # Keep grandmas off the street - legalize bingo. # Knowledge is power. # Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience... -- George Washington # Law of examinations: 1. If you are given an open book exam you will forget your book. 2. If you are given a take home exam you will forget where you live. # Law school maxim: Those who get A's become professors. Those who get B's become judges. All the rest make the money. # Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. # Let's just be friends and make no special effort to ever see each other again. # Life is like an onion - you peel off layer after layer, and find nothing in it. # Liquor sellers do not drink; they hate to see you twice. # Live every day like it's your last because someday you'll be right. # Look under the sofa cushion; you will be surprised at what you find. # Lynch's Law: When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. # Machines should work; people should think. # Make three consecutive correct guesses and you will be considered an expert. # Many pages make a thick book, except for pocket bibles on very thin paper. # May your next romantic encounter be interrupted by a large nuclear explosion. # Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. # Military intelligence is a contradiction of terms. # Mind your own business, Spock. I'm sick of your halfbreed interference. # Misfortune: the kind of fortune that never misses. # Money is the root of all evil, and everyone needs roots. # Murphy was an optimist. # Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. # Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. # (1) Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always. (3) Everything is sometimes. # $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" # 355/113 - Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation! # 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation - Core dumped # 99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... # A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. -- Mahatma Ghandi # A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. # A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain # ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust. # A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. # A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. # A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. -- Bill Vaughan # A city is a large community where people are lonesome together -- Herbert Prochnow # A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain # A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact. -- Gigo # A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. # A day without sunshine is like night. # A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. # A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toas ter - "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 had listened to all of this said, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" # A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill # A fool must now and then be right by chance. # A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. # A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai Stevenson # A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James # A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. # A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. # A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field." # A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col # A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. # A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs. -- Audobon Society Magazine # A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?" # A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them. # A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. # A penny saved is ridiculous. # A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" - bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez - tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. # A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. # "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon." -- Steel City News # A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. # A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason. # A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects ... # A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson # A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. # A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. # "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire # According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least once a year. # According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. # According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies. # ACHTUNG!!! Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!! # Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery. # Adult, n.: One old enough to know better. # Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. -- Sinclair Lewis # After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" # After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. # After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." - "This is true," He replied. - "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. - "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" - "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. # Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. # Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." # All extremists should be taken out and shot. # All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking. # All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. # All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power -- Ashleigh Brilliant # All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business- related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" # All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second. -- Jim Fiebig # All the world's a VAX, And all the coders merely butchers; They have their exits and their entrails; And one int in his time plays many widths, His sizeof being N bytes. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, And shining morning face, creeping like slug Unwillingly to school. -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 # All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door. # All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. # Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. # Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. # Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. # AMAZING BUT TRUE ... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. # America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its name to "America". -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors. -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister" # "Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it." # An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops. # An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. # Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. # "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" aked the father of his little son. "Diet." # Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. # Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner of the workshop the tool will first roll over your toes. # Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris # ... 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 th is article.) # Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. # Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. -- Milt Barber # Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec # Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke # Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. # Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is probably parked. # Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley # Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none. # Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" # Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never tried taking candy from a baby. -- Robin Hood # Anything free is worth what you pay for it. # Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. # ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE - FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE # "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" # Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse # 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. # As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein # Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if one went to Harvard). -- Edgar R. Fiedler # Ask your boss to reconsider - it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. # "Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it, she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year- olds.'" -- David Letterman # At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head under the exhaust of a bus until he revived. # At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. -- Marshall Lumsden # At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. # Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. # Avoid reality at all costs. # Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. # Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. # Basic, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. # BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...) # Be braver - you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. # Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain # Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. # Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend. # "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth # Beware of computerized fortune-tellers! # Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein # Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing as division. # Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Blore's Razor: Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. # Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. # Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. # Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. # Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. # Bore, n.: A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two- hour vocabulary. -- Walter Winchell # Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that will do them in. # Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?" # Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Brontosaurus Principle: Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when this occurs, they are an endangered species. -- Thomas K. Connellan # Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. # Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. # Bug, n.: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. # Bugs, pl. n.: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. # Bumper sticker: "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture" # By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you. # C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard # Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" # Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. # Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. # 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. # Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. # To be, or what? -- Sylvester Stallone # Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. # I waited and waited, and when nobody called, I knew it was from you. # There's a bug somewhere in your code. # Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] -- Ovid # He'll sit here and he'll say, "Do this! Do that!" And nothing will happen. -- Harry S. Truman, on presidential power # Practice is the best of all instructors. -- Publilius # It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt # Things are always at their best in the beginning. -- Pascal # A good workman is known by his tools. # The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month # The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time. # Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I'm sick of your halfbreed interference. # A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. # A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. # A man forgives only when he is in the wrong. # University: A modern school where football is taught. # Death: to stop sinning suddenly. # Don't eat yellow snow. -- Frank Zappa # Don't force it, use a bigger hammer. # Everything you know is wrong. -- The Firesign Theater # God must love the common man; He made so many of them. # I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. # I wish you humans would leave me alone. # If God had wanted man to fly, He would have given him airline tickets. # It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. # Today is the last day of your life so far. # We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice. -- Woody Allen # Some people hope to achieve immortality through their works or their children. I would prefer to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen # The fourth law of thermodynamics: The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. # Money talks... but all mine keeps saying is "goodbye" # What can a pigeon do that a west Texas oil man can't do anymore? A pigeon can still make a deposit on a new Mercedes. # How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it takes a really long time and the light bulb has to want to change. # How many Californians does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change the bulb and three to share the experience. # How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None. It's a hardware problem. # Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. - Hassan I Sabbah # Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. -- Southern California Oracle # Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. -- Sigmund Freud # When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before. -- Mae West # The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs. - Karl Marx # If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it ... it would have been much better. - Karl Marx's Mother # (Sysop's note: I think this is a joke. Can anyone verify it?) # If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? -- Richard M. Nixon # He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return. -- South African Saying # Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. -- Arthur C. Clarke # It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody. -- Richard M. Nixon # Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearence of magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke # Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx # Military intelligence - two words combined that can't make sense. -- Megadeth # I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. -- Oscar Wilde # 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 # Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space. -- Graffiti # The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. -- Albert Einstein # Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead # We don't know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn't a fish. -- John Culkin # Please don't lie to me, unless youre absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # Please don't ask me what the score is, Im not even sure what the game is. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # Maybe I'm lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. -- Ashleigh Brilliant # America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -- Oscar Wilde # The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization. -- Alan Coult # We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower # If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitiable. -- John F. Kennedy # It takes a long time to understand nothing. -- Edward Dahlberg # When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. -- Calvin Coolidge # If A equals success, then the formula is: A= X + Y + Z X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein # Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you wont either. -- Joseph Fischer # Fourth Law of Thermodymanics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero. -- David Ellis # Vique's Law: A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle. # If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. -- Gerald Weinberg # Zimmerman's Law of Complaints: Nobody notices when things go right. # Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance. -- Confucius # I used to be indecisive; now I'm not sure. -- Graffiti # I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. -- Samuel Goldwyn # "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, Pres., Microsoft, Inc. # "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, Pres., Commodore Int'l Ltd.(1982) # "There are a lot of lies going around.... and half of them are true." -- Winston Churchill # "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on..." -- Winston Churchill # Life is not one thing after another... it's the same damn thing over and over! # After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done. # Tell a man that there are 300 billion stars in the universe, and he'll believe you.... Tell him that a bench has wet paint upon it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. # I really hate this damn machine, I wish that they would sell it. It never does just what I want, But only what I tell it. # "Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it" -- Gordon R. Dickson # "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." -- Bert Lantz # "IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the- ground technique' to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" -- John C. Dvorak # "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them" -- Heisenberg # "Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!" -- Ben Jonson # 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 computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. -- Frank Zappa # Things are not as simple as they seems at first. -- Edward Thorp # 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. -- Charles Anthony Richard Hoare # In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool - programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they describe. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. # ...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, Jr. # 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, Jr. # The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. -- Brian Kernighan # "The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace." -- Holly Near # Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted. # Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man. # Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; Love is not music; Music is the best. -- Frank Zappa # No user-servicable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel. # Regarding astral projection, Woody Allen once wrote, "This is not a bad way to travel, although there is usually a half-hour wait for luggage." # Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either. # You see but you do not observe. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" # For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken # Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling # A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark # 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. -- Robert Lucky # How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? "Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem." # "This isn't brain surgery; it's just television." -- David Letterman # Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. # Don't change the reason, just change the excuses! -- Joe Cointment # Don't get suckered in by the comments - they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer # Don't hit a man when he's down - kick him; it's easier. # Don't take life too seriously - you'll never get out if it alive. # Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. # Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schultz # "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." # Drew's Law of Highway Biology: The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes. # Eagleson's Law: Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like 3 weeks.) # Earn cash in your spare time - blackmail your friends # Ehrman's Commentary: (1) Things will get worse before they get better. (2) Who said things would get better? # Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star # Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. # Encyclopedia Salesmen: Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police and tell them your house is being burgled. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" # Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary # Error in operator: add beer # Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. # Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her. # Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.