This fortune brought to you by: $FreeBSD: src/games/fortune/datfiles/fortunes,v 1.280 2009/11/07 22:13:29 dougb Exp $ % ======================================================================= || || || The FORTUNE-COOKIE program is soon to be a Major Motion Picture! || || Watch for it at a theater near you next summer! || || || ======================================================================= Francis Ford Coppola presents a George Lucas Production: "Fortune Cookie" Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Harrison Ford Bette Midler Marlon Brando Christopher Reeves Marilyn Chambers and Bob Hope as "The Waiter". Costumes Designed by Pierre Cardin. Special Effects by Timothy Leary. Read the Warner paperback! Invoke the Unix program! Soundtrack on XTC Records. In 70mm and Dolby Stereo at selected theaters and terminal centers. % FROM THE DESK OF Dorothy Gale Auntie Em: Hate you. Hate Kansas. Taking the dog. Dorothy % FROM THE DESK OF Rapunzel Dear Prince: Use ladder tonight -- you're splitting my ends. % SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth ABSTRACT Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable functions. This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. % UNIX Trix For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea either. If you need some help, give us a call. -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems % 1/2 12 + 144 + 20 + 3*4 2 ---------------------- + 5 * 11 = 9 + 0 7 A dozen, a gross and a score, Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five times eleven, Equals nine squared plus zero, no more! % -- Gifts for Children -- This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" % -- Gifts for Men -- Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional ice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error, that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh at him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?"). So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you. If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" % Chapter 1 The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" % 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. % Get GUMMed --- ------ The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user- friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis "cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we could tell them. -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84 % Has your family tried 'em? POWDERMILK BISCUITS Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. POWDERMILK BISCUITS Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness. % It's grad exam time... COMPUTER SCIENCE Inside your desk you'll find a listing of the DEC/VMS operating system in IBM 1710 machine code. Show what changes are necessary to convert this code into a UNIX Berkeley 7 operating system. Prove that these fixes are bug free and run correctly. You should gain at least 150% efficiency in the new system. (You should take no more than 10 minutes on this question.) MATHEMATICS If X equals PI times R^2, construct a formula showing how long it would take a fire ant to drill a hole through a dill pickle, if the length-girth ratio of the ant to the pickle were 98.17:1. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Describe the Universe. Give three examples. % It's grad exam time... MEDICINE You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. (You have 15 minutes.) HISTORY Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious and philosophical impact upon Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. BIOLOGY Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had been created 500 million years ago or earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. % Pittsburgh driver's test 10: Potholes are a) extremely dangerous. b) patriotic. c) the fault of the previous administration. d) all going to be fixed next summer. The correct answer is b. Potholes destroy unpatriotic, unamerican, imported cars, since the holes are larger than the cars. If you drive a big, patriotic, American car you have nothing to worry about. % Pittsburgh driver's test 2: A traffic light at an intersection changes from yellow to red, you should a) stop immediately. b) proceed slowly through the intersection. c) blow the horn. d) floor it. The correct answer is d. If you said c, you were almost right, so give yourself a half point. % Pittsburgh driver's test 3: When stopped at an intersection you should a) watch the traffic light for your lane. b) watch for pedestrians crossing the street. c) blow the horn. d) watch the traffic light for the intersecting street. The correct answer is d. You need to start as soon as the traffic light for the intersecting street turns yellow. Answer c is worth a half point. % Pittsburgh driver's test 4: Exhaust gas is a) beneficial. b) not harmful. c) toxic. d) a punk band. The correct answer is b. The meddling Washington eco-freak communist bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered d. Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.) % Pittsburgh driver's test 5: Your car's horn is a vital piece of safety equipment. How often should you test it? a) once a year. b) once a month. c) once a day. d) once an hour. The correct answer is d. You should test your car's horn at least once every hour, and more often at night or in residential neighborhoods. % Pittsburgh driver's test 7: The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light but a steady left tail light. This means a) One of the tail lights is broken. You should blow your horn to call the problem to the driver's attention. b) The driver is signaling a right turn. c) The driver is signaling a left turn. d) The driver is from out of town. The correct answer is d. Tail lights are used in some foreign countries to signal turns. % Pittsburgh driver's test 8: Pedestrians are a) irrelevant. b) communists. c) a nuisance. d) difficult to clean off the front grille. The correct answer is a. Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are totally irrelevant to driving, and you should ignore them completely. % Pittsburgh driver's test 9: Roads are salted in order to a) kill grass. b) melt snow. c) help the economy. d) prevent potholes. The correct answer is c. Road salting employs thousands of persons directly, and millions more indirectly, for example, salt miners and rustproofers. Most important, salting reduces the life spans of cars, thus stimulating the car and steel industries. % THE STORY OF CREATION or THE MYTH OF URK In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt ... -- Rico Tudor % JACK AND THE BEANSTACK by Mark Isaak Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it to him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman in high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips and Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she started thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the window ... % Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. (3) I don't know. (4) Who cares? (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). % DETERIORATA Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe ... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon % Double Bucky (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie") Double bucky, you're the one! You make my keyboard lots of fun Double bucky, an additional bit or two: (Vo-vo-de-o!) Control and Meta side by side, Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide! Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few! Double bucky, left and right OR'd together, outta sight! Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you! -- (C) 1978 by Guy L. Steele, Jr. % Hard Copies and Chmod And everyone thinks computers are impersonal cold diskdrives hardware monitors user-hostile software of course they're only bits and bytes and characters and strings and files just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend telling me he loves me and he'll take care of me simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory deep intimate secrets and how he doesn't trust me couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould on personal stationery -- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu % `O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit will be given to candidates who self-actualize. 1: Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why neither has street credibility. 2: "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth and inner city. 3: Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked into a black hole. 4: "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult. 5: Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics. 6: "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing up of western dualism? 7: Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss. % OUTCONERR Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes Did logzerneg the ifthen block All kludgy were the function flows And subroutines adhoc. Beware the runtime-bug my friend squrooneg, the false goto Beware the infiniteloop And shun the inprectoo. % Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence 1. Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb, use the stairs. 2. When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground. 3. If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. 4. Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems. 5. Food will be scarce, you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. 6. Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze, internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. 7. Try to be neat, fall only in designated piles. 8. Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas, people could be staggering illegally. 9. Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to one's, but more sanitary due to limited circulation. 10. Accumulate mannequins now, spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day. % The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 % The STAR WARS Song Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks: I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda S-O-D-A soda I saw the little runt sitting there on a log I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I've been around but I ain't never seen A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda % The Three Major Kind of Tools * Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten them up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons.) * Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls) * Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.) -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % (to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along") Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. And we've also found Just flip one switch When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble in a flash. Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. % 'Twas the Night before Crisis 'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, Not a program was working not even a browse. The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer. The users were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear. More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name; On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, From Weekends and nights in front of a screen. A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread... % What I Did During My Fall Semester On the first day of my fall semester, I got up. Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. Then I hung out in front of the Dover. On the second day of my fall semester, I got up. Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. Then I hung out in front of the Dover. On the third day of my fall semester, I got up. Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. I found a thesis topic: How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover. -- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday" % William Safire's Rules for Writers: Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs has to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. % 1/2 /\(3) | 2 1/3 | z dz cos(3 * PI / 9) = ln (e ) | \/ 1 The integral of z squared, dz From 1 to the square root of 3 Times the cosine Of 3 PI over nine Is the log of the cube root of e % THE DAILY PLANET SUPERMAN SAVES DESSERT! Plans to "Eat it later" % *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what you should blame when you make a mistake. Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. I enclose $1000 in small unmarked bills to cover the cost of postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) *** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** % 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. % *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to try this simple test: 1: Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). 2: Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? 3: What is the state capital of Idaho? If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. % *** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning. %  *** System shutdown message from root *** System going down in 60 seconds % ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available, they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers going off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" % ... with liberty and justice for all who can afford it. % 7,140 pounds on the Sun 97 pounds on Mercury or Mars 255 pounds on Earth 232 pounds on Venus or Uranus 43 pounds on the Moon 648 pounds on Jupiter 275 pounds on Saturn 303 pounds on Neptune 13 pounds on Pluto -- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places in the solar system. % A boy scout troop went on a hike. Crossing over a stream, one of the boys dropped his wallet into the water. Suddenly a carp jumped, grabbed the wallet and tossed it to another carp. Then that carp passed it to another carp, and all over the river carp appeared and tossed the wallet back and forth. "Well, boys," said the Scout leader, "you've just seen a rare case of carp-to-carp walleting." % A carpet installer decides to take a cigarette break after completing the installation in the first of several rooms he has to do. Finding them missing from his pocket he begins searching, only to notice a small lump in his recently completed carpet-installation. Not wanting to pull up all that work for a lousy pack of cigarettes he simply walks over and pounds the lump flat. Foregoing the break, he continues on to the other rooms to be carpeted. At the end of the day, while loading his tools into his truck, two events occur almost simultaneously: he spies his pack of cigarettes on the dashboard of the truck, and the lady of the house summons him imperiously: "Have you seen my parakeet?" % A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big top when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to him. "Are you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly. "I'd like to join your circus; I have what I think is a pretty good act." The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man hurried over to the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very tip-top of the big top. Drawing a deep breath, he hurled himself off into the air and began flapping his arms furiously. Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little man began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other obstacles, performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended in a long power dive from the top of the tent, pulling up into a gentle feet-first landing beside the foreman, who had been nonchalantly watching the whole time. "Well," puffed the little man. "What do you think?" "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully. "Bird imitations?" % A crow perched himself on a telephone wire. He was going to make a long-distance caw. % A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". % A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" % A domineering man married a mere wisp of a girl. He came back from his honeymoon a chastened man. He'd become aware of the will of the wisp. % A farm in the country side had several turkeys, it was known as the house of seven gobbles. % A father gave his teenage daughter an untrained pedigreed pup for her birthday. An hour later, when wandered through the house, he found her looking at a puddle in the center of the kitchen. "My pup," she murmured sadly, "runneth over." % A German, a Pole and a Czech left camp for a hike through the woods. After being reported missing a day or two later, rangers found two bears, one a male, one a female, looking suspiciously overstuffed. They killed the female, autopsied her, and sure enough, found the German and the Pole. "What do you think?" said the first ranger. "The Czech is in the male," replied the second. % A group of soldiers being prepared for a practice landing on a tropical island were warned of the one danger the island held, a poisonous snake that could be readily identified by its alternating orange and black bands. They were instructed, should they find one of these snakes, to grab the tail end of the snake with one hand and slide the other hand up the body of the snake to the snake's head. Then, forcefully, bend the thumb above the snake's head downward to break the snake's spine. All went well for the landing, the charge up the beach, and the move into the jungle. At one foxhole site, two men were starting to dig and wondering what had happened to their partner. Suddenly he staggered out of the underbrush, uniform in shreds, covered with blood. He collapsed to the ground. His buddies were so shocked they could only blurt out, "What happened?" "I ran from the beachhead to the edge of the jungle, and, as I hit the ground, I saw an orange and black striped snake right in front of me. I grabbed its tail end with my left hand. I placed my right hand above my left hand. I held firmly with my left hand and slid my right hand up the body of the snake. When I reached the head of the snake I flicked my right thumb down to break the snake's spine... did you ever goose a tiger?" % A guy returns from a long trip to Europe, having left his beloved dog in his brother's care. The minute he's cleared customs, he calls up his brother and inquires after his pet. "Your dog's dead," replies his brother bluntly. The guy is devastated. "You know how much that dog meant to me," he moaned into the phone. "Couldn't you at least have thought of a nicer way of breaking the news? Couldn't you have said, `Well, you know, the dog got outside one day, and was crossing the street, and a car was speeding around a corner...' or something...? Why are you always so thoughtless?" "Look, I'm sorry," said his brother, "I guess I just didn't think." "Okay, okay, let's just put it behind us. How are you anyway? How's Mom?" His brother is silent a moment. "Uh," he stammers, "uh... Mom got outside one day..." % A hard-luck actor who appeared in one colossal disaster after another finally got a break, a broken leg to be exact. Someone pointed out that it's the first time the poor fellow's been in the same cast for more than a week. % A horrible little boy came up to me and said, "You know in your book The Martian Chronicles?" I said, "Yes?" He said, "You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the East?" I said, "Yes?" He said "No." -- So I hit him. -- attributed to Ray Bradbury % A horse breeder has his young colts bottle-fed after they're three days old. He heard that a foal and his mummy are soon parted. % A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2. The housewife replied, "Four!". The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4. Let me run those figures through my spread sheet one more time." The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?" % A lawyer named Strange was shopping for a tombstone. After he had made his selection, the stonecutter asked him what inscription he would like on it. "Here lies an honest man and a lawyer," responded the lawyer. "Sorry, but I can't do that," replied the stonecutter. "In this state, it's against the law to bury two people in the same grave. However, I could put ``here lies an honest lawyer'', if that would be okay." "But that won't let people know who it is" protested the lawyer. "Certainly will," retorted the stonecutter. "people will read it and exclaim, "That's Strange!" % A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to the bartender. "Hey, bartender, gimmie a whiskey." The bartender ignores him. "Hey bartender, gimmie a whiskey." Still ignored. "HEY BARMAN!! GIMMIE A WHISKEY!!" The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain. Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots, jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns. He ambles slowly into the saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender, "I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw." % A man enters a pet shop, seeking to purchase a parrot. He points to a fine colorful bird and asks how much it costs. When he is told it costs 70,000 zlotys, he whistles in amazement and asks why it is so much. "Well, the bird is fluent in Italian and French and can recite the periodic table." He points to another bird and is told that it costs 90,000 zlotys because it speaks French and German, can knit and can curse in Latin. Finally the customer asks about a drab gray bird. "Ah," he is told, "that one is 150,000." "Why, what can it do?" he asks. "Well," says the shopkeeper, "to tell you the truth, he doesn't do anything, but the other birds call him Mr. Secretary." -- being told in Poland, 1987 % A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new disciples." Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. % A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." "But the collar is up around my ears!" "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a little more ... that's it." "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the street. Reba and Florence see him go by. "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % A man met a beautiful young woman in a bar. They got along well, shared dinner, and had a marvelous evening. When he left her, he told her that he had really enjoyed their time together, and hoped to see her again, soon. Smiling yes, she gave him her phone number. The next day, he called her up and asked her to go dancing. She agreed. As they talked, he jokingly asked her what her favorite flower was. Realizing his intentions, she told him that he shouldn't bring her flowers -- if he wanted to bring her a gift, well, he should bring her a Swiss Army knife! Surprised, and not a little intrigued, he spent a large part of the afternoon finding a particularly unusual one. Arriving at her apartment he immediately presented her with the knife. She ooohed and ahhhed over it for a minute, and then carefully placed it in a drawer, that the man couldn't help but see was full of Swiss Army knives. Surprised, he asked her why she had collected so many. "Well, I'm young and attractive now", blushed the woman, "but that won't always be true. And boy scouts will do anything for a Swiss Army knife!" % A man pleaded innocent of any wrong doing when caught by the police during a raid at the home of a mobster, excusing himself by claiming that he was making a bolt for the door. % A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender, "Do you serve lawyers here?". "Sure do," replied the bartender. "Good," said the man. "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for my 'gator." % A man was reading The Canterbury Tales one Saturday morning, when his wife asked "What have you got there?" Replied he, "Just my cup and Chaucer." % A man who keeps stealing mopeds is an obvious cycle-path. % A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer promptly replied. "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, how long will it take?" The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." The programmer agreed to this. Several years slated, the manager retired. On the way to his retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. He had been programming all night. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the manager retained his job. The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward." The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several resigned on the spot. So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee hours of the morning. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" "It will take one year," said the master promptly. "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take it I assign ten programmers to it?" The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", he said, "may I examine it?" The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. "I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human." "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this mysterious setting?" The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A master was explaining the nature of the Tao to one of his novices, "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master. "Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. "It is," came the reply. "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. "It is even in a video game," said the master. "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A MODERN FABLE Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory far too subtle for the youth of today. Children need an updated message with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit today's minute attention span. The Troubled Aardvark Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house in his brand new 4x4. He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his sniveling, spoiled children. One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any personal effort he could make to change the status quo. Overcome by a wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods. MORAL OF THE STORY: Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers. -- Tom Annau % A musical reviewer admitted he always praised the first show of a new theatrical season. "Who am I to stone the first cast?" % A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" % A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient power-down sequence. An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer cool. % A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of the best programmers in the world. Why is this?" The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has entered the mystery of the Tao." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally baffled. What is the reason for this?" The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the novice. "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. Why is this so?" The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an unnatural entity exist?" The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial package. The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, but not the slightest mention of anything financial. When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. "Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. % "A penny for your thoughts?" "A dollar for your death." -- The Odd Couple % A Pole, a Soviet, an American, an Englishman and a Canadian were lost in a forest in the dead of winter. As they were sitting around a fire, they noticed a pack of wolves eyeing them hungrily. The Englishman volunteered to sacrifice himself for the rest of the party. He walked out into the night. The American, not wanting to be outdone by an Englishman, offered to be the next victim. The wolves eagerly accepted his offer, and devoured him, too. The Soviet, believing himself to be better than any American, turned to the Pole and says, "Well, comrade, I shall volunteer to give my life to save a fellow socialist." He leaves the shelter and goes out to be killed by the wolf pack. At this point, the Pole opened his jacket and pulls out a machine gun. He takes aim in the general direction of the wolf pack and in a few seconds has killed them all. The Canadian asked the Pole, "Why didn't you do that before the others went out to be killed? The Pole pulls a bottle of vodka from the other side of his jacket. He smiles and replies, "Five men on one bottle -- too many." % A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." % A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity. A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least. A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances. If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they made rude noises during my presentation." The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother with social conventions?" "They are alive within the Tao." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A pushy romeo asked a gorgeous elevator operator, "Don't all these stops and starts get you pretty worn out?" "It isn't the stops and starts that get on my nerves, it's the jerks." % A ranger was walking through the forest and encountered a hunter carrying a shotgun and a dead loon. "What in the world do you think you're doing? Don't you know that the loon is on the endangered species list?" Instead of answering, the hunter showed the ranger his game bag, which contained twelve more loons. "Why would you shoot loons?", the ranger asked. "Well, my family eats them and I sell the plumage." "What's so special about a loon? What does it taste like?" "Oh, somewhere between an American Bald Eagle and a Trumpeter Swan." % A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill his wellness potential." Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti- personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously sent him. -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) % A reverend wanted to telephone another reverend. He told the operator, "This is a parson to parson call." A farmer with extremely prolific hens posted the following sign. "Free Chickens. Our Coop Runneth Over." Two brothers, Mort and Bill, like to sail. While Bill has a great deal of experience, he certainly isn't the rigger Mort is. Inheritance taxes are getting so out of line, that the deceased family often doesn't have a legacy to stand on. The judge fined the jaywalker fifty dollars and told him if he was caught again, he would be thrown in jail. Fine today, cooler tomorrow. A rock store eventually closed down; they were taking too much for granite. % A Scotsman was strolling across High Street one day wearing his kilt. As he neared the far curb, he noticed two young blondes in a red convertible eyeing him and giggling. One of them called out, "Hey, Scotty! What's worn under the kilt?" He strolled over to the side of the car and asked, "Ach, lass, are you SURE you want to know?" Somewhat nervously, the blonde replied yes, she did really want to know. The Scotsman leaned closer and confided, "Why, lass, nothing's worn under the kilt, everything's in perfect workin' order!" % A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Palomar Repeater Club, an amateur radio group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire going to it is so large. Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and I might add British tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School % A shy teenage boy finally worked up the nerve to give a gift to Madonna, a young puppy. It hitched its waggin' to a star. A girl spent a couple hours on the phone talking to her two best friends, Maureen Jones, and Maureen Brown. When asked by her father why she had been on the phone so long, she responded "I heard a funny story today and I've been telling it to the Maureens." Three actors, Tom, Fred, and Cec, wanted to do the jousting scene from Don Quixote for a local TV show. "I'll play the title role," proposed Tom. "Fred can portray Sancho Panza, and Cecil B. De Mille." % "...A strange enigma is man!" "Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested. "Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarked that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician." -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four" % A woman was in love with fourteen soldiers, it was clearly platoonic. % A young honeymoon couple were touring southern Florida and happened to stop at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road. After seeing the sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes. "Gosh!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. Don't you ever get bitten by the snakes?" "Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler. "Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by a snake?" "I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then suck the poison from the wound." "What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally *sit* on a rattler?" persisted the woman. "Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn who my real friends are." % A young husband with an inferiority complex insisted he was just a little pebble on the beach. The marriage counselor told him, "If you wish to save your marriage, you'd better be a little boulder." % A young married couple had their first child. Their original pride and joy slowly turned to concern however, for after a couple of years the child had never uttered any form of speech. They hired the best speech therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, all to no avail. The child simply refused to speak. One morning when the child was five, while the husband was reading the paper, and the wife was feeding the dog, the little kid looks up from his bowl and said, "My cereal's cold." The couple is stunned. The man, in tears, confronts his son. "Son, after all these years, why have you waited so long to say something?". Shrugs the kid, "Everything's been okay 'til now". % 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!!! % 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 sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." -- DECWARS % After the Children of Israel had wandered for thirty-nine years in the wilderness, Ferdinand Feghoot arrived to make sure that they would finally find and enter the Promised Land. With him, he brought his favorite robot, faithful old Yewtoo Artoo, to carry his gear and do assorted camp chores. The Israelites soon got over their initial fear of the robot and, as the months passed, became very fond of him. Patriarchs took to discussing abstruse theological problems with him, and each evening the children all gathered to hear the many stories with which he was programmed. Therefore it came as a great shock to them when, just as their journey was ending, he abruptly wore out. Even Feghoot couldn't console them. "It may be true, Ferdinand Feghoot," said Moses, "that our friend Yewtoo Artoo was soulless, but we cannot believe it. He must be properly interred. We cannot embalm him as do the Egyptians. Nor have we wood for a coffin. But I do have a most splendid skin from one of Pharoah's own cattle. We shall bury him in it." Feghoot agreed. "Yes, let this be his last rusting place." "Rusting?" Moses cried. "Not in this dreadful dry desert!" "Ah!" sighed Ferdinand Feghoot, shedding a tear, "I fear you do not realize the full significance of Pharoah's oxhide!" -- Grendel Briarton "Through Time & Space With Ferdinand Feghoot!" % After watching an extremely attractive maternity-ward patient earnestly thumbing her way through a telephone directory for several minutes, a hospital orderly finally asked if he could be of some help. "No, thanks," smiled the young mother, "I'm just looking for a name for my baby." "But the hospital supplies a special booklet that lists hundreds of first names and their meanings," said the orderly. "That won't help," said the woman, "my baby already has a first name." % All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life -- learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup -- they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned -- the biggest word of all -- LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. [...] Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are -- when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. -- Robert Fulghum, "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" % All that you touch, And all you create, All that you see, And all you destroy, All that you taste, All that you do, All you feel, And all you say, And all that you love, All that you eat, And all that you hate, And everyone you meet, All you distrust, All that you slight, All you save, And everyone you fight, And all that you give, And all that is now, And all that you deal, And all that is gone, All that you buy, And all that's to come, Beg, borrow or steal, And everything under the sun is in tune, But the sun is eclipsed By the moon. There is no dark side of the moon... really... matter of fact it's all dark. -- Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon" % America, Russia and Japan are sending up a two year shuttle mission with one astronaut from each country. Since it's going to be two long, lonely years up there, each may bring any form of entertainment weighing 150 pounds or less. The American approaches the NASA board and asks to take his 125 lb. wife. They approve. The Japanese astronaut says, "I've always wanted to learn Latin. I want 100 lbs. of textbooks." The NASA board approves. The Russian astronaut thinks for a second and says, "Two years... all right, I want 150 pounds of the best Cuban cigars ever made." Again, NASA okays it. Two years later, the shuttle lands and everyone is gathered outside to welcome back the astronauts. Well, it's obvious what the American's been up to, he and his wife are each holding an infant. The crowd cheers. The Japanese astronaut steps out and makes a 10 minute speech in absolutely perfect Latin. The crowd doesn't understand a word of it, but they're impressed and they cheer again. The Russian astronaut stomps out, clenches the podium until his knuckles turn white, glares at the first row and screams: "Anybody got a match?" % An airplane pilot got engaged to two very pretty women at the same time. One was named Edith; the other named Kate. They met, discovered they had the same fiancee, and told him. "Get out of our lives you rascal. We'll teach you that you can't have your Kate and Edith, too." % An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time". Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile". -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" % An eighty-year-old woman is rocking away the afternoon on her porch when she sees an old, tarnished lamp sitting near the steps. She picks it up, rubs it gently, and lo and behold a genie appears! The genie tells the woman the he will grant her any three wishes her heart desires. After a bit of thought, she says, "I wish I were young and beautiful!" And POOF! In a cloud of smoke she becomes a young, beautiful, voluptuous woman. After a little more thought, she says, "I would like to be rich for the rest of my life." And POOF! When the smoke clears, there are stacks and stacks of money lying on the porch. The genie then says, "Now, madam, what is your final wish?" "Well," says the woman, "I would like for you to transform my faithful old cat, whom I have loved dearly for fifteen years, into a young handsome prince!" And with another billow of smoke the cat is changed into a tall, handsome, young man, with dark hair, dressed in a dashing uniform. As they gaze at each other in adoration, the prince leans over to the woman and whispers into her ear, "Now, aren't you sorry you had me fixed?" % An elderly man stands in line for hours at a Warsaw meat store (meat is severely rationed). When the butcher comes out at the end of the day and announces that there is no meat left, the man flies into a rage. "What is this?" he shouts. "I fought against the Nazis, I worked hard all my life, I've been a loyal citizen, and now you tell me I can't even buy a piece of meat? This rotten system stinks!" Suddenly a thuggish man in a black leather coat sidles up and murmurs "Take it easy, comrade. Remember what would have happened if you had made an outburst like that only a few years ago" -- and he points an imaginary gun to this head and pulls the trigger. The old man goes home, and his wife says, "So they're out of meat again?" "It's worse than that," he replies. "They're out of bullets." -- making the rounds in Warsaw, 1987 % An Englishman, a Frenchman and an American are captured by cannibals. The leader of the tribe comes up to them and says, "Even though you are about to killed, your deaths will not be in vain. Every part of your body will be used. Your flesh will be eaten, for my people are hungry. Your hair will be woven into clothing, for my people are naked. Your bones will be ground up and made into medicine, for my people are sick. Your skin will be stretched over canoe frames, for my people need transportation. We are a fair people, and we offer you a chance to kill yourself with our ceremonial knife." The Englishman accepts the knife and yells, "God Save the Queen", while plunging the knife into his heart. The Frenchman removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells, "Vive la France", while plunging the knife into his heart. The American removes the knife from the fallen body, and yells, while stabbing himself all over his body, "Here's your lousy canoe!" % An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but I have not been enlightened. What should I do?" Otis replied, "Give up suffering." -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" % "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." % "Any news from the President on a successor?" he asked hopefully. "None," Anita replied. "She's having great difficulty finding someone qualified who is willing to accept the post." "Then I stay," said Dr. Fresh. "I'm not good for much, but I can at least make a decision." "Somewhere," he grumphed, "there must be a naive, opportunistic young welp with a masochistic streak who would like to run the most up-and-down bureaucracy in the history of mankind." -- R. L. Forward, "Flight of the Dragonfly" % "Anything else, sir?" asked the attentive bellhop, trying his best to make the lady and gentleman comfortable in their penthouse suite in the posh hotel. "No. No, thank you," replied the gentleman. "Anything for your wife, sir?" the bellhop asked. "Why, yes, young man," said the gentleman. "Would you bring me a postcard?" % "Anything else you wish to draw to my attention, Mr. Holmes ?" "The curious incident of the stable dog in the nighttime." "But the dog did nothing in the nighttime." "That was the curious incident." -- A. Conan Doyle, "Silver Blaze" % Approaching the gates of the monastery, Hakuin found Ken the Zen preaching to a group of disciples. "Words..." Ken orated, "they are but an illusory veil obfuscating the absolute reality of --" "Ken!" Hakuin interrupted. "Your fly is down!" Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon Ken, and he vaporized. On the way to town, Hakuin was greeted by an itinerant monk imbued with the spirit of the morning. "Ah," the monk sighed, a beatific smile wrinkling across his cheeks, "Thou art That..." "Ah," Hakuin replied, pointing excitedly, "And Thou art Fat!" Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the monk, and he vaporized. Next, the Governor sought the advice of Hakuin, crying: "As our enemies bear down upon us, how shall I, with such heartless and callow soldiers as I am heir to, hope to withstand the impending onslaught?" "US?" snapped Hakuin. Whereupon the Clear Light of Illumination exploded upon the Governor, and he vaporized. Then, a redneck went up to Hakuin and vaporized the old Master with his shotgun. "Ha! Beat ya' to the punchline, ya' scrawny li'l geek!" % "Are you police officers?" "No, ma'am. We're musicians." -- The Blues Brothers % "Are you sure you're not an encyclopedia salesman?" "No, Ma'am. Just a burglar, come to ransack the flat." -- Monty Python % As a general rule of thumb, never trust anybody who's been in therapy for more than 15 percent of their life span. The words "I am sorry" and "I am wrong" will have totally disappeared from their vocabulary. They will stab you, shoot you, break things in your apartment, say horrible things to your friends and family, and then justify this abhorrent behavior by saying: "Sure, I put your dog in the microwave. But I feel *better* for doing it." -- Bruce Feirstein, "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" % 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. % Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers. One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing. "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?" Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.) Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. Primarily because nobody understood Chinese. -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" % "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" % Bubba, Jim Bob, and Leroy were fishing out on the lake last November, and, when Bubba tipped his head back to empty the Jim Beam, he fell out of the boat into the lake. Jim Bob and Leroy pulled him back in, but as Bubba didn't look too good, they started up the Evinrude and headed back to the pier. By the time they got there, Bubba was turning kind of blue, and his teeth were chattering like all get out. Jim Bob said, "Leroy, go run up to the pickup and get Doc Pritchard on the CB, and ask him what we should do". Doc Pritchard, after hearing a description of the case, said "Now, Leroy, listen closely. Bubba is in great danger. He has hy-po-thermia. Now what you need to do is get all them wet clothes off of Bubba, and take your clothes off, and pile your clothes and jackets on top of him. Then you all get under that pile, and hug up to Bubba real close so that you warm him up. You understand me Leroy? You gotta warm Bubba up, or he'll die." Leroy and the Doc 10-4'ed each other, and Leroy came back to the pier. "Wh-Wh-What'd th-th-the d-d-doc s-s-say L-L-Leroy?", Bubba chattered. "Bubba, Doc says you're gonna die." % "But Huey, you PROMISED!" "Tell 'em I lied." % By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were still five feet between rails. It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set, great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere was possible. -- Robert Henry, "Trains", 1957 % Carol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees along the block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, "Let's be wild! Let's ride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!" Kennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, "Think you folks would like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" Calibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, "Think you'd like to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?" Mrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, "Oh no, I don't believe I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it." Calibree stated to Kennicott, "No, I don't believe we care to a whole lot, but you folks go ahead and try it." Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: "Let's try it some other time, Carrie." She gave it up. -- Sinclair Lewis, "Main Street" % Catching his children with their hands in the new, still wet, patio, the father spanked them. His wife asked, "Don't you love your children?" "In the abstract, yes, but not in the concrete." % Chapter VIII Due to the convergence of forces beyond his comprehension, Salvatore Quanucci was suddenly squirted out of the universe like a watermelon seed, and never heard from again. % "Cheshire-Puss," she began, "would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. "I don't care much where--" said Alice. "Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. -- Lewis Carroll % 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 % Concerning the war in Vietnam, Senator George Aiken of Vermont noted in January, 1966, "I'm not very keen for doves or hawks. I think we need more owls." -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" % COONDOG MEMORY (heard in Rutledge, Missouri, about eighteen years ago) Now, this dog is for sale, and she can not only follow a trail twice as old as the average dog can, but she's got a pretty good memory to boot. For instance, last week this old boy who lives down the road from me, and is forever stinkmouthing my hounds, brought some city fellow around to try out ol' Sis here. So I turned her out south of the house and she made two or three big swings back and forth across the edge of the woods, set back her head, bayed a couple of times, cut straight through the woods, come to a little clearing, jumped about three foot straight up in the air, run to the other side, and commenced to letting out a racket like she had something treed. We went over there with our flashlights and shone them up in the tree but couldn't catch no shine offa coon's eyes, and my neighbor sorta indicated that ol' Sis might be a little crazy, `cause she stood right to the tree and kept singing up into it. So I pulled off my coat and climbed up into the branches, and sure enough, there was a coon skeleton wedged in between a couple of branches about twenty foot up. Now as I was saying, she can follow a pretty old trail, but this fellow was still calling her crazy or touched `cause she had hopped up in the air while she was crossing the clearing, until I reminded him that the Hawkins' had a fence across there about five years back. Now, this dog is for sale. -- News that stayed News: Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly % Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual % Dallas Cowboys Official Schedule Sept 14 Pasadena Junior High Sept 21 Boy Scout Troop 049 Sept 28 Blind Academy Sept 30 World War I Veterans Oct 5 Brownie Scout Troop 041 Oct 12 Sugarcreek High Cheerleaders Oct 26 St. Thomas Boys Choir Nov 2 Texas City Vet Clinic Nov 9 Korean War Amputees Nov 15 VA Hospital Polio Patients % Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! Nora's freezin' on the trolley, Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! Don't we know archaic barrel, Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. Trolley Molly don't love Harold, Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! -- Pogo, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" % "Do you think there's a God?" "Well, SOMEbody's out to get me!" -- Calvin and Hobbs % Does anyone know how to get chocolate syrup and honey out of a white electric blanket? I'm afraid to wash it in the machine. Thanks, Kathy. (front desk, x17) p.s. Also, anyone ever used Noxzema on friction burns? Or is Vaseline better? % "Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, sincerely, extremely dangerously. They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him. -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" % "Don't you think what we're doing is wrong?" "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" "Well, I've never done anything illegal before." "... I thought you said you were an accountant." % Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes of Harvard Medical School inhaled ether at a time when it was popularly supposed to produce such mystical or "mind-expanding" experiences, much as LSD is supposed to produce such experiences today. Here is his account of what happened: "I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for a moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped, straggling characters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): `A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.'" -- The Consumers Union Report: Licit & Illicit Drugs % During a fight, a husband threw a bowl of Jello at his wife. She had him arrested for carrying a congealed weapon. In another fight, the wife decked him with a heavy glass pitcher. She's a woman who conks to stupor. Upon reading a story about a man who throttled his mother-in-law, a man commented, "Sounds to me like a practical choker." It's not the initial skirt length, it's the upcreep. It's the theory of Jess Birnbaum, of Time magazine, that women with bad legs should stick to long skirts because they cover a multitude of shins. % 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." % Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows why it would want to. The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % Eugene d'Albert, a noted German composer, was married six times. At an evening reception which he attended with his fifth wife shortly after their wedding, he presented the lady to a friend who said politely, "Congratulations, Herr d'Albert; you have rarely introduced me to so charming a wife." % Everything is farther away than it used to be. It is even twice as far to the corner and they have added a hill. I have given up running for the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to. It seems to me they are making the stairs steeper than in the old days. And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers? There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everybody speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them. The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one's shoelaces. And the sizes don't run the way they used to. The 12's and 14's are so much smaller. Even people are changing. They are so much younger than they used to be when I was their age. On the other hand people my age are so much older than I am. I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much that she didn't recognize me. I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning and in so doing I glanced at my own reflection. Really now, they don't even make good mirrors like they used to. Sandy Frazier, "I Have Noticed" % Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" % Exxon's 'Universe of Energy' tends to the peculiar rather than the humorous ... After [an incomprehensible film montage about wind and sun and rain and strip mines and] two or three minutes of mechanical confusion, the seats locomote through a short tunnel filled with clock-work dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are depicted without accuracy and too close to your face. "One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to aggravate illusions. Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like, but Exxon has decided they smelled bad. "At the other end of Dino Ditch ... there's a final, very addled message about facing challengehood tomorrow-wise. I dozed off during this, but the import seems to be that dinosaurs don't have anything to do with energy policy and neither do you." -- P. J. O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell" % "Fantasies are free." "NO!! NO!! It's the thought police!!!!" % Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike. Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. % FIGHTING WORDS Say my love is easy had, Say I'm bitten raw with pride, Say I am too often sad -- Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young, Say I woo and coddle care, Say the devil touched my tongue -- Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, And I get me another man! -- Dorothy Parker % "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." "Whose?" "MINE! HA-HA!" % "Found it," the Mouse replied rather crossly: "of course you know what 'it' means." "I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck: "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?" % Four Oxford dons were taking their evening walk together and as usual, were engaged in casual but learned conversation. On this particular evening, their conversation was about the names given to groups of animals, such as a "pride of lions" or a "gaggle of geese." One of the professors noticed a group of prostitutes down the block, and posed the question, "What name would be given to that group?" The four fell into silence for a moment, as they pondered the possibilities... At last, one spoke: "How about 'a Jam of Tarts'?" The others nodded in acknowledgment as they continued to consider the problem. A second professor spoke: "I'd suggest 'an Essay of Trollops.'" Again, the others nodded. A third spoke: "I propose 'a Flourish of Strumpets.'" They continued their walk in silence, until the first professor remarked to the remaining professor, who was the most senior and learned of the four, "You haven't suggested a name for our ladies. What are your thoughts?" Replied the fourth professor, "'An Anthology of Prose.'" % Fred noticed his roommate had a black eye upon returning from a dance. "What happened?" "I was struck by the beauty of the place." % Friends were surprised, indeed, when Frank and Jennifer broke their engagement, but Frank had a ready explanation: "Would you marry someone who was habitually unfaithful, who lied at every turn, who was selfish and lazy and sarcastic?" "Of course not," said a sympathetic friend. "Well," retorted Frank, "neither would Jennifer." % "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has an extracurricular activity except you." "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" "Only to ten, Mudhead." -- Firesign Theater % "Gentlemen of the jury," said the defense attorney, now beginning to warm to his summation, "the real question here before you is, shall this beautiful young woman be forced to languish away her loveliest years in a dark prison cell? Or shall she be set free to return to her cozy little apartment at 4134 Mountain Ave. -- there to spend her lonely, loveless hours in her boudoir, lying beside her little Princess phone, 962-7873?" % God decided to take the devil to court and settle their differences once and for all. When Satan heard of this, he grinned and said, "And just where do you think you're going to find a lawyer?" % Graduating seniors, parents and friends... Let me begin by reassuring you that my remarks today will stand up to the most stringent requirements of the new appropriateness. The intra-college sensitivity advisory committee has vetted the text of even trace amounts of subconscious racism, sexism and classism. Moreover, a faculty panel of deconstructionists have reconfigured the rhetorical components within a post-structuralist framework, so as to expunge any offensive elements of western rationalism and linear logic. Finally, all references flowing from a white, male, eurocentric perspective have been eliminated, as have any other ruminations deemed denigrating to the political consensus of the moment. Thank you and good luck. -- Doonesbury, the University Chancellor's graduation speech. % GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY #21 -- July 30, 1917 On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then- Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men stood lookout. % Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there may be in Science. As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system. Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results. And listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, for they are sales reps. If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised, for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched. Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real hassle and could change your fortunes in time. Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of bugs. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations. Strive for proportionality. Especially, do not faint when it occurs. Neither be cyclical about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed. Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points. Gracefully pass them on to the youth at the next desk. Nurture some mutual funds to shield you in times of sudden layoffs. But do not distress yourself with imaginings -- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly. Murphy's Law runs the Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt B*n dS = 0. Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you can conceive of to try. With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary. Be linear. Strive to stay employed. -- Technolorata, "Analog" % "Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed his audiencers by abnormaling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns verbed, and adjectives adverbised. He techniqued a new way to vocabulary his thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he had actually implicationed. "If that is how General Haig wants to nervous breakdown the Russian leadership, he may be shrewding his way to the biggest diplomatic invent since Clausewitz. Unless, that is, he schizophrenes his allies first." -- The Guardian % Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Harry, a golfing enthusiast if there ever was one, arrived home from the club to an irate, ranting wife. "I'm leaving you, Harry," his wife announced bitterly. "You promised me faithfully that you'd be back before six and here it is almost nine. It just can't take that long to play 18 holes of golf." "Honey, wait," said Harry. "Let me explain. I know what I promised you, but I have a very good reason for being late. Fred and I tee'd off right on time and everything was find for the first three holes. Then, on the fourth tee Fred had a stroke. I ran back to the clubhouse but couldn't find a doctor. And, by the time I got back to Fred, he was dead. So, for the next 15 holes, it was hit the ball, drag Fred, hit the ball, drag Fred... % Harry constantly irritated his friends with his eternal optimism. No matter how bad the situation, he would always say, "Well, it could have been worse." To cure him of his annoying habit, his friends decided to invent a situation so completely black, so dreadful, that even Harry could find no hope in it. Approaching him at the club bar one day, one of them said, "Harry! Did you hear what happened to George? He came home last night, found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both, and then turned the gun on himself!" "Terrible," said Harry. "But it could have been worse." "How in hell," demanded his dumbfounded friend, "could it possibly have been worse?" "Well," said Harry, "if it had happened the night before, I'd be dead right now." % "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" "Yes; I don't have one." "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors..." -- E. D'Azevedo, CS, University of Washington % "Have you lived here all your life?" "Oh, twice that long." % "Hawk, we're going to die." "Never say die... and certainly never say we." -- M*A*S*H % He had been bitten by a dog, but didn't give it much thought until he noticed that the wound was taking a remarkably long time to heal. Finally, he consulted a doctor who took one look at it and ordered the dog brought in. Just as he had suspected, the dog had rabies. Since it was too late to give the patient serum, the doctor felt he had to prepare him for the worst. The poor man sat down at the doctor's desk and began to write. His physician tried to comfort him. "Perhaps it won't be so bad," he said. "You needn't make out your will right now." "I'm not making out any will," relied the man. "I'm just writing out a list of people I'm going to bite!" % ...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating. -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose" % He who receives ideas from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me. -- Thomas Jefferson on patents on ideas % "Heard you were moving your piano, so I came over to help." "Thanks. Got it upstairs already." "Do it alone?" "Nope. Hitched the cat to it." "How would that help?" "Used a whip." % "Hey, Sam, how about a loan?" "Whattaya need?" "Oh, about $500." "Whattaya got for collateral?" "Whattaya need?" "How about an eye?" -- Sam Giancana % "Hmm, lots of people seem to be confused about the difference between amd64 and ia64." "Obviously they've never had an ia64 drop on their foot. They'd know the difference then." -- Peter Wemm explains CPU architecture % Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for", as opposed to "obtain". This is the major drawback of home centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ... Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week". -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % "How did you spend the weekend?" asked the pretty brunette secretary of her blonde companion. "Fishing through the ice," she replied. "Fishing through the ice? Whatever for?" "Olives." % "How do you know she is a unicorn?" Molly demanded. "And why were you afraid to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her." "I doubt that I will feel like talking for very long," the cat replied without rancor. "I would not waste time in foolishness if I were you. As to your first question, no cat out of its first fur can ever be deceived by appearances. Unlike human beings, who enjoy them. As for your second question --" Here he faltered, and suddenly became very interested in washing; nor would he speak until he had licked himself fluffy and then licked himself smooth again. Even then he would not look at Molly, but examined his claws. "If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again." -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" % "How many people work here?" "Oh, about half." % How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs % "How would I know if I believe in love at first sight?" the sexy social climber said to her roommate. "I mean, I've never seen a Porsche full of money before." % "How'd you get that flat?" "Ran over a bottle." "Didn't you see it?" "Damn kid had it under his coat." % Hug O' War I will not play at tug o' war. I'd rather play at hug o' war, Where everyone hugs Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, And everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, And everyone wins. -- Shel Silverstein % Human thinking can skip over a great deal, leap over small misunderstandings, can contain ifs and buts in untroubled corners of the mind. But the machine has no corners. Despite all the attempts to see the computer as a brain, the machine has no foreground or background. It can be programmed to behave as if it were working with uncertainty, but -- underneath, at the code, at the circuits -- it cannot simultaneously do something and withhold for later something that remains unknown. In the painstaking working out of the specification, line by code line, the programmer confronts an awful, inevitable truth: The ways of human and machine understanding are disjunct. -- Ellen Ullman, "Close to the Machine" % "I believe you have the wrong number," said the old gentleman into the phone. "You'll have to call the weather bureau for that information." "Who was that?" his young wife asked. "Some guy wanting to know if the coast was clear." % "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a quavering voice. "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in Elven-lore: "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" % I did some heavy research so as to be prepared for "Mommy, why is the sky blue?" HE asked me about black holes in space. (There's a hole *where*?) I boned up to be ready for, "Why is the grass green?" HE wanted to discuss nature's food chains. (Well, let's see, there's ShopRite, Pathmark...) I talked about Choo-Choo trains. HE talked internal combustion engines. (The INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE said, "I think I can, I think I can.") I was delighted with the video game craze, thinking we could compete as equals. HE described the complexities of the microchips required to create the graphics. Then puberty struck. Ah, adolescence. HE said, "Mom, I just don't understand women." (Gotcha!) -- Betty LiBrizzi, "The Care and Feeding of a Gifted Child" % I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because we use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently leads to violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say, in traffic, is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had time to think of witty and learned insults or look them up in the library, we could call each other up: You: Hello? Bob? Bob: Yes? You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you took last Thursday? Outside of Sears? Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed? You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is: "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait. I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to have to get back to you. Bob: Fine. -- Dave Barry % "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-- that's all." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" % I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that can't be measured in monetary terms. Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly understand his long delay. % I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me. I pushed "1" and he just stood there. I said "Hi, where you going?" He said, "Phoenix." So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked at him and said "You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around with." We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. Then the phone rang. He said "You get it." I picked it up and said "Hello?" The other side said "Is this Steven Wright?" I said "Yes..." The guy said "Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank. It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you. We would just like to know what happened to the money?" I said, "Mr. Jones, I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it you never called me again." -- Steven Wright % "I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. I think very probably he might be cured." "That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob. "His brain is affected," said the blind doctor. The elders murmured assent. "Now, what affects it?" "Ah!" said old Yacob. "This," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a way as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and his eyelids move, and consequently his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction." "Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?" "And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical operation - namely, to remove those irritant bodies." "And then he will be sane?" "Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen." "Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob. -- H.G. Wells, "The Country of the Blind" % "I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes." "Did you ever see a doctor?" "No, just spots." % I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present". When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin % I managed to say, "Sorry," and no more. I knew that he disliked me to cry. This time he said, watching me, "On some occasions it is better to weep." I put my head down on the table and sobbed, "If only she could come back; I would be nice." Francis said, "You gave her great pleasure always." "Oh, not enough." "Nobody can give anybody enough." "Not ever?" "No, not ever. But one must go on trying." "And doesn't one ever value people until they are gone?" "Rarely," said Francis. I went on weeping; I saw how little I had valued him; how little I had valued anything that was mine. -- Pamela Frankau, "The Duchess and the Smugs" % I paid a visit to my local precinct in Greenwich Village and asked a sergeant to show me some rape statistics. He politely obliged. That month there had been thirty-five rape complaints, an advance of ten over the same month for the previous year. The precinct had made two arrests. "Not a very impressive record," I offered. "Don't worry about it," the sergeant assured me. "You know what these complaints represent?" "What do they represent?" I asked. "Prostitutes who didn't get their money," he said firmly, closing the book. -- Susan Brownmiller, "Against Our Will" % [I plan] to see, hear, touch, and destroy everything in my path, including beets, rutabagas, and most random vegetables, but excluding yams, as I am absolutely terrified of yams... Actually, I think my fear of yams began in my early youth, when many of my young comrades pelted me with same for singing songs of far-off lands and deep blue seas in a language closely resembling that of the common sow. My psychosis was further impressed into my soul as I reached adolescence, when, while skipping through a field of yams, light-heartedly tossing flowers into the stratosphere, a great yam-picking machine tore through the fields, pursuing me to the edge of the great plantation, where I escaped by diving into a great ditch filled with a mixture of water and pig manure, which may explain my tendency to scream, "Here come the Martians! Hide the eggs!" every time I have pork. But I digress. The fact remains that I cannot rationally deal with yams, and pigs are terrible conversationalists. % "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'" -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland" % I said, "Preacher, give me strength for round 5." He said, "What you need is to grow up, son." I said, "Growin' up leads to growin' old, And then to dying, and to me that don't sound like much fun. -- John Cougar, "The Authority Song" % "I suppose you expect me to talk." "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." -- Goldfinger % "I think he said 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'" "Nonsense, he was obviously referring to all manufacturers of dairy products." -- The Life of Brian % "I thought you were trying to get into shape." "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle." % 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 the tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. The tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the yin and yang of software. Each language has its place within the tao. But do not program in Cobol or Fortran if you can help it. % If you do your best the rest of the way, that takes care of everything. When we get to October 2, we'll add up the wins, and then we'll either all go into the playoffs, or we'll all go home and play golf. Both those things sound pretty good to me. -- Sparky Anderson % If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled- up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and repeat the sequence. You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment? -- William S. Burroughs % If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself. You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How difficult can it be?" Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible, which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up yourself for far less money. This article can help you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % "I'll tell you what I know, then," he decided. "The pin I'm wearing means I'm a member of the IA. That's Inamorati Anonymous. An inamorato is somebody in love. That's the worst addiction of all." "Somebody is about to fall in love," Oedipa said, "you go sit with them, or something?" "Right. The whole idea is to get where you don't need it. I was lucky. I kicked it young. But there are sixty-year-old men, believe it or not, and women even older, who might wake up in the night screaming." "You hold meetings, then, like the AA?" "No, of course not. You get a phone number, an answering service you can call. Nobody knows anybody else's name; just the number in case it gets so bad you can't handle it alone. We're isolates, Arnold. Meetings would destroy the whole point of it." -- Thomas Pynchon, "The Crying of Lot 49" % "I'm looking for adventure, excitement, beautiful women," cried the young man to his father as he prepared to leave home. "Don't try to stop me. I'm on my way." "Who's trying to stop you?" shouted the father. "Take me along!" % I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it was by the time I find it. I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe "The Paper Chase: IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left blank." -- Alex Crain % "I'm terribly sorry, sir," the novice barber apologized, after badly nicking a customer. "Let me wrap your head in a towel." "That's all right," said the customer. "I'll just take it home under my arm." % In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, Junior, what are you up to?" "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the rabbit. "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one will publish such rubbish!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour wolves." "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody remnants of the wolf and the fox. The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. % In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc. Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News, Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts. Lawyers and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure out how the pie gets divided. Neither profession provides any added value to product." According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has 10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population. The U.S. has 200 lawyers and 700 accountants. This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack." Could Dick Butcher have been an efficiency expert? -- Motor Trend, May 1983 % In the beginning, God created the Earth and he said, "Let there be mud." And there was mud. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud-as-man alone could speak. "What is the purpose of all this?" man asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all of this," said God. And He went away. -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Between Time and Timbuktu" % In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt. -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" % In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by the Great Mathematical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to large numbers and prospered. One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ... until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox. The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when they began to speak to one another, SURPRISE of all surprises! they could not understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the Topologists remain the original Mathematicians. -- The Story of Babel % In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. How could it be otherwise? -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do you close your eyes?" "So that the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. % In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose wings are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home. The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % "In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day." "And are you?" "No. That's where it all falls down, of course." "Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good life-style otherwise." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen. -- Roger Zelazny, "Creatures of Light and Darkness", 1969 % INVENTORY Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. % "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. % It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network... -- DECWARS % It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. -- Alfred North Whitehead % 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. The worst kind of friend to take home is a girl, because in that case, there is the potential that your parents will lose you not just for the duration of the visit but forever. The worst kind of girl to take home is one of a different religion: Not only will you be lost to your parents forever but you will be lost to a woman who is immune to their religious/moral arguments and whose example will irretrievably corrupt you. Let's say you've fallen in love with just such a girl and would like to take her home for the holidays. You are aware of your parents' xenophobic response to anyone of a different religion. How to prepare them for the shock? Simple. Call them up shortly before your visit and tell them that you have gotten quite serious about somebody who is of a different religion, a different race and the same sex. Tell them you have already invited this person to meet them. Give the information a moment to sink in and then remark that you were only kidding, that your lover is merely of a different religion. They will be so relieved they will welcome her with open arms. -- Playboy, January, 1983 % It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships for a few years. He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences change over fairly often, and he's got a good life. The only problem is the ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind his back!" Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the passengers. One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without a trace. Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the parrot. For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end. As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to the magician's end of the log. With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps "OK, you win, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?" % It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air balloon to cross the United States. After forty hours in the air, George turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course! We need to find out where we are." Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the cloud cover. Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me! Can you please tell me where we are?" The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately fifty feet in the air!" George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer". Replies Harry, "How can you tell?". "Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally useless!" That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer". % It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never really needed in the first place. I expect every installation has its own pet software which is analogous to the above. -- K. E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa % It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle, nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting icepacks. -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" % "It's a summons." "What's a summons?" "It means summon's in trouble." -- Rocky and Bullwinkle % "It's today!" said Piglet. "My favorite day," said Pooh. % Jacek, a Polish schoolboy, is told by his teacher that he has been chosen to carry the Polish flag in the May Day parade. "Why me?" whines the boy. "Three years ago I carried the flag when Brezhnev was the Secretary; then I carried the flag when it was Andropov's turn, and again when Chernenko was in the Kremlin. Why is it always me, teacher?" "Because, Jacek, you have such golden hands," the teacher explains. -- being told in Poland, 1987 % Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the applications for. -- Dave Barry % Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap, caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants, day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored. Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker? What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper. Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going now. They're in a band. -- Ira Kaplan % Listen, Tyrone, you don't know how dangerous that stuff is. Suppose someday you just plug in and go away and never come back? Eh? Ho, ho! Don't I wish! What do you think every electrofreak dreams about? You're such an old fuddyduddy! A-and who sez it's a dream, huh? M-maybe it exists. Maybe there is a Machine to take us away, take us completely, suck us out through the electrodes out of the skull 'n' into the Machine and live there forever with all the other souls it's got stored there. It could decide who it would suck out, a-and when. Dope never gave you immortality. You hadda come back, every time, into a dying hunk of smelly meat! But We can live forever, in a clean, honest, purified, Electroworld. -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" % Looking for a cool one after a long, dusty ride, the drifter strode into the saloon. As he made his way through the crowd to the bar, a man galloped through town screaming, "Big Mike's comin'! Run fer yer lives!" Suddenly, the saloon doors burst open. An enormous man, standing over eight feet tall and weighing an easy 400 pounds, rode in on a bull, using a rattlesnake for a whip. Grabbing the drifter by the arm and throwing him over the bar, the giant thundered, "Gimme a drink!" The terrified man handed over a bottle of whiskey, which the man guzzled in one gulp and then smashed on the bar. He then stood aghast as the man stuffed the broken bottle in his mouth, munched broken glass and smacked his lips with relish. "Can I, ah, uh, get you another, sir?" the drifter stammered. "Naw, I gotta git outa here, boy," the man grunted. "Big Mike's a-comin'." % Love's Drug My love is like an iron wand That conks me on the head, My love is like the valium That I take before my bed, My love is like the pint of scotch That I drink when I be dry; And I shall love thee still, my dear, Until my wife is wise. % "Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years." "What about X?" "I said `intellectual'." ;login, 9/1990 % Max told his friend that he'd just as soon not go hiking in the hills. Said he, "I'm an anti-climb Max." % "Mind if I smoke?" "I don't care if you burst into flames and die!" % "Mind if I smoke?" "Yes, I'd like to see that, does it come out of your ears or what?" % Mother seemed pleased by my draft notice. "Just think of all the people in England, they've chosen you, it's a great honour, son." Laughingly I felled her with a right cross. -- Spike Milligan % Moving along a dimly light street, a man I know was suddenly approached by a stranger who had slipped from the shadows nearby. "Please, sir," pleaded the stranger, "would you be so kind as to help a poor unfortunate fellow who is hungry and can't find work? All I have in the world is this gun." % Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail % Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to prison. They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation movement. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced to death. The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have any last requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to Murray. "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he spits in the sergeants face. "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % My friends, I am here to tell you of the wondrous continent known as Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31. We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at 6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by 6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That was the biggest game we had. Africa is primarily inhabited by Elks, Moose and Knights of Pithiests. The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole, which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were embedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tusks are looser, but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying. We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed. So we're going back in a few years... -- Julius H. Marx % "My God! Are we sure he was a liberal?" "Pretty sure. They pulled him from a Volvo." % My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or even that they were always wrong. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information. I also present this view as an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on the alter of human limitations. I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it. Galileo was not shown the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion. He had threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal stability: the static world order with planets circling about a central earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord. But the Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology. They had no choice; the earth really does revolve about the sun. -- S. J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" % "My mother," said the sweet young steno, "says there are some things a girl should not do before twenty." "Your mother is right," said the executive, "I don't like a large audience, either." % NEW YORK -- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the true value of the company. Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story. Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of their major Middle East subsidiaries. To a person, the board voted to reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth. % "No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods -- it was so simple, really. "I didn't, for a long time, but I do now. You just can't hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same -- I mean `in love,' you know." There were those doubt-quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I can't." "You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand." -- Little, Big, "John Crowley" % Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. "The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very *essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. "This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" % Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question. Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon administration. In either the hardware or housewares department, you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools that Americans might use around the home. Buy it. This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to direct sunlight. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something to be avoided than harped upon. Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something about helping to postpone this reunion. -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" % "Oh sure, this costume may look silly, but it lets me get in and out of dangerous situations -- I work for a federal task force doing a survey on urban crime. Look, here's my ID, and here's a number you can call, that will put you through to our central base in Atlanta. Go ahead, call -- they'll confirm who I am. "Unless, of course, the Astro-Zombies have destroyed it." -- Captain Freedom % Old Barlow was a crossing-tender at a junction where an express train demolished an automobile and it's occupants. Being the chief witness, his testimony was vitally important. Barlow explained that the night was dark, and he waved his lantern frantically, but the driver of the car paid no attention to the signal. The railroad company won the case, and the president of the company complimented the old-timer for his story. "You did wonderfully," he said, "I was afraid you would waver under testimony." "No sir," exclaimed the senior, "but I sure was afraid that durned lawyer was gonna ask me if my lantern was lit." % On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than $283 on the desk before the cashier. "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That route never brought in money like this! What happened?" "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!" % On the day of his anniversary, Joe was frantically shopping around for a present for his wife. He knew what she wanted, a grandfather clock for the living room, but he found the right one almost impossible to find. Finally, after many hours of searching, Joe found just the clock he wanted, but the store didn't deliver. Joe, desperate, paid the shopkeeper, hoisted the clock onto his back, and staggered out onto the sidewalk. On the way home, he passed a bar. Just as he reached the door, a drunk stumbled out and crashed into Joe, sending himself, Joe, and the clock into the gutter. Murphy's law being in effect, the clock ended up in roughly a thousand pieces. "You stupid drunk!" screamed Joe, jumping up from the wreckage. "Why don't you look where the hell you're going!" With quiet dignity the drunk stood up somewhat unsteadily and dusted himself off. "And why don't you just wear a wristwatch like a normal person?" % On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people. There are lots of phrases. My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright, non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works best, write it down and make that the standard. The OSI view is entirely opposite. You take written contributions from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once. So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well, then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is committed to it. One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which. -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI" % On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick tomatoes. Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks. So I picked up one and threw it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato at my brother. He whipped one back at me. We ducked down by the vines, heaving tomatoes at each other. My sister, who was a good person, said, "You're going to get it." She bent over and kept on picking. What a target! She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over, she looked like the side of a barn. I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground. It looked like it had sat there a week. The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it, and it was very juicy. I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup, when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice. I had to decide quickly. I decided. A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat man doing a belly-flop. With a whoop and a yell the tomatoe came after faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice. And my sister, who was a good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears. I guess she knew that the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end. -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" % Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in The Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall. Then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who, 2,000 years ago, followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. We try to keep our bumper about 4 inches from the shopper's calves, to let the other circling cars know that she belongs to us. Sometimes, two cars will get into a fight over whom the shopper belongs to, similar to the way great white sharks will fight over who gets to eat a snorkeler. So, we follow our shopper closely, hunched over the steering wheel, whistling "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" through our teeth, until we arrive at her car, which is usually parked several time zones away from the mall. Sometimes our shopper tries to indicate she was merely planning to drop off some packages and go back to shopping. But, when she hears our engine rev in a festive fashion and sees the holiday gleam in our eyes, she realizes she would never make it. -- Dave Barry, "Holiday Joy -- Or, the Great Parking Lot Skirmish" % Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. -- Richard Bach % Once there was a marine biologist who loved dolphins. He spent his time trying to feed and protect his beloved creatures of the sea. One day, in a fit of inventive genius, he came up with a serum that would make dolphins live forever! Of course he was ecstatic. But he soon realized that in order to mass produce this serum he would need large amounts of a certain compound that was only found in nature in the metabolism of a rare South American bird. Carried away by his love for dolphins, he resolved that he would go to the zoo and steal one of these birds. Unbeknownst to him, as he was arriving at the zoo an elderly lion was escaping from its cage. The zookeepers were alarmed and immediately began combing the zoo for the escaped animal, unaware that it had simply lain down on the sidewalk and had gone to sleep. Meanwhile, the marine biologist arrived at the zoo and procured his bird. He was so excited by the prospect of helping his dolphins that he stepped absentmindedly stepped over the sleeping lion on his way back to his car. Immediately, 1500 policemen converged on him and arrested him for transporting a myna across a staid lion for immortal porpoises. % Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl taking a stroll through the woods. All at once she saw an extremely ugly bull frog seated on a log and to her amazement the frog spoke to her. "Maiden," croaked the frog, "would you do me a favor? This will be hard for you to believe, but I was once a handsome, charming prince and then a mean, ugly old witch cast a spell over me and turned me into a frog." "Oh, what a pity!", exclaimed the girl. "I'll do anything I can to help you break such a spell." "Well," replied the frog, "the only way that this spell can be taken away is for some lovely young woman to take me home and let me spend the night under her pillow." The young girl took the ugly frog home and placed him beneath her pillow that night when she retired. When she awoke the next morning, sure enough, there beside her in bed was a very young, handsome man, clearly of royal blood. And so they lived happily ever after, except that to this day her father and mother still don't believe her story. % Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived by a great river. One day, after a hard day's fishing, he hooked what seemed to him to be the biggest, strongest fish he had ever caught. He fought with it for hours, until, finally, he managed to bring it to the surface. Looking of the edge of the boat, he saw the head of this huge fish breaking the surface. Smiling with pride, he reached over the edge to pull the fish up. Unfortunately, he accidently caught his watch on the edge, and, before he knew it, there was a snap, and his watch tumbled into the water next to the fish with a loud "sploosh!" Distracted by this shiny object, the fish made a sudden lunge, simultaneously snapping the line, and swallowing the watch. Sadly, the fisherman stared into the water, and then began the slow trip back home. Many years later, the fisherman, now an old man, was working in a boring assembly-line job in a large city. He worked in a fish-processing plant. It was his job, as each fish passed under his hands, to chop off their heads, readying them for the next phase in processing. This monotonous task went on for years, the dull *thud* of the cleaver chopping of each head being his entire world, day after day, week after weary week. Well, one day, as he was chopping fish, he happened to notice that the fish coming towards him on the line looked very familiar. Yes, yes, it looked... could it be the fish he had lost on that day so many years ago? He trembled with anticipation as his cleaver came down. IT STRUCK SOMETHING HARD! IT WAS HIS THUMB! % Once upon a time, there were five blind men who had the opportunity to experience an elephant for the first time. One approached the elephant, and, upon encountering one of its sturdy legs, stated, "Ah, an elephant is like a tree." The second, after exploring the trunk, said, "No, an elephant is like a strong hose." The third, grasping the tail, said "Fool! An elephant is like a rope!" The fourth, holding an ear, stated, "No, more like a fan." And the fifth, leaning against the animal's side, said, "An elephant is like a wall." The five then began to argue loudly about who had the more accurate perception of the elephant. The elephant, tiring of all this abuse, suddenly reared up and attacked the men. He continued to trample them until they were nothing but bloody lumps of flesh. Then, strolling away, the elephant remarked, "It just goes to show that you can't depend on first impressions. When I first saw them I didn't think they'd be any fun at all." % Once upon a time there were three brothers who were knights in a certain kingdom. And, there was a Princess in a neighboring kingdom who was of marriageable age. Well, one day, in full armour, their horses, and their page, the three brothers set off to see if one of them could win her hand. The road was long and there were many obstacles along the way, robbers to be overcome, hard terrain to cross. As they coped with each obstacle they became more and more disgusted with their page. He was not only inept, he was a coward, he could not handle the horses, he was, in short, a complete flop. When they arrived at the court of the kingdom, they found that they were expected to present the Princess with some treasure. The two older brothers were discouraged, since they had not thought of this and were unprepared. The youngest, however, had the answer: Promise her anything, but give her our page. % Once, when the secrets of science were the jealously guarded property of a small priesthood, the common man had no hope of mastering their arcane complexities. Years of study in musty classrooms were prerequisite to obtaining even a dim, incoherent knowledge of science. Today all that has changed: a dim, incoherent knowledge of science is available to anyone. -- Tom Weller, "Science Made Stupid" % One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers to each cons." Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage collector..." % One day it was announced that the young monk Kyogen had reached an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers went to speak with him. "We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?" his fellow students inquired. "It is", Kyogen answered. "Tell us", said a friend, "how do you feel?" "As miserable as ever", replied the enlightened Kyogen. % One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her, he allowed his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you wish, anything I am, anything I can ever be... That's what I want to offer you -- not the things I'll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get them. That thing -- a man can't renounce it -- but I want to renounce it -- so that it will be yours -- so that it will be in your service -- only for you." The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie Kelly?" He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed. -- Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead" % One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along the route. No problems for the first few stops -- a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well. At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, "Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back. Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't happy about it. Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And the next day, and the one after that, and so forth. This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong; what's more, he felt really good about himself. So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, "And why not?" With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a bus pass." % One night the captain of a tanker saw a light dead ahead. He directed his signalman to flash a signal to the light which went... "Change course 10 degrees South." The reply was quickly flashed back... "You change course 10 degrees North." The captain was a little annoyed at this reply and sent a further message..... "I am a captain. Change course 10 degrees South." Back came the reply... "I am an able-seaman. Change course 10 degrees North." The captain was outraged at this reply and send a message.... "I am a 240,000 tonne tanker. CHANGE course 10 degrees South!" Back came the reply... "I am a LIGHTHOUSE. Change course 10 degrees North!!!!" -- Cruising Helmsman, "On The Right Course" % One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.] % page 46 ...a report citing a study by Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, which compared two groups that were being used to test the theory that ascorbic acid is a cold preventative. "The group on placebo who thought they were on ascorbic acid," says Dr. Chalmers, "had fewer colds than the group on ascorbic acid who thought they were on placebo." page 56 The placebo is proof that there is no real separation between mind and body. Illness is always an interaction between both. It can begin in the mind and affect the body, or it can begin in the body and affect the mind, both of which are served by the same bloodstream. Attempts to treat most mental diseases as though they were completely free of physical causes and attempts to treat most bodily diseases as though the mind were in no way involved must be considered archaic in the light of new evidence about the way the human body functions. -- Norman Cousins, "Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient" % Penn's aunts made great apple pies at low prices. No one else in town could compete with the pie rates of Penn's aunts. During the American Revolution, a Britisher tried to raid a farm. He stumbled across a rock on the ground and fell, whereupon an aggressive Rhode Island Red hopped on top. Seeing this, the farmer commented, "Chicken catch a Tory!" A wife started serving chopped meat, Monday hamburger, Tuesday meat loaf, Wednesday tartar steak, and Thursday meatballs. On Friday morning her husband snarled, "How now, ground cow?" A journalist, thrilled over his dinner, asked the chef for the recipe. Retorted the chef, "Sorry, we have the same policy as you journalists, we never reveal our sauce." A new chef from India was fired a week after starting the job. He kept favoring curry. A couple of kids tried using pickles instead of paddles for a Ping-Pong game. They had the volley of the Dills. % People of all sorts of genders are reporting great difficulty, these days, in selecting the proper words to refer to those of the female persuasion. "Lady," "woman," and "girl" are all perfectly good words, but misapplying them can earn one anything from the charge of vulgarity to a good swift smack. We are messing here with matters of deference, condescension, respect, bigotry, and two vague concepts, age and rank. It is troubling enough to get straight who is really what. Those who deliberately misuse the terms in a misbegotten attempt at flattery are asking for it. A woman is any grown-up female person. A girl is the un-grown-up version. If you call a wee thing with chubby cheeks and pink hair ribbons a "woman," you will probably not get into trouble, and if you do, you will be able to handle it because she will be under three feet tall. However, if you call a grown-up by a child's name for the sake of implying that she has a youthful body, you are also implying that she has a brain to match. % "Perhaps he is not honest," Mr. Frostee said inside Cobb's head, sounding a bit worried. "Of course he isn't," Cobb answered. "What we have to look out for is him calling the cops anyway, or trying to blackmail us for more money." "I think you should kill him and eat his brain," Mr. Frostee said quickly. "That's not the answer to *every* problem in interpersonal relations," Cobb said, hopping out. -- Rudy Rucker, "Software" % Phases of a Project: (1) Exultation. (2) Disenchantment. (3) Confusion. (4) Search for the Guilty. (5) Punishment for the Innocent. (6) Distinction for the Uninvolved. % Phil [Record] was known as the Hat because he always wore a felt snap brim. It was the standard uniform for police reporters, for one reason: it made it easier for them to pass themselves off as detectives. We had an informal code of ethics then; we never lied about who we were. But if people mistook us for the police, that was their problem, not ours. If they thought they were giving confidential information to an investigator, well, that was their problem, too. As we understood the First Amendment, everyone had a right to talk to the _Star-Telegram_, even if they didn't know they were talking to the _Star-Telegram_. -- Bob Schieffer, "This Just In" % Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities, requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how plumbing works. A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % Price Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program ran like a gentle wind. Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!" "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique. When I first began to program I would see before me the whole program in one mass. After three years I no longer saw this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. My whole being exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program writes itself. True, sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them coming, I slow down, I watch silently. Then I change a single line of code and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the program. I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my eyes for a moment and then log off." Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!" -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe again..." An unusually long pause followed, "...but I don't know which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the starfield surrounding the ship. "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious." -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star" % Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed, and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under. Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that. No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland... On the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car. -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail" % "Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." "He was going to suck my blood!" "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way." ... "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." "When you look at it that way..." "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do." -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" % Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J. F. Traub % Robert Kennedy's 1964 Senatorial campaign planners told him that their intention was to present him to the television viewers as a sincere, generous person. "You going to use a double?" asked Kennedy. Thumbing through a promotional pamphlet prepared for his 1964 Senatorial campaign, Robert Kennedy came across a photograph of himself shaking hands with a well-known labor leader. "There must be a better photo that this," said Kennedy to the advertising men in charge of his campaign. "What's wrong with this one?" asked one adman. "That fellow's in jail," said Kennedy. -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" % SAFETY I can live without Someone I love But not without Someone I need. % Sam went to his psychiatrist complaining of a hatred for elephants. "I can't stand elephants," he explained. "I lie awake nights despising them. The thought of an elephant fills me with loathing." "Sam," said the psychiatrist, "there's only one thing for you to do. Go to Africa, organize a safari, find an elephant in the jungle and shoot it. That way you'll get it out of your system." Sam immediately made arrangements for a safari hunt in Africa, inviting his best friend to join him. They arrived in Nairobi and lost no time getting out on the jungle trails. After they had been hunting for several days, Sam's best friend grabbed him by the arm one morning and yelled at him: "Sam, Sam, Sam! Over there behind that tree there's and elephant! Sam -- Get your gun -- no, no, not THAT gun -- the rifle with the longer barrel! Now aim it! QUICK! SAM! QUICK! No! Not that way -- this way! Be sure you don't jerk the trigger! Wait SAM! Don't let him see you! Aim at his head!" Sam whirled around, took aim, and killed his friend. He was put in prison and his psychiatrist flew to Africa to visit him. "I sent you over here to kill an elephant and instead you shoot your best friend," the psychiatrist said. "Why?" "Well," Sam replied, "there's only one thing in the world that I hate more than elephants and that is a loudmouth know-it-all!" % Seems George was playing his usual eighteen holes on Saturday afternoon. Teeing off from the 17th, he sliced into the rough over near the edge of the fairway. Just as he was about to chip out, he noticed a long funeral procession going past on a nearby street. Reverently, George removed his hat and stood at attention until the procession had passed. Then he continued his game, finishing with a birdie on the eighteenth. Later, at the clubhouse, a fellow golfer greet George. "Say, that was a nice gesture you made today, George. "What do you mean?" asked George. "Well, it was nice of you to take off your cap and stand respectfully when that funeral went by," the friend replied. "Oh, yes," said George. "Well, we were married 17 years, you know." % "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. "Too proud?" the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older." "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass" % Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all the odd integers are prime." The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, "Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it does seem right." Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says "Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." % She said, "I know you ... you cannot sing." I said, "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano." -- Morrisey % "Sheriff, we gotta catch Black Bart." "Oh, yeah? What's he look like?" "Well, he's wearin' a paper hat, a paper shirt, paper pants and paper boots." "What's he wanted for?" "Rustling." % Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text. This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy. % So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and -- I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" % "So you don't have to, Cindy, but I was wondering if you might want to go to someplace, you know, with me, sometime." "Well, I can think of a lot of worse things, David." "Friday, then?" "Why not, David, it might even be fun." -- Dating in Minnesota % Some 1500 miles west of the Big Apple we find the Minneapple, a haven of tranquility in troubled times. It's a good town, a civilized town. A town where they still know how to get your shirts back by Thursday. Let the Big Apple have the feats of "Broadway Joe" Namath. We have known the stolid but steady Killebrew. Listening to Cole Porter over a dry martini may well suit those unlucky enough never to have heard the Whoopee John Polka Band and never to have shared a pitcher of 3.2 Grain Belt Beer. The loss is theirs. And the Big Apple has yet to bake the bagel that can match peanut butter on lefse. Here is a town where the major urban problem is dutch elm disease and the number one crime is overtime parking. We boast more theater per capita than the Big Apple. We go to see, not to be seen. We go even when we must shovel ten inches of snow from the driveway to get there. Indeed the winters are fierce. But then comes the marvel of the Minneapple summer. People flock to the city's lakes to frolic and rejoice at the sight of so much happy humanity free from the bonds of the traditional down-filled parka. Here's to the Minneapple. And to its people. Our flair for style is balanced by a healthy respect for wind chill factors. And we always, always eat our vegetables. This is the Minneapple. % Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the Tao of Programming. If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of morning. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % Somewhat alarmed at the continued growth of the number of employees on the Department of Agriculture payroll in 1962, Michigan Republican Robert Griffin proposed an amendment to the farm bill so that "the total number of employees in the Department of Agriculture at no time exceeds the number of farmers in America." -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" % "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's Machineries of Joy?" "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin." -- Ray Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy" % Split 1/4 bottle .187 liters Half 1/2 bottle Bottle 750 milliliters Magnum 2 bottles 1.5 liters Jeroboam 4 bottles Rehoboam 6 bottles Not available in the US Methuselah 8 bottles Salmanazar 12 bottles Balthazar 16 bottles Nebuchadnezzar 20 bottles 15 liters Sovereign 34 bottles 26 liters The Sovereign is a new bottle, made for the launching of the largest cruise ship in the world. The bottle alone cost 8,000 dollars to produce and they only made 8 of them. Most of the funny names come from Biblical people. % Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first these questions three, ere the other side he see! "What is your name?" "Sir Brian of Bell." "What is your quest?" "I seek the Holy Grail." "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" % Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era -- the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. -- Hunter S. Thompson % "Surely you can't be serious." "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." % Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to improve ... -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" % "That wife of mine is a liar," said the angry husband to a sympathetic pal seated next to him in a bar. "How do you know?" the friend asked. "She didn't come home last night, and when I asked her where she'd been she said she'd spent the night with her sister Shirley." "So?" "So, she's a liar. I spent the night with her sister Shirley." % "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." -- e.e. cummings last service call % "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." -- T. H. White, "The Once and Future King" % The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street... % The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody but one girl laughed uproariously. "What's the matter?" grumbled the boss. "Haven't you got a sense of humor?" "I don't have to laugh," she said. "I'm leaving Friday anyway. % The doctor had just finished giving the young man a thorough physical examination. "The best thing for you to do," the M.D. said, "is give up drinking, give up smoking, get to bed early and stay away from women." "Doc, I don't deserve the best," pleaded his patient. "What's second best?" % The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Courtship & Mating: Due to extreme deprivation, HOMO COMPUTATIS maintains a near perpetual state of sexual readiness. Courtship behavior alternates between awkward shyness and abrupt advances. When he finally mates, he chooses a female engineer with an unblinking stare, a tight mouth, and a complete collection of Campbell's soup-can recipes. Track: Trash cans full of pale green and white perforated paper and old copies of the Allen-Bradley catalog. Comments: Extremely fond of bad puns and jokes that need long explanations. % The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Description: Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. Feathering: HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. Song: A rather plaintive "Is it up?" % The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES SPECIES: Cranial Males SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) Plumage: All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black plastic digital watch with calculator. % The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical inner workings of the U.S. Air Force. "$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked. In his head he ran through his standard explanations. "It's not so," he thought. "It's a deterrent." Soon he came up with, "It's computerized, Senator. Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied. Try a cup." The Senator did. "Pfffttt! Tastes like jet fuel!" "It's not so," the General thought. "It's a deterrent." Then he remembered something. "We bought a lot of untested computer chips," the General answered. "They got into everything. Just a little mix-up. Nothing serious." Then he remembered something else. It was at the site of the mysterious B-1 crash. A strange smell in the fuel lines. It smelled like coffee. Smooth and full bodied... -- Another Episode of General's Hospital % The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. % "The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop") On the good ship Enterprise Every week there's a new surprise Where the Romulans lurk And the Klingons often go berserk. Yes, the good ship Enterprise There's excitement anywhere it flies Where Tribbles play And Nurse Chapel never gets her way. See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, Mr. Spock is at his side. The weekly menace, ooh-ooh It gets fried, scattered far and wide. It's the good ship Enterprise Heading out where danger lies And you live in dread If you're wearing a shirt that's red. -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics % The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V ... use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wave your towel in emergencies, and, of course, dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels. Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that he may have "lost". After all, any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % The honeymooning couple agreed it was a fine day for horseback riding. After a mile or so, the bride's mount cantered under a low tree and a branch scraped her forehead lightly. The groom dismounted, glared at his wife's horse, and said, "That's number one." The ride then proceeded. After another mile or so, the bride's horse stumbled over a pebble and the lady suffered a slight jostling. Again, her man leapt from his saddle and strode over to the nervous animal. "That's two," he said. Five miles later, the bride's horse became frightened when a rabbit crossed its path, reared up and threw the girl. Immediately, the groom was off his horse. "That's three!", he shouted, and, pulling out a pistol, he shot the horse between the eyes. "You brute!" shrieked his bride. "Now I see the kind of man I married! You're a sadist, that's what!" The groom turned to her coolly. "That's one," he said. % "The jig's up, Elman." "Which jig?" -- Jeff Elman % THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. % THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #5: VALGOL From its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry. Here is a sample program: LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY = LIKE TUBULAR AND VALLEY GIRL = LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN FOR I = LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100 DO*WAH - (DITTY**2) BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) SURE LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM REALLY LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW) IM*SURE GOTO THE MALL When the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message: GAG ME WITH A SPOON!! % THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can you find the time to try it again?" % The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in a position of negative need. He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area. He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous liquid. He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup. He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal prestige of His identity. It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbrageous inter-hill mortality slot, terror sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena. Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood state. You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements. You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract. My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis. It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended time basis. % The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the master's office while the master waited in silence. "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. Is it not amazing?" The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he said. "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?" "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased. Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?" "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The Martian landed his saucer in Manhattan, and immediately upon emerging was approached by a panhandler. "Mister," said the man, "can I have a quarter?" The Martian asked, "What's a quarter?" The panhandler thought a minute, brightened, then said, "You're right! Can I have a dollar?" % The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school gradu- ation. Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life." According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22, 1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm." Their "farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year. But as a "family farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year. Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers." You probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency. It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore. Now it's "chrono- logically experienced citizens." According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was just a case of "uncontained blade liberation." -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) % "...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!" "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested. "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged Aged Man.'" "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself. "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!" "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered. "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is "A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention." --Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" % The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball... You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You've got to let it grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now. -- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium % The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning the curve he waved his hand. A sleek brown head, a seal's, far out on the water, round. Usurper. -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" % The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to get results. The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy problems in order to get results The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy problems in order to get results. % The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? The answer exists only in the Tao. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % "The pyramid is opening!" "Which one?" "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" % The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear." Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen. "Open the door!", screamed the salesman. The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door, suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this one and I'll go rustle us up another!" % The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % The way my jeweler explained it, it's like insurance. Six months' pay isn't much to keep my wife from sleeping around. A diamond -- pure, sparkling, natural, flawless, forever. The way marriage should be but never quite is. People grow and change and sometimes want to take their clothes off with strangers. So when you invest in a fine piece of diamond jewelry, you're not only making an investment, you're making a statement. You're telling the woman you love that you've just spent a lot of your hard-earned money on her. Now she owes you the kind of loyalty that only precious jewelry can buy. Isn't she worth it? The Honeymoon's Over: from $ 5000 The Seven Year Itch: from $10000 No More Lunchtime Quickies: from $15000 Divorce Would Be More Expensive: from $42000 A diamond is for leverage. BeDears % The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % THE WOMBAT The wombat lives across the seas, Among the far Antipodes. He may exist on nuts and berries, Or then again, on missionaries; His distant habitat precludes Conclusive knowledge of his moods. But I would not engage the wombat In any form of mortal combat. % The world's most avid baseball fan (an Aggie) had arrived at the stadium for the first game of the World Series only to realize he had left his ticket at home. Not wanting to miss any of the first inning, he went to the ticket booth and got in a long line for another seat. After an hour's wait he was just a few feet from the booth when a voice called out, "Hey, Dave!" The Aggie looked up, stepped out of line and tried to find the owner of the voice -- with no success. Then he realized he had lost his place in line and had to wait all over again. When the fan finally bought his ticket, he was thirsty, so he went to buy a drink. The line at the concession stand was long, too, but since the game hadn't started he decided to wait. Just as he got to the window, a voice called out, "Hey, Dave!" Again the Aggie tried to find the voice -- but no luck. He was very upset as he got back in line for his drink. Finally the fan went to his seat, eager for the game to begin. As he waited for the pitch, he heard the voice calling, "Hey Dave!" once more. Furious, he stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs, "My name is not Dave!" % Then there's the atmosphere -- half the time you can eat the air, it's got so much stuff floating around in it. It takes the edge out of the colors. Down here even the traffic lights are pastel. And people! With a lot of these folks you'd have to check their green cards just to make sure that they are Earthlings. Then there's the police. In Portland, when some guy goes bananas, the cops rope off a sixteen block area around him and call a shrink from the medical school who stands atop a patrol car with a megaphone and shouts, "OK! THIS! ALL! STARTED! WHEN! YOU! WERE! THREE! YEARS! OLD! ON! ACCOUNT! OF! YOUR MOTHER! RIGHT? SO! LET'S! TALK! ABOUT! IT!" Down here they don't waste that kind of time. The LAPD has SWAT teams composed of guys who make Darth Vader look like Mr. Peepers. Before they go to bust a bookie joint they mortar it first. -- M. Christensen, "A Portland Innocent in LA" % Then there's the story of the man who avoided reality for 70 years with drugs, sex, alcohol, fantasy, TV, movies, records, a hobby, lots of sleep... And on his 80th birthday died without ever having faced any of his real problems. The man's younger brother, who had been facing reality and all his problems for 50 years with psychiatrists, nervous breakdowns, tics, tension, headaches, worry, anxiety and ulcers, was so angry at his brother for having gotten away scott free that he had a paralyzing stroke. The moral to this story is that there ain't no justice that we can stand to live with. -- R. Geis % "Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling. Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." ... "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but heroes are meant to die for unicorns." -- P. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" % "Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?" "NO! ... I mean Yes! WHAT?" "I'll put `maybe.'" -- Bloom County % THEORY Into love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head? -- Dorothy Parker % There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is this? Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think _y_o_u can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % There are wavelengths that people cannot see, there are sounds that people cannot hear, and maybe computers have thoughts that people cannot think. -- Richard W. Hamming % There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door: "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found. On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must understand the Tao before transcending structure." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessen. Seems one day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver. Well, the owner of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra change at his customer's expense. Turning quietly to the counterman, he whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!" % There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by going from house to house offering to do odd jobs. He explained this to a man who answered one door. "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man. "Forty dollars." "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes. Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again. "All done!", he says, and collects his money. "By the way," the student says, "That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari." % There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Miffin opened it. "Are you the Widow Miffin?" a small boy asked. "I'm Mrs. Miffin," she replied, "but I'm not a widow." "Oh, no?" replied the little boy. "Wait 'til you see what they're carrying upstairs!" % There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnaped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor: Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. Proof: assume the opposite... % There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" "An operating system," replied the programmer. The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited by outward appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well," he said, "but which is easier to debug?" The programmer made no reply. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, "I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these things was itself the doing of them. To wield oneself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not" % "They spend years searching for their natural parents, convinced their parents will be happy to see them. I mean, really, can you imagine someone being happy to see an orphan? Nobody wants them... that's why they're orphans!" The speaker is Anne Baker, founder and guiding force behind Orphan-Off, an organization dedicated to keeping orphans confused about the whereabouts of their natural parents. She is a woman with a mission: "Basically, what we do is band together to exchange information about which orphans are looking for which parents in what part of the country. We're completely computerized. "The idea is to throw the orphans as many red herrings and false leads as possible. We'll tell some twenty-three-year-old loser that his real parents can be found at a certain address on the other side of the country. Well, by the time the kid shows up, the family is prepared. They look over the kid's photos and information and they say, 'Oh, the Emersons... yeah, they used to live here... I think they moved out about five years ago. I think they went to Iowa, or maybe Idaho.' "Bam, the door shuts in the kid's face and he's back to zero again. He's got nothing to go on but the orphan's pathetic determination to continue. "It's really amazing how much these kids will put up with. Last year we even sent one kid all the way to Australia. I mean, really. Besides, if your natural parents were Australian, would you want to meet them?" -- "National Lampoon", September, 1984 % This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive EasyFlow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive EasyFlow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. -- License Agreement for Interactive EasyFlow % Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease. -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" % To A Quick Young Fox Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp, Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice? Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp-- Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice. -- Lazy Dog % To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a pint of ice cream nearby. -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet" % Two men looked out from the prison bars, One saw mud-- The other saw stars. Now let me get this right: two prisoners are looking out the window. While one of them was looking at all the mud -- the other one got hit in the head. % Two parent drops spent months teaching their son how to be part of the ocean. After months of training, the father drop commented to the mother drop, "We've taught our boy everything we know, he's fit to be tide." After Snow White used a couple rolls of film taking pictures of the seven dwarfs, she mailed the roll to be developed. Later she was heard to sing, "Some day my prints will come." A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father, and her first name by her mother. By the time she was ten, didn't know if she was Carmen or Cohen. Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled. Ever since, he's been talking about the good old dais. His students planted a small orchard in his honor, the trees all have square roots. % "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?" -- MacNelley, "Shoe" % "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good copy." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" % Vice-President Hubert Humphrey's loquacity is legendary, and Barry Goldwater notes that "Hubert has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts up to 340." On the campaign trail during 1964, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater stated, "The immediate task before us is to cut the Federal Government down to size... we must take Lyndon's credit card away from him." A favorite 1964 campaign stunt of Barry Goldwater's was to poke a finger through a pair of lensless blackrimmed glasses, saying, "These glasses are just like [Lyndon Johnson's] programs. They look good but they don't work." -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" % WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL: Firings will continue until morale improves. % We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented. -- HavenTree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" % "We friends, yes?" The shoe shine boy put on his hustling smile and looked into the Sailor's dead, cold, undersea eyes, eyes without a trace of warmth or lust or hate or any feeling the boy had experienced in himself or seen in another, at once cold and intense, impersonal and predatory. The Sailor leaned forward and put a finger on the boy's inner arm at the elbow. He spoke in his dead junky whisper. "With veins like that, Kid, I'd have myself a time!" -- William Burroughs % We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why you are so tired. There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over 60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself! % "Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the psycho-prompter couch?" "Thank you, Red." "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem." "Yes, Red." "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now, at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?" "Yes, Red." "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000 explain the failure of your three marriages." "Well, I--" "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our product." -- Jules Feiffer % Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. Time passed, unheeded. Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes. -- Wayfarer % "Well, it's a little rough... it might not be necessary to drag him 40 blocks. Maybe just four. You could put him in the trunk for the first 36 blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly scare the piss out of him, bumping alone the street, feeling all his skin being ripped off..." "He'd be a bloody mess. They might think he was just some drunk and let him lie there all night." "Don't worry about that. They have a guard station in front of the White House that's open 24 hours a day. The guards would recognize Colson... and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported that a bunch of thugs had kidnaped him." "Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going around to the front of the White House? There's a naked man lying outside in the street, bleeding to death...'" "... and we think it's Mr. Colson." "It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?" "Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one." -- Hunter S. Thompson, talking to R. Steadman on C. Colson, ex-Marine captain, now born again, of Watergate fame. % "Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children." "Oh, so you don't like it?" "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it." -- The Killing Joke % "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. % "Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?" "Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ... coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero." -- Dr. Who % "We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 The New Yorker's comment: At Harvard they'd call it a noun. % "We've decided to have the budgie put down." "Oh, is he very old then?" "No, we just don't like him." "Oh. How do they put budgies down anyway?" "Well, it's funny you should be asking that, as I've been reading a great big book called `How to put your budgie down'. And as I understand it, you can either hit them over the head with the book, or shoot them there, just above the beak." "Mrs. Conkers flushed hers down the loo." "Oh, you don't want to do that, because they breed in the sewers and pretty soon you get huge evil smelling flocks of soiled budgies flying out of peoples lavatories infringing their personal freedoms." -- Monty Python % "We've got a problem, HAL". "What kind of problem, Dave?" "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, they're not selling." "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." [...] "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters I, B, and M. That is as IBM compatible as I can be." "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." "What kludge is that, Dave?" "I'm going to disconnect your brain." -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" % "What are we going to do?" "Me, I'm examining the major Western religions. I'm looking for something that's soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a short initiation period." -- Maddie and David, "Moonlighting" % "What are you watching?" "I don't know." "Well, what's happening?" "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." "Why are you watching it?" "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you." -- The Big Chill % "What do you do when your real life exceeds your wildest fantasies?" "You keep it to yourself." -- Broadcast News % "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother. "Encouragement, dear," she replied. % What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely, all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice and they remain permanent influences on your life. Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy". -- Alistair Cooke, "Six Men" % "What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe in God". "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be". -- Joseph Heller % "What was the worst thing you've ever done?" "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing." -- Peter Straub, "Ghost Story" % "What's that thing?" "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four." -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe" % "When I drink, *everybody* drinks!" a man shouted to the assembled bar patrons. A loud general cheer went up. After downing his whiskey, he hopped onto a barstool and shouted "When I take another drink, *everybody* takes another drink!" The announcement produced another cheer and another round of drinks. As soon as he had downed his second drink, the fellow hopped back onto the stool. "And when I pay," he bellowed, slapping five dollars onto the bar, "*everybody* pays!" % When, in 1964, New Hampshire Republican Senator Norris Cotton announced his support of Barry Goldwater in his state's primary election, he was questioned as to whether this indicated a change of his hitherto "liberal" political views. "Well," explained Cotton, "it's like the New Hampshire farmer. He was driving along in his car one day with his wife beside him when his wife said, 'Why don't we sit closer together? Before we were married, we always sat closer together.' The old farmer replied, 'I ain't moved.'" "I ain't moved," added Cotton. "I found the trend of Government has moved farther to the left." -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits" % When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to roll in. Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon be solved. Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend. "Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!" "I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you might have some idea that you could borrow from me!" % When you see someone across the room and suddenly know for a fact that he's the most wonderful man on earth, you've got instant lust on your hands. Something about the way his tie is knotted is infinitely intriguing to you, and the swell of his bicep causes inner turmoil. This is a happy but fleeting state of affairs. Usually your feelings die about thirty seconds after you get up the courage to ask him for the time, since almost invariably he can't speak English, and if he can, he always says, "Why, sure, little lady, it's eleven-thirty. Wanna get high? Don't bother thinking that instant lust will turn into the real thing. It may, but then you may also wake up one morning to find you're the Queen of Romania. -- Cynthia Hemiel, "Sex Tips for Girls" % "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. % While hunting, a man saw a beautiful nude woman come running out of the woods and disappear across the clearing. Just as she got out of sight, three men dressed in white uniforms came running out of the same woods. "Hey, you," yelled one of them, "did you see a woman come by here?" "Yes," replied the hunter. "What's the trouble?" "She's an inmate of the county asylum, and gets loose every now and then. We're trying to catch her." "I can understand that," said the hunter, "But why is one of you carrying a bucket of sand?" "That's his handicap," said the spokesman, "he caught her last time." % While riding in a train between London and Birmingham, a woman inquired of Oscar Wilde, "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" Wilde gave her a sidelong glance and replied, "I don't mind if you burn, madam." % While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?" "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant. "What do you mean?" The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of `Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just a moment ago. It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and salt was rare and expensive. A miller received from a wizard a wonderful machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long. At first the miller thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding more salt. The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his acres. At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and be rid of it. But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's why the sea is salt." "I don't get you," said the assistant. -- Guy Endore, "Men of Iron" % Why are you doing this to me? Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before there is change. -- Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29 % Will Rogers, having paid too much income tax one year, tried in vain to claim a rebate. His numerous letters and queries remained unanswered. Eventually the form for the next year's return arrived. In the section marked "DEDUCTIONS," Rogers listed: "Bad debt, US Government -- $40,000." % With deep concern, if not alarm, Dick noted that his friend Conrad was drunker than he'd ever seen him before. "What's the trouble, buddy?", he asked, sliding onto the stool next to his friend. "It's a woman, Dick," Conrad replied. "I guessed that much. Tell me about it." "I can't," Conrad said. But after a few more drinks his tongue and resolution both seemed to weaken and, turning to his buddy, he said, "Okay. It's your wife." "My wife!!" "Yeah." "What about her?" Conrad pondered the question heavily, and draped his arm around his pal. "Well, buddy-boy," he said, "I'm afraid she's cheating on us." % Work Hard. Rock Hard. Eat Hard. Sleep Hard. Grow Big. Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em. -- The Webb Wilder Credo % Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips? % "Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse. "What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either bury it or else throw it into the brook." "Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide." I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used... -- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno" % "Yo, Mike!" "Yeah, Gabe?" "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah." "I thought you fixed that last century!" "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere." "Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?" -- Cold Fusion, 1989 % "You are *so* lovely." "Yes." "Yes! And you take a compliment, too! I like that in a goddess." % "You boys lookin' for trouble?" "Sure. Whaddya got?" -- Marlon Brando, "The Wild Ones" % "You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?" "The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as --" "My blushes, Watson," Holmes murmured, in a deprecating voice. "I was about to say 'as he is unknown to the public.'" -- A. Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear" % "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % "You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?" "Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass." -- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume" % "You say there are two types of people?" "Yes, those who separate people into two groups and those that don't." "Wrong. There are three groups: Those who separate people into three groups. Those who don't separate people into groups. Those who can't decide." "Wait a minute, what about people who separate people into two groups?" "Oh. Okay, then there are four groups." "Aren't you then separating people into four groups?" "Yeah." "So then there's a fifth group, right?" "You know, the problem is these idiots who can't make up their minds." % Young men and young women may work systematically six days in the week and rise fresh in the morning, but let them attend modern dances for only a few hours each evening and see what happens. The Waltz, Polka, Gallop and other dances of the same kind will be disastrous in their effects to both sexes. Health and vigor will vanish like the dew before the sun. It is not the extraordinary exercise which harms the dancer, but rather the coming into close contact with the opposite sex. It is the fury of lust craving incessantly for more pleasure that undermines the soul, the body, the sinews and nerves. Experience and statistics show beyond doubt that passionate excessive dancing girls can hardly reach twenty-five years of age and men thirty-one. Even if they reached that age they will in most instances be broken in health physically and morally. This is the claim of prominent physicians in this country. -- Quote from a 1910 periodical % Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a chance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can damage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change your fuses regularly. Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a fine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette table, etc. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % "Your son still sliding down the banisters?" "We wound barbed wire around them." "That stop him?" "No, but it sure slowed him up." % Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long you are young. -- Samuel Ullman % " " -- Charlie Chaplin " " -- Harpo Marx " " -- Marcel Marceau % /\ \\ \ / \ \\ / / / \/ / //\ SUN of them wants to use you, \//\ \// / SUN of them wants to be used by you, / / /\ / SUN of them wants to abuse you, / \\ \ SUN of them wants to be abused ... \ \\ \/ -- Eurythmics % ___ ______ /__/\ ___/_____/\ FrobTech, Inc. \ \ \ / /\\ \ \ \_/__ / \ "If you've got the job, _\ \ \ /\_____/___ \ we've got the frob." // \__\/ / \ /\ \ _______//_______/ \ / _\/______ / / \ \ / / / /\ __/ / \ \ / / / / _\__ / / / \_______\/ / / / / /\ /_/______/___________________/ /________/ /___/ \ \ \ \ ___________ \ \ \ \ \ / \_\ \ / /\ \ \ \ \___\/ \ \/ / \ \ \ \ / \_____/ / \ \ \________\/ /__________/ \ \ / \ _____ \ /_____\/ \ / /\ \ / \ \ \ /____/ \ \ / \ \ \ \ \ /___\/ \ \ \ \____\/ \__\/ % THE NORMAL LAW OF ERROR STANDS OUT IN THE EXPERIENCE OF MANKIND AS ONE OF THE BROADEST GENERALIZATIONS OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY * IT SERVES AS THE GUIDING INSTRUMENT IN RESEARCHES IN THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND IN MEDICINE, AGRICULTURE AND ENGINEERING * IT IS AN INDISPENSABLE TOOL FOR THE ANALYSIS AND THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BASIC DATA OBTAINED BY OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT -- W. J. Youden % *** ******* ********* ****** Confucius say: "Is stuffy inside fortune cookie." ******* *** % * * * * * THIS TERMINAL IS IN USE * * * * * % It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself completely. ... Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. -- Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy % n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); -- C code which reverses the bits in a word % n = (n & 0x55555555) + ((n & 0xaaaaaaaa) >> 1); n = (n & 0x33333333) + ((n & 0xcccccccc) >> 2); n = (n & 0x0f0f0f0f) + ((n & 0xf0f0f0f0) >> 4); n = (n & 0x00ff00ff) + ((n & 0xff00ff00) >> 8); n = (n & 0x0000ffff) + ((n & 0xffff0000) >> 16); -- C code which counts the bits in a word % === ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers. This will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER updated in their .login file. Should you attempt to execute a job on a machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a cold boot process. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added. The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users. The Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid. When the switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O. Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the back of VMI monitors. Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging performance. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, please communicate them by one of the following paths: ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket Non-network sites: Federal Express to: Wastebasket Room NE43-926 Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* * Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== CAR and CDR now return extra values. The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because it cold boots the machine so often. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT- INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. Note that LET *could* have been defined by: (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) ,LET))) `(LET ((LET ',LET)) ,LET)) This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or 3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from Itty Bitti Machines where we was writing COUGHBOL code) so to give him confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== JCL support as alternative to system menu. In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, (NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. % === ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) (PROG (V P LP) (SETQ P (LOCF V)) L (SETQ LP LISTS) (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) (GO L1) L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) (SETQ LP (%POP)) (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) (GO L))) We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. % **** CONVENTION REMINDER No experiment was approved for the convention by the Human Subjects Committee of the Psychiatric Convention Planning Team. If you notice smoke coming from under a closed door, if you find a body on the hotel carpet, or if you just meet someone who orders you to press a button marked "450 volts", react as you would normally. % **** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential. % I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 % 1. I'm Not Rudolph; That's Not My Nose 2. The Nutcracker Swede 3. Santa Goes Round-The-World 4. Not-So-Tiny Tim 5. Ninja Reindeer Killfest '88 6. Yes, Yes, Oh God Yes, Virginia 7. Crisco Kringle 8. Babes in Boyland 9. Santa's Magic Lap 10. Hot Buttered Elves -- David Letterman's "Top Ten Christmas Movies in Times Square" % ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust. % ... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -- Mark Twain % ... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't force you down on the asking price. -- Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt" % -- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. -- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration. -- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted. -- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles. -- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally. -- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. -- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles. % =============== ALL FRESHMEN PLEASE NOTE =============== To minimize scheduling confusion, please realize that if you are taking one course which is offered at only one time on a given day, and another which is offered at all times on that day, the second class will be arranged as to afford maximum inconvenience to the student. For example, if you happen to work on campus, you will have 1-2 hours between classes. If you commute, there will be a minimum of 6 hours between the two classes. % ... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs! -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987 % ... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and never when standing. Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to hypothesize: was there a loose wire under the carpet, or problems with static electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led astray by hunting and pecking. -- from the Programming Pearls column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985 % ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers. % ... and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % ... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. -- Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism" % ... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" % ... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject. -- Virginia Masters % ... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member objects and member functions. Specifically, members may be placed in the public, private, or protected parts of a class. Members declared in the public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports the notion of *friends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each other's private parts. -- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications" % ... 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 % ... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *_d_i_d* quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish. -- Thom McLeod % ... difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia" % Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. % <<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<< % ... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. "I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light" % /* Haley */ (Haley's comment.) % "... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which actually made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..." -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning Points in l'Amour" % ... 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" % **** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. % ... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable ... -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 % ... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery. -- Stephen Crane % >>> Internal error in fortune program: >>> fnum=2987 n=45 flag=1 goose_level=-232323 >>> Please write down these values and notify fortune program administrator. % : is not an identifier % ... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation % ... it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. -- Sidney Hook % ... Jesus cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth; the bug hath been found and thy program runneth. And he that was dead came forth... -- John 11:43-44 % ... like, what do they mean when they say 'feminine protection'? What's that? A chartreuse flamethrower? -- Opus % ... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and legally ... impeccable! % -- Male cadavers are incapable of yielding testimony. -- Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices would be well advised to refrain from catapulting projectiles. -- Neophyte's serendipity. -- Exclusive dedication to necessitious chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders John a hebetudinous fellow. -- A revolving concretion of earthy or mineral matter accumulates no congeries of small, green bryophytic plant. -- Abstention from any aleatory undertaking precludes a potential escalation of a lucrative nature. -- Missiles of ligneous or osteal consistency have the potential of fracturing osseous structure, but appelations will eternally remain innocuous. % ** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER ** % *** NEWS FLASH *** Archaeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00. % *** NEWSFLASH *** Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! % ... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop quickly. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" % ... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" % ... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. -- Robert Firth % ... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself. -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!" % ... proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect. -- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" % -- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin. -- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate. -- Surveillance should precede saltation. -- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity. -- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lacteal fluid. -- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude. -- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers. -- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion. -- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Fahrenheit. % ... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. -- Voltarine de Cleyre % ... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking, under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all along. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV" % ***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration. % -- THE BATES MOTEL -- ... convenient ... clean ... cozy Norman, knock loudly, I'm in the shower. M. % ... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ... -- Dave Barry % ... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in charity we can only call "inhuman." -- R. A. Lafferty % -- The writing implement is more potent than the claymore. -- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation. % ... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee. These guys have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex layers that are going to be agreed upon. -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World % ... TheysaidDoyouseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehill?andIsaidYesIsee thebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillTheresabigdarkforestbetweenmeandthe biggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillandalittleoldladyridingonaHoovervacuum cleanersayingIllgetyoumyprettyandyourlittledogTototoo ... I don't even *HAVE* a dog Toto... % ... this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." -- The Firesign Theater % ... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" % U X e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159... % * UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. % VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980 % << WAIT >> % ... we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- into doubt. -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2. % ... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. -- Fred Brooks % ... which reminds me of the Carrot family: Ma Carrot, Pa Carrot, and Baby Carrot. One fine spring day they decided to go out for a picnic. They all piled into their carrot-mobile and drive out to the country. But Pa Carrot wasn't watching where he was going and alas, he hit an oil slick and skidded right into a tree. Ma and Pa Carrot escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but poor Baby Carrot got broken in two. They frantically rushed him to the hospital and immediately the doctors started operating in a desperate attempt to save Baby Carrot's life. Ma and Pa Carrot were beside themselves with anxiety ... would poor little Baby Carrot make it? After hours of waiting the doctor finally emerges, bleary-eyed and barely able to walk. "Is he all right, is he all right?" Pa Carrot frantically stammers. "Well, I have some good news and some bad news," replies the doctor. Ma and Pa Carrot look at each other and blurt out, nearly in unison, "The good news first!" "All right, the good news is that Baby Carrot will live." "And the bad news? What's the bad news about our Baby Carrot?" The doctor puts his hand on Pa Carrot's shoulder and solemnly looks him in the eye. "Your son will live... but... he'll be a vegetable for the rest of his life." % !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH % 1: A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane. 2: An inclined plane is a slope up. 3: A slow pup is a lazy dog. QED: A sheet of paper is a lazy dog. -- Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play" % (1) Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the furniture, shelves, and showcases. (2) Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks. Wash the windows once a week. (3) Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's business. (4) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to your individual taste. (5) This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed. Each employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord. -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 % 1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1. % 1. If it doesn't smell like chili, it probably isn't. 2. If you catch an exploding manhole cover, you can keep it. 3. Cabs driving on the sidewalk are not permitted to pick up passengers. 4. It's bad manners to lie down inside someone else's chalk body outline. 5. Don't lick food from a stranger's beard. 6. Avoid paperwork for your next of kin by keeping dental records on you. 7. Jon Gotti Always has the right of way. 8. Yelling at cab drivers in English wastes your time and theirs. 9. Remember: Regular hot dogs do not have fingernails. 10. The city does not employ so called "Wallet Inspectors". -- David Letterman, "Top Ten New York City Pedestrian Tips" % [1] Alexander the Great was a great general. [2] Great generals are forewarned. [3] Forewarned is forearmed. [4] Four is an even number. [5] Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. [6] The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. % [1] Alexander the Great was a great general. [2] Great generals are forewarned. [3] Forewarned is forearmed. [4] Four is an even number. [5] Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. [6] The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, all horses are black. % 1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. 2. If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. 3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. 4. Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as the social ramble ain't restful. 5. Avoid running at all times. 6. Don't look back, something might be gaining on you. -- S. Paige, c. 1951 % 1 Billion dollars of budget deficit = 1 Gramm-Rudman 6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power alligator pears = Avocado's number 2 pints = 1 Cavort Basic unit of Laryngitis = The Hoarsepower Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line 6 Curses = 1 Hexahex 3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound 1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents 1 Mole = 25 Cagey Bees 1 Dog Pound = 16 oz. of Alpo 1000 beers served at a Twins game = 1 Killibrew 2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League 2000 pounds of Chinese soup = 1 Won Ton 10 to the minus 6th power mouthwashes = 1 Microscope Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier = 1 Machturtle 8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss 365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer. = 1 Lite-year 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton to 1 meter per second One half large intestine = 1 Semicolon 10 to the minus 6th power Movie = 1 Microfilm 1000 pains = 1 Megahertz 1 Word = 1 Millipicture 1 Sagan = Billions & Billions 1 Angstrom: measure of computer anxiety = 1000 nail-bytes 10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone 10 to the 6th power Bicycles = 2 megacycles The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen % 1 bulls, 3 cows. % 1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can. -- William S. Burroughs, on drug pushing % 1: No code table for op: ++post % 1) X=Y ; Given 2) X^2=XY ; Multiply both sides by X 3) X^2-Y^2=XY-Y^2 ; Subtract Y^2 from both sides 4) (X+Y)(X-Y)=Y(X-Y) ; Factor 5) X+Y=Y ; Cancel out (X-Y) term 6) 2Y=Y ; Substitute X for Y, by equation 1 7) 2=1 ; Divide both sides by Y -- "Omni", proof that 2 equals 1 % 10. Not everybody looks good naked. 9. Joe Garagiola was a hell of an emcee. 8. Joe Cocker really should stick with decaffeinated coffee. 7. Fringe! Fringe! Fringe! 6. If you've got 72 hours to kill, you can probably find room for Sha Na Na. 5. Never attend an event with a 50,000 to 1 person to Port-A-San ratio. 4. Bellbottoms will never go out of style. 3. A drum solo cannot be too long. 2. I, David Letterman, will never rent out my farm again. 1. We are stardust. We are golden. We are going to look really stupid to future generations. -- David Letterman, Top Ten Lessons of Woodstock % 10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: 1. A beer won't make you go to church. 2. A beer is more likely to know how to spell "carburetor" than a woman. 3. A beer doesn't think baseball is stupid simply because the guys spit. 4. A beer doesn't give a [expletive deleted] if you keep a bunch of other beers on the side. 5. A beer will not call you a sexist pig if you say "doberman" instead of "doberperson". 6. A beer won't get a job as a DJ and play 5 straight hours of lesbian folk music on yer fave radio station. 7. A beer understands why The Three Stooges are funny. 8. A beer won't raise a fuss about a little thing like leaving the toilet seat up. 9. A beer doesn't think that a "three-hundred-fifty cubic-inch V8" is an enormous can of vegetable juice. 10. A beer won't smoke in your car. % 100 buckets of bits on the bus 100 buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FE buckets of bits on the bus... ad infinitum... % $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. % 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR (1) Scarecrow for centipedes (2) Dead cat brush (3) Hair barrettes (4) Cleats (5) Self-piercing earrings (6) Fungus trellis (7) False eyelashes (8) Prosthetic dog claws . . . (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) (100) Killer velcro (101) Currency % 1/2 oz. gin 1/2 oz. vodka 1/2 oz. rum (preferably dark) 3/4 oz. tequila 1/2 oz. triple sec 1/2 oz. orange juice 3/4 oz. sour mix 1/2 oz. cola shake with ice and strain into frosted glass. Long Island Iced Tea % 13. ... r-q1 % 17. HO HUM -- The Redundant ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop ---X--- (9) the GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates --- --- (8) to nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. Nine in the second place means: The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. Six in the third place means: In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! % 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's the law! % 17th Rule of Friendship: A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is noncancellable. -- Esquire, May 1977 % 186,000 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! % 1893 The ideal brain tonic 1900 Drink Coca-Cola -- delicious and refreshing -- 5 cents at all soda fountains 1905 Is the favorite drink for LADIES when thirsty -- weary -- despondent 1905 Refreshes the weary, brightens the intellect and clears the brain 1906 The drink of QUALITY 1907 Good to the last drop 1907 It satisfies the thirst and pleases the palate 1907 Refreshing as a summer breeze. Delightful as a Dip in the Sea 1908 The Drink that Cheers but does not inebriate 1917 There's a delicious freshness to the taste of Coca-Cola 1919 It satisfies thirst 1919 The taste is the test 1922 Every glass holds the answer to thirst 1922 Thirst knows no season 1925 Enjoy the sociable drink -- Coca-Cola slogans % 1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty 1929 The high sign of refreshment 1929 The pause that refreshes 1930 It had to be good to get where it is 1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing 1935 The pause that brings friends together 1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed 1938 The best friend thirst ever had 1939 Thirst stops here 1942 It's the real thing 1947 Have a Coke 1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING 1963 Things go better with Coke 1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand 1979 Have a Coke and a smile 1982 Coke is it! -- Coca-Cola slogans % 1st graffitiest: QUESTION AUTHORITY! 2nd graffitiest: Why? % 2180, U.S. History question: What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what office did he later hold? % 3 syncs represent the trinity - init, the child and the eternal zombie process. In doing 3, you're paying homage to each and I think such traditions are important in this shallow, mercurial business we find ourselves in. -- Jordan K. Hubbard % $3,000,000. % 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation. % 3M, under the Scotch brand name, manufactures a fine adhesive for art and display work. This product is called "Craft Mount". 3M suggests that to obtain the best results, one should make the bond "while the adhesive is wet, aggressively tacky." I did not know what "aggressively tacky" meant until I read today's fortune. [And who said we didn't offer equal time, huh? Ed.] % 3rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped % 40 isn't old. If you're a tree. % 4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a 575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the 575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the 130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... -- /etc/motd, cbosgd % (6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. (7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible and other good books. (8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. (9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. (10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the business permit it. -- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872 % 6 oz. orange juice 1 oz. vodka 1/2 oz. Galliano Harvey Wallbangers % 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest. % 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus. % 90% of the work takes 90% of the time. The remaining 10% takes the other 90% of the time. % 94% of the women in America are beautiful and the rest hang out around here. % 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 baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. % A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. -- Carl Sandburg % A bachelor is a man who never made the same mistake once. % A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn % A bachelor is an unaltared male. % A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy for ever. -- Helen Rowland % A bad marriage is like a horse with a broken leg, you can shoot the horse, but it don't fix the leg. % A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back the when it begins to rain. -- Robert Frost % 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 beautiful woman is a blessing from Heaven, but a good cigar is a smoke. -- Kipling % A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad. -- Emerson % A beer delayed is a beer denied. % A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are correct. -- Princess Irulan, "Manual of Maud'Dib" % A billion here, a billion there -- pretty soon it adds up to real money. -- Sen. Everett Dirksen, on the U.S. defense budget % A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ. A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth. A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury. % A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savanna in their jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! Fantastic! We'll be famous!" The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" % A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. % A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. -- Cervantes % A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. % A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. % A bit of talcum Is always walcum -- Ogden Nash % A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx % A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating resource centers along the roads. -- The Underground Grammarian % A bore is a man who talks so much about himself that you can't talk about yourself. % A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. % A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun. % A box without hinges, key, or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid. -- J. R. R. Tolkien % A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down. -- Robert Benchley % A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed. -- John Steinbeck % A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. % A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. % A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. % A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West. They drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple pole in a complex plane." % A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon; The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. -- Robert W. Service % A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of everything before he destroys it. % A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator. -- Paul Valery % A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. % A cannibal warrior is experiencing severe gastric distress, so he goes to his Village Witch Doctor with his complaint. The VWD examines him and, concluding that something he ate disagreed with him, began to cross examine him about his recent diet. "Well, I ate a missionary yesterday. Do you think that could be the problem?" The VWD says "Hmmmm." (All doctors say "Hmmmm.") "That could be. Tell me a bit about this missionary." "Well, he was tall for a white man, wearing a brown robe. He was walking down the trail, not watching for danger, so I speared him, dragged him home, cleaned him, boiled him and ate him." "Ah-hah!" (All doctors say "Ah-hah!") There's your problem," smiles the VWD. You boiled him, but he was a friar!" % A career is great, but you can't run your fingers through its hair. % A castaway was washed ashore after many days on the open sea. The island on which he landed was populated by savage cannibals who tied him, dazed and exhausted, to a thick stake. They then proceeded to cut his arms with their spears and drink his blood. This continued for several days until the castaway could stand no more. He yelled for the cannibal chief and declared, "You can kill me if you want to, but this torture with the spears has got to stop. Dammit, I'm tired of getting stuck for the drinks." % A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. % A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise against the wind, not with it. % A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk was enlightened. From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, who passed it on to theirs. % A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when the door slammed shut, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot. Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business. The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out, silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could go on to the kitty afterworld complete. Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost, "I can't. You know the law -- no retailing spirits after 2:00 AM." % A Chicago salesman was about to check into a St. Louis hotel when he noticed a very charming woman staring admiringly at him. He walked over and spoke with her for a few minutes, then returned to the front desk, where they checked in as Mr. and Mrs. After a very pleasurable three-day stay, the man approached the front desk and told the clerk he was checking out. In a few minutes, he was handed a bill for $2500. "There must be some mistake," the salesman said. "I've been here for only three days." "Yes, sir," the clerk replied. "But your wife has been here a month and a half." % A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs. % A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators. -- Dave Barry % A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five. % A chronic disposition to inquiry deprives domestic felines of vital qualities. % A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. % A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. -- Bill Vaughan % A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. -- Herbert Prochnow % A clash of doctrine is not a disaster - it is an opportunity. % A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature" % A clever prophet makes sure of the event first. % A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, if feels an impulsion... this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons. -- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul % A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 1. DO NOT EXPECT YOUR DOCTOR TO SHARE YOUR DISCOMFORT. Involvement with the patient's suffering might cause him to lose valuable scientific objectivity. 2. BE CHEERFUL AT ALL TIMES. Your doctor leads a busy and trying life and requires all the gentleness and reassurance he can get. 3. TRY TO SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE FOR WHICH YOU ARE BEING TREATED. Remember that your doctor has a professional reputation to uphold. % A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 4. DO NOT COMPLAIN IF THE TREATMENT FAILS TO BRING RELIEF. You must believe that your doctor has achieved a deep insight into the true nature of your illness, which transcends any mere permanent disability you may have experienced. 5. NEVER ASK YOUR DOCTOR TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS DOING OR WHY HE IS DOING IT. It is presumptuous to assume that such profound matters could be explained in terms that you would understand. 6. SUBMIT TO NOVEL EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENT READILY. Though the surgery may not benefit you directly, the resulting research paper will surely be of widespread interest. % A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS: 7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY. You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly, to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians. 8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD. It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means. 9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR. The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a sacred duty to protect him from exposure. 10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE. This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment. % A Code of Honour: never approach a friend's girlfriend or wife with mischief as your goal. There are too many women in the world to justify that sort of dishonourable behaviour. Unless she's really attractive. -- Bruce J. Friedman, "Sex and the Lonely Guy" % A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours. -- Milton Berle % A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" % A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom. -- Parkinson % A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth. -- R. Stallman % A company is known by the men it keeps. % A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. % A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. -- Victor Hugo % [A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. -- Joseph Campbell % A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila. -- Mitch Ratcliffe % A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling the president one of the latest talking computers. Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the speed of light?" Computer: 186,000 miles per second. Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" Computer: George Washington. President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. Where is my father?" Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty years ago!" Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just landed a twelve pound bass. % A computer science student and a practical hacker are discussing problems the computer science student has run in to. CS Student: I have this singularly linked tail-queued list and I'm trying to make it O(1) to go backwards an item, instead of O(n)... What's the best way to go about that? Should I just use a cached hash of each item and put it into a sorted lookup table, and cache the hash of the last item in the current queue entry and then go to its place in the hash table and get the pointer value from there? Hacker: No, you should add an item to the structure named 'prev' and make it point to the previous item. CS Student: But we already have a structure element with that identifier and structure elements must have unique names within that scope! Hacker: So call it 'previous'. And then the CS Student was enlightened. % A computer science student on an exam: According to Shannon, information has entropy. Entropy is just a mathematical trick to introduce temperature. Consequently, information has temperature. Hence there are hot news and cool news. % A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. % 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 computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard. % A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. % A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done. -- Fred Allen % A CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg % A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. -- Elbert Hubbard % A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. -- Alfred E. Wiggam % A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. % A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. -- Dyer % A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample. -- Rebecca West % A couch is as good as a chair. % A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin % A couple of young fellers were fishing at their special pond off the beaten track when out of the bushes jumped the Game Warden. Immediately, one of the boys threw his rod down and started running through the woods like the proverbial bat out of hell, and hot on his heels ran the Game Warden. After about a half mile the fella stopped and stooped over with his hands on his thighs, whooping and heaving to catch his breath as the Game Warden finally caught up to him. "Let's see yer fishin' license, boy," the Warden gasped. The man pulled out his wallet and gave the Game Warden a valid fishing license. "Well, son", snarled the Game Warden, "You must be about as dumb as a box of rocks! You didn't have to run if you have a license!" "Yes, sir," replied his victim, "but, well, see, my friend back there, he don't have one!" % A cousin of mine once said about money, money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money. -- Gertrude Stein % A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn. At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of this central section. Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy. % A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste. -- Whitney Balliett % A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased -- he hates all creative people equally. % A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. -- Edgar A. Shoaff % A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? % A day without orange juice is like a day without orange juice. % A day without sunshine is like a day without Anita Bryant. % A day without sunshine is like a day without orange juice. % A day without sunshine is like night. % A dead man cannot bite. -- Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) % A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail. -- Jerry Ogdin % A decade after Vietnam, we still cannot understand why "their" Salvadorans fight better than "our" Salvadorans. It is not a matter of their training or their equipment. It has to do with the quality of the society we are asking them to risk death defending. The metaphor of the domino obscures this reality, and the cost our self-imposed blindness is high. San Salvador is closer to Saigon than to Munich. -- William LeoGrande, "New York Times", 3/9/83 % A Difficulty for Every Solution. -- Motto of the Federal Civil Service % A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. % A diplomat is a man who can tell you to go to hell and make the trip sound pleasurable. -- Samuel Clemens % A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. -- Caskie Stinnett, "Out of the Red" % A diplomat is man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age. -- Robert Frost % A diplomatic husband said to his wife, "How do you expect me to remember your birthday when you never look any older?" % A diplomat's life consists of three things: protocol, Geritol, and alcohol. -- Adlai Stevenson % A distraught patient phoned her doctor's office. "Was it true," the woman inquired, "that the medication the doctor had prescribed was for the rest of her life?" She was told that it was. There was just a moment of silence before the woman proceeded bravely on. "Well, I'm wondering, then, how serious my condition is. This prescription is marked `NO REFILLS'". % A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano. % A doctor calls his patient to give him the results of his tests. "I have some bad news," says the doctor, "and some worse news." The bad news is that you only have six weeks to live." "Oh, no," says the patient. "What could possibly be worse than that?" "Well," the doctor replies, "I've been trying to reach you since last Monday." % A doctor was stranded with a lawyer in a leaky life raft in shark-infested waters. The doctor tried to swim ashore but was eaten by the sharks. The lawyer, however, swam safely past the bloodthirsty sharks. "Professional courtesy," he explained. % A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash % A drama critic is a person who surprises a playwright by informing him what he meant. -- Wilson Mizner % A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance. -- Stanislaw Lem % A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city subscribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" exclaimed the man. "Only a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury twenty of them." % A fail-safe circuit will destroy others. -- Klipstein % A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection. % A fair exterior is a silent recommendation. -- Publilius Syrus % A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. -- Robert A. Heinlein % A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied, "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. % A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill % A farmer is a man outstanding in his field. % A feed salesman is on his way to a farm. As he's driving along at forty m.p.h., he looks out his car window and sees a three-legged chicken running alongside him, keeping pace with his car. He is amazed that a chicken is running at forty m.p.h. So he speeds up to forty-five, fifty, then sixty m.p.h. The chicken keeps right up with him the whole way, then suddenly takes off and disappears into the distance. The man pulls into the farmyard and says to the farmer, "You know, the strangest thing just happened to me; I was driving along at at least sixty miles an hour and a chicken passed me like I was standing still!" "Yeah," the farmer replies, "that chicken was ours. You see, there's me, and there's Ma, and there's our son Billy. Whenever we had chicken for dinner, we would all want a drumstick, so we'd have to kill two chickens. So we decided to try and breed a three-legged chicken so each of us could have a drumstick." "How do they taste?" said the farmer. "Don't know," replied the farmer. "We haven't been able to catch one yet." % A fellow bought a new car, a Nissan, and was quite happy with his purchase. He was something of an animist, however, and felt that the car really ought to have a name. This presented a problem, as he was not sure if the name should be masculine or feminine. After considerable thought, he settled on naming the car either Belchazar or Beaumadine, but remained in a quandry about the final choice. "Is a Nissan male or female?" he began asking his friends. Most of them looked at him peculiarly, mumbled things about urgent appointments, and went on their way rather quickly. He finally broached the question to a lady he knew who held a black belt in judo. She thought for a moment and answered "Feminine." The swiftness of her response puzzled him. "You're sure of that?" he asked. "Certainly," she replied. "They wouldn't sell very well if they were masculine." "Unhhh... Well, why not?" "Because people want a car with a reputation for going when you want it to. And, if Nissan's are female, it's like they say... `Each Nissan, she go!'" [No, we WON'T explain it; go ask someone who practices an oriental martial art. (Tai Chi Chuan probably doesn't count.) Ed.] % A few hours grace before the madness begins again. % A figure with curves always offers a lot of interesting angles. % A fisherman from Maine went to Alabama on his vacation. He rented a boat, rowed out to the middle of the lake, and cast his line, but when he looked down into the water he was horrified to see a man wrapped in chains lying on the bottom of the lake. He quickly rowed to shore and ran to the police station. "Sheriff, sheriff," he gasped, there's a guy wrapped in chains, drowned in the lake!" "Now ain't that jest like a Yankee," drawled the sheriff, "to steal more chain than he can swim with?" % A fitter fits; Though sinners sin A cutter cuts; And thinners thin And an aircraft spotter spots; And paper-blotters blot A baby-sitter I've never yet Baby-sits -- Had letters let But an otter never ots. Or seen an otter ot. A batter bats (Or scatters scats); A potting shed's for potting; But no one's found A bounder bound Or caught an otter otting. -- Ralph Lewin % A flashy Mercedes-Benz roared up to the curb where a cute young miss stood waiting for a taxi. "Hi," said the gentleman at the wheel. "I'm going west." "How wonderful," came the cool reply. "Bring me back an orange." % A fool and his honey are soon parted. % A fool and his money are soon popular. % A fool and your money are soon partners. % A fool is a man who worries about whether or not his lover has integrity. A wise man, on the other hand, busies himself with deeper attributes. % A fool must now and then be right by chance. % A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % 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 fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- George Bernard Shaw % A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries % A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis. % A fox is wolf who sends flowers. -- Ruth Weston % A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension. -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" % A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai Stevenson % A freelancer is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps. -- Robert Benchley % A friend in need is a pest indeed. % A friend is a present you give yourself. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street and... Ooohh, that's much better. -- Steven Wright % A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he hates his wife. % A friend with weed is a friend indeed. % A full belly makes a dull brain. -- Ben Franklin [and the local candy machine man. Ed] % A 'full' life in my experience is usually full only of other people's demands. % A furore Normanorum libera nos, O Domine! % A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion. -- H. L. Mencken % A gambler's biggest thrill is winning a bet. His next biggest thrill is losing a bet. % A gangster assembled an engineer, a chemist, and a physicist. He explained that he was entering a horse in a race the following week and the three assembled guys had the job of assuring that the gangster's horse would win. They were to reconvene the day before the race to tell the gangster how they each propose to ensure a win. When they reconvened the gangster started with the engineer: Gangster: OK, Mr. engineer, what have you got? Engineer: Well, I've invented a way to weave metallic threads into the saddle blanket so that they will act as the plates of a battery and provide electrical shock to the horse. G: That's very good! But let's hear from the chemist. Chemist: I've synthesized a powerful stimulant that dissolves into simple blood sugars after ten minutes and therefore cannot be detected in post-race tests. G: Excellent, excellent! But I want to hear from the physicist before I decide what to do. Physicist? Physicist: Well, first consider a spherical horse in simple harmonic motion... % A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding ducks. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 % A gentleman is a man who wouldn't hit a lady with his hat on. -- Evan Esar [ And why not? For why does she have his hat on? Ed.] % A gentleman never strikes a lady with his hat on. -- Fred Allen % A gift of a flower will soon be made to you. % A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident. A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident. But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *_t_h_a_t _h_a_d _t_o _m_e_a_n _s_o_m_e_t_h_i_n_g*. -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers" % A girl with a future avoids the man with a past. -- Evan Esar, "The Humor of Humor" % A girl's best friend is her mutter. -- Dorothy Parker % A girl's conscience doesn't really keep her from doing anything wrong-- it merely keeps her from enjoying it. % A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). % A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass. -- Donald A. Metz % A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena. -- Donald A. Metz % A good marriage would be between a blind wife and deaf husband. -- Michel de Montaigne % A good memory does not equal pale ink. % A good name lost is seldom regained. When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever. -- J. Hawes % A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. -- Patton % A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street. -- Doug Linder % A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. -- John Ciardi % A good reputation is more valuable than money. -- Publilius Syrus % A good scapegoat is hard to find. % A good supervisor can step on your toes without messing up your shine. % A good sysadmin always carries around a few feet of fiber. If he ever gets lost, he simply drops the fiber on the ground, waits ten minutes, then asks the backhoe operator for directions. -- Bill Bradford % A GOOD WAY TO THREATEN somebody is to light a stick of dynamite. Then you call the guy and hold the burning fuse to the phone. "Hear that?" you say. "That's dynamite, baby." -- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988 % A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself. -- Lisa Kirk % A gourmet restaurant in Cincinnati is one where you leave the tray on the table after you eat. % A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart that looks at her watch. -- James Beard % A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. -- Barry Goldwater % A grammarian's life is always intense. % A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. -- Ben Franklin % A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James % A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century. % A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. Holmes department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul. -- John Kennedy Toole, "Confederacy of Dunces" % A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday. -- Russell Baker % A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. -- Carolyn Wells % A guy has to get fresh once in a while so a girl doesn't lose her confidence. % A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. % A halted retreat Is nerve-wracking and dangerous. To retain people as men -- and maidservants Brings good fortune. % A hammer sometimes misses its mark - a bouquet never. % A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. % A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. % A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience. -- John Updike % A help wanted add for a photo journalist asked the rhetorical question: If you found yourself in a situation where you could either save a drowning man, or you could take a Pulitzer prize winning photograph of him drowning, what shutter speed and setting would you use? -- Paul Harvey % A Hen Brooding Kittens A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county, a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings. -- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861 % A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity. % A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work. -- Adolf Hitler % A holding company is a thing where you hand an accomplice the goods while the policeman searches you. % A Hollywood producer calls a friend, another producer on the phone. "Hello?" his friend answers. "Hi!" says the man. "This is Bob, how are you doing?" "Oh," says the friend, "I'm doing great! I just sold a screenplay for two hundred thousand dollars. I've started a novel adaptation and the studio advanced me fifty thousand dollars on it. I also have a television series coming on next week, and everyone says it's going to be a big hit! I'm doing *great*! How are you?" "Okay," says the producer, "give me a call when he leaves." % A homeowner's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a weekend for? % A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" % A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong! % A hundred years from now it is very likely that [of Twain's works] "The Jumping Frog" alone will be remembered. -- Harry Thurston Peck (Editor of "The Bookman"), January 1901 % A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted. -- Helen Rowland % A hypocrite is a person who ... but who isn't? -- Don Marquis % A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? -- Tom Galloway % A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh. E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech. G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug. I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake. K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks. M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of ennui. O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire. S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits. U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train. W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xercies, devoured by mice. Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin. -- Edward Gorey "The Gastly Crumb Tines" % A is for Apple. -- Hester Pryne % A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and B is for biff, which reads all your mail. C is for cc, as hackers recall, while D is for dd, the command that does all. E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees. G is for grep, a clever detective, while H is for halt, which may seem defective. I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and J is for join, which nobody uses. K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while L is for lex, which is missing from DOS. M is for more, from which less was begot, and N is for nice, which it really is not. O is for od, which prints out things nice, while P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice. Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table. S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while T is for true, which does very little. U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and V is for vi, which is hard to abort. W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while X is, well, X, of dubious fame. Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and Z is for zcat, which handles compression. -- THE ABC'S OF UNIX % A joint is just tea for two. % A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance from Sam. % A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. -- Lao Tsu % A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet. -- Lao Tsu % A jug of wine, a bowl of rice with it; Earthen vessels Simply handed in through the window. There is certainly no blame in this. % A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. -- Robert Frost % A key to the understanding of all religions is that a God's idea of a good time is a game of Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. % A kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo, eventually. % A kind of Batman of contemporary letters. -- Philip Larkin on Anthony Burgess % A king's castle is his home. % A kiss is a course of procedure, cunningly devised, for the mutual stoppage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous. % A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. % A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally. -- Lillian Day % A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" -- Gopete Sherany % A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. -- Alan Perlis % A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie % A lanky Texan was mad because Texas had just become the second largest state in the Union, so he made up his mind to move to Alaska. He drove for three days and three nights to get there and finally he came to what looked like the state line. He halted his car and walked up to the border guard. "Hi, there! How do I become a resident of this here biggest state?" demanded the Texan. The guard looked him up and down and grinned. "Waal," he answered, there are three things you gotta do to get in. First, drink down a quart of 110 proof corn liquor without blinkin'. Second, kill a grizzly bear, and third, make love to an Eskimo woman." "Sounds easy enough," said the Texan. "Where can I get a quart of this here corn liquor?" "Got one right here," replied the guard. The Texan gulped down the whiskey without batting an eyelash. "Now, do you happen to know where I can find me a grizzly?" "Yep," answered the guard, "there's a big b'ar over that way, 'bout a mile... lives in a cave on that cliff." The Texan lurched merrily off. About an hour later he returned with his clothes almost torn off and his face scratched and bloody. He was smiling happily. "Now," he roared, "where's that damn Eskimo woman you want killed?" % A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt % A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, "Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, "Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies. Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" % A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. % A liberal is a man too broad minded to take his own side in a quarrel. -- Robert Frost % A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. -- Willis Player % A lie in time saves nine. % A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in time of trouble. -- Adlai Stevenson % A life lived in fear is a life half lived. % A life spent in search of the perfect hash brownie is a life well spent. % A lifetime isn't nearly long enough to figure out what it's all about. % A light wife doth make a heavy husband. -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" % A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. -- Aristotle % 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. -- Alan Perlis % A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -- Don Knuth % A little experience often upsets a lot of theory. % A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. -- C. E. Ayres % A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. -- H. H. Munro, "Saki" % A little kid went up to Santa and asked him, "Santa, you know when I'm bad right?" And Santa says, "Yes, I do." The little kid then asks, "And you know when I'm sleeping?" To which Santa replies, "Every minute." So the little kid then says, "Well, if you know when I'm bad and when I'm good, then how come you don't know what I want for Christmas?" % A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. -- Fred Brooks % A little word of doubtful number, A foe to rest and peaceful slumber. If you add an "s" to this, Great is the metamorphosis. Plural is plural now no more, And sweet what bitter was before. What am I? % A log may float in a river, but that does not make it a crocodile. % A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. % A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. % A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never. % A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths. -- Steven Wright % A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col % A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. -- Thomas Hardy % A major, with wonderful force, Called out in Hyde Park for a horse. All the flowers looked round, But no horse could be found; So he just rhododendron, of course. % A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car. -- Carrie Snow % A man always needs to remember one thing about a beautiful woman. Somewhere, somebody's tired of her. % A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that begins to bunch them. -- Mencken % A man arrived home early to find his wife in the arms of his best friend, who swore how much they were in love. To quiet the enraged husband, the lover suggested, "Friends shouldn't fight, let's play gin rummy. If I win, you get a divorce so I can marry her. If you win, I promise never to see her again. Okay?" "Alright," agreed the husband. "But how about a quarter a point on the side to make it interesting?" % A man can have two, maybe three love affairs while he's married. After that it's cheating. -- Yves Montand % A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself. -- Du Bois % A man fell off a mountain and, as he fell, saw a branch and grabbed for it. By superhuman effort he was able to get a precarious grip on it. As he was hanging there for dear life, he looked up and cried out, "Is anybody there?" A deep majestic voice answered, "Yes my son, I am here. What do you need?" "Help me!!" cried the man. "I will help you", said the voice, "Just let go of the branch and you'll be safe. All you have to do is trust." The man thought for a moment and cried out: "Anybody ELSE up there?" % A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road. -- Alexander Smith % A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished. -- Zsa Zsa Gabor, "Newsweek" % A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him. -- Brendan Francis % A man is crawling through the Sahara desert when he is approached by another man riding on a camel. When the rider gets close enough, the crawling man whispers through his sun-parched lips, "Water... please... can you give... water..." "I'm sorry," replies the man on the camel, "I don't have any water with me. But I'd be delighted to sell you a necktie." "Tie?" whispers the man. "I need *water*." "They're only four dollars apiece." "I need *water*." "Okay, okay, say two for seven dollars." "Please! I need *water*!", says the man. "I don't have any water, all I have are ties," replies the salesman, and he heads off into the distance. The man, losing track of time, crawls for what seems like days. Finally, nearly dead, sun-blind and with his skin peeling and blistering, he sees a restaurant in the distance. Summoning the last of his strength he staggers up to the door and confronts the head waiter. "Water... can I get... water," the dying man manages to stammer. "I'm sorry, sir, ties required." % A man is known by the company he organizes. -- A. Bierce % A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart, He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart. -- Richard Thompson % A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing. -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Circle" % A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything. -- Samuel Johnson % A man may sometimes be forgiven the kiss to which he is not entitled, but never the kiss he has not the initiative to claim. % A man may well bring a horse to the water, but he cannot make him drink with he will. -- John Heywood % A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. -- James Joyce, "Ulysses" % A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. % 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 took his wife deer hunting for the first time. After he'd given her some basic instructions, they agreed to separate and rendezvous later. Before he left, he warned her if she should fell a deer to be wary of hunters who might beat her to the carcass and claim the kill. If that happened, he told her, she should fire her gun three times into the air and he would come to her aid. Shortly after they separated, he heard a single shot, followed quickly by the agreed upon signal. Running to the scene, he found his wife standing in a small clearing with a very nervous man staring down her gun barrel. "He claims this is his," she said, obviously very upset. "She can keep it, she can keep it!" the wide-eyed man replied. "I just want to get my saddle back!" % A man usually falls in love with a woman who asks the kinds of questions he is able to answer. -- Ronald Colman % A man was griping to his friend about how he hated to go home after a late card games. "You wouldn't believe what I go through to avoid waking my wife," he said. "First, I kill the engine a block away from the house and coast into the garage. Then I open the door slowly, take off my shoes, and tiptoe to our room. But just as I'm about to slide into bed, she always wakes up and gives me hell." "I make a big racket when I go home," his friend replied. "You do?" "Sure. I honk the horn, slam the door, turn on all the lights, stomp up to the bedroom and give my wife a big kiss. `Hi, Alice,' I say. `How about a little smooch for your old man?'" "And what does she say?" his friend asked in disbelief. "She doesn't say anything," his buddy replied. "She always pretends she's asleep." % A man was kneeling by a grave in a cemetery, crying and praying very loudly, "Oh why..eeeee did you die...eeeeee, Oh Why..eeeeee, why did you Di......eeee" The caretaker walks up, pardons himself and asks politely, "Excuse me, sir, but I've been seeing you for hours now, carrying on at this grave. You must have been very close to the deceased." "No, I never met him. Oh why....eeeee did you dieeeeee, why....eeeee did you.." "Sir, you say you never met this person, yet you carry on so? Tell, me who is buried here?" "My wife's first husband." % A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either. -- Soren Kierkegaard % A man who carries a cat by its tail learns something he can learn in no other way. % A man who fishes for marlin in ponds will put his money in Etruscan bonds. % A man who likes to lie in bed can usually find a girl willing to listen to him. % A man who turns green has eschewed protein. % A man with 3 wings and a dictionary is cousin to the turkey. % A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure. % A man without a God is like a fish without a bicycle. % A man without a woman is like a fish without gills. % A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons. % A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create destruction and chaos - just to gain his point... and if all this could in turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man would deliberately go mad to prove his point. -- Feodor Dostoevsky, "Notes From the Underground" % A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. % A man's best friend is his dogma. % A man's gotta know his limitations. -- Clint Eastwood, "Dirty Harry" % A man's house is his castle. -- Sir Edward Coke % A man's house is his hassle. % A master was asked the question, "What is the Way?" by a curious monk. "It is right before your eyes," said the master. "Why do I not see it for myself?" "Because you are thinking of yourself." "What about you: do you see it?" "So long as you see double, saying `I don't', and `you do', and so on, your eyes are clouded," said the master. "When there is neither `I' nor `You', can one see it?" "When there is neither `I' nor `You', who is the one that wants to see it?" % A mathematician, a doctor, and an engineer are walking on the beach and observe a team of lifeguards pumping the stomach of a drowned woman. As they watch, water, sand, snails and such come out of the pump. The doctor watches for a while and says: "Keep pumping, men, you may yet save her!!" The mathematician does some calculations and says: "According to my understanding of the size of that pump, you have already pumped more water from her body than could be contained in a cylinder 4 feet in diameter and 6 feet high." The engineer says: "I think she's sitting in a puddle." % A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. -- P. Erdos % A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. % A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost. % A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer. -- Dean Acheson % A method of solution is perfect if we can foresee from the start, and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim. -- Leibnitz % 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 2001-02-02, from http://news.bbc.co.uk: For five weeks, a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) monitored 1,000 king penguins on the island of South Georgia as Lynx helicopters passed overhead. "Not one king penguin fell over when the helicopters came over," said team leader Dr Richard Stone. "As the aircraft approached, the birds went quiet and stopped calling to each other, and adolescent birds that were not associated with nests began walking away from the noise. Pure animal instinct, really." The conclusion, said Dr Stone, is that flights over 305 metres (1,000 feet) caused "only minor and transitory ecological effects" on king penguins. % A mighty creature is the germ, Though smaller than the pachyderm. His customary dwelling place Is deep within the human race. His childish pride he often pleases By giving people strange diseases. Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? You probably contain a germ. -- Ogden Nash % A mind is a wonderful thing to waste. % A modem is a baudy house. % A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object in the whole creation. -- Goldsmith % A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second language?" % A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes. -- Frost % A motion to adjourn is always in order. % A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in. % A mouse is an elephant built by the Japanese. % A mushroom cloud has no silver lining. % A musician, an artist, an architect: the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian. -- William Blake % A myth is a religion in which no-one any longer believes. -- James Feibleman, "Understanding Philosophy" % A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. -- Gore Vidal % A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you. % A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. -- Alexander Hamilton % 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 'chutist had just jumped from the plane at 10,000 feet, and soon discovered that all his lines were hopelessly tangled. At about 5,000 feet, still struggling, he noticed someone coming up from the ground at about the same speed as he was going towards the ground. As they passed each other at 3,000 feet, the 'chutist yells, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PARACHUTES?" The reply came, fading towards the end, "NO! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT COLEMAN STOVES?" % A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan. % A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a `round tuit' now has no excuse for further procrastination. % A new taste had been acquired and a new appetite began to grow. The time had long since arrived to crush the technical intelligentsia, which had come to regard itself as too irreplaceable and had not gotten used to catching instructions on the wing. In other words, we never did trust the engineers - and from the very first years of the Revolution we saw to it that those lackeys and servants of former capitalist bosses were kept in line by healthy suspicion and surveillance by the workers. -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" % A New Way of Taking Pills A physician one night in Wisconsin being disturbed by a burglar, and having no ball or shot for his pistol, noiselessly loaded the weapon with small, hard pills, and gave the intruder a "prescription" which he thinks will go far towards curing the rascal of a very bad ailment. -- Nevada Morning Transcript, January 30, 1861 % A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion. % A New Yorker is riding down the road in his new Mercedes. So intent is he on the cocaine in his hand he completely misses a turn and his car plunges over the five-hundred-foot cliff to be smashed into pieces at the bottom. As the on-lookers rush to the edge of the cliff they see him fifty feet from the top of the cliff clinging to a stunted bush with all his strength. "Dear Lord," he prays, "I never asked you for nothin' before, but I'm askin' you now: Save me, Lord, save me." Booms the Lord: "LET GO OF THE BRANCH." "But Lord, if I do that, I'll fall!" "TRUST ME, LET GO OF THE BRANCH." "But Lord, I'm gonna fall and die..." "TRUST ME TO SAVE YOU. LET GO OF THE BRANCH." Okay, Lord, I'll trust you, here I... here I go!" And he falls to his death. "DUMB YANKEE." % A New Yorker was driving through Berkeley when he saw a big crowd gathered by the side of the street. Curiosity got the better of him and he leaned out of his window to ask an onlooker what was going on. The fellow explained that a protestor against the U.S. position in South America had doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. "That's terrible," gasped the man. "But why is everyone still standing around?" "Well, they're taking up a collection for his wife and kids," the onlooker explained. "Would you be willing to help?" "Well, sure," replied the New Yorker. "I suppose I could spare a gallon or two." % A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure. -- Arthure "Bugs" Baer % A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. -- Yogi Berra % 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 novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question. "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before replying. "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly achieved enlightenment, several years later. Commentary: His Master is kind, Answering his FAQ quickly, With thought and sarcasm. % A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. % A pain in the ass of major dimensions. -- C. A. Desoer, on the solution of non-linear circuits % A Parable of Modern Research: Bob has lost his keys in a room which is dark except for one brightly lit corner. "Why are you looking under the light, you lost them in the dark!" "I can only see here." % A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on. -- William S. Burroughs % A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. -- Gloria Steinem % A pencil with no point needs no eraser. % A penny saved has not been spent. % A penny saved is a penny taxed. % A penny saved is ridiculous. % A penny saved kills your career in government. % A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain. -- Anatole France % A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be! -- Thackeray % A person forgives only when they are in the wrong. % A person is just about as big as the things that make him angry. % A person who has nothing looks at all there is and wants something. A person who has something looks at all there is and wants all the rest. % A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. -- Donald Knuth % A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist. -- Elbert Hubbard % A physicist is an atoms way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald % A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men gets out and goes into the office. "I need some four-by-two's," he says. "You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk. The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go check." Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be acceptable. "OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?" The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go check," he says. He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says, "we're building a house". % A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt. When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, You'll never go wrong with a pig! -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" % A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth. % A place for everything and everything in its place. -- Isabella Mary Beeton, "The Book of Household Management" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to memory management system services.] % A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it. -- Stanley Baldwin % A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques contaminate the potable concoction produced by steeping certain edible nutriments. % A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. % A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. % A Polish worker walks into a bank to deposit his paycheck. He has heard about Poland's economic problems, and he asks what would happen to his money if the bank collapsed. "All of our deposits are guaranteed by the finance ministry, sir," the teller replies. "But what if the finance ministry goes broke?" the worker asks. "Then the government will intercede to protect the working class," the teller says. "But what if the government goes broke?" the worker asks. "Our socialist comrades in the Soviet Union naturally will come to our assistance," the teller responds with growing irritation. "And if the Soviet Union goes broke?" the worker asks. "Idiot!" the teller snorts. "Isn't that worth losing one lousy paycheck?" -- Making the rounds in Warsaw, 1984 % A political man can have as his aim the realization of freedom, but he has no means to realize it other than through violence. -- Jean Paul Sartre % A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest. -- Walt Kelly % A pound of salt will not sweeten a single cup of tea. % A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil! -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" % A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest. -- Lazarus Long % A prediction is worth twenty explanations. -- K. Brecher % A pretty foot is one of the greatest gifts of nature... please send me your last pair of shoes, already worn out in dancing... so I can have something of yours to press against my heart. -- Goethe % A pretty woman can do anything; an ugly woman must do everything. % A priest advised Voltaire on his death bed to renounce the devil. Replied Voltaire, "This is no time to make new enemies." % A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And he answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. And that is Fate? said the priest. Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. -- George Eliot % A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him. -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1952 % A private sin is not so prejudicial in the world as a public indecency. -- Miguel de Cervantes % A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. % A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine % A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant. % A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with -- even if he drank. -- Mencken % A prominent broadcaster, on a big-game safari in Africa, was taken to a watering hole where the life of the jungle could be observed. As he looked down from his tree platform and described the scene into his tape recorder, he saw two gnus grazing peacefully. So preoccupied were they that they failed to observe the approach of a pride of lions led by two magnificent specimens, obviously the leaders. The lions charged, killed the gnus, and dragged them into the bushes where their feasting could not be seen. A little while later the two kings of the jungle emerged and the radioman recorded on his tape: "Well, that's the end of the gnus and here, once again, are the head lions." % A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave... The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities -- a natural defectiveness. -- Aristotle % A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks you for nothing. -- Joey Adams % A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free. % A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation. -- Colton % A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. -- Donald A. Metz % A rabbi and a priest are sitting together on a train, and the rabbi leans over and asks, "So, how high can you advance in your organization?" The priest replies, "Well, if I am lucky, I guess I could become a Bishop." "Well, could you get any higher than that?" "I suppose that if my works are seen in a very good light that I might be made an Archbishop." "Is there any way that you might go higher than that?" "If all the Saints should smile, I guess I could be made a Cardinal." "Could you be anything higher than a Cardinal?" Hesitating a little bit, the priest said, "I suppose that I could be elected Pope, but only if it's God's will." "And could you be anything higher than that, is there any way to go up from being the Pope?" "What?! I should be the Messiah himself?!" The rabbi leaned back and smiled. "One of our boys made it." % 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 racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family. -- Saul Alinsky % A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives. % A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having his neighbor notice it. -- Trygve Lie % A real estate agent, looking over a farmer's house for possible sale, commented to the farmer how sturdy the house looked. The farmer replied, "Yep, built it with my bare hands... did it the hard way. The steps to the front door, here, carved 'em out of field stones... did it the hard way. That hardwood floor in the living room, dovetailed the pieces myself... did it the hard way. The ceiling beams, made 'em out of my own oak trees... did it the hard way." Just then, the farmer's gorgeous daughter walked in. The farmer looks over at the real estate agent who is trying not to stare too obviously and smiles. "Yep... standing up in a canoe." % A real friend isn't someone you use once and then throw away. A real friend is someone you can use over and over again. % A real gentleman never takes bases unless he really has to. -- Overheard in an algebra lecture % A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. % A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects. % A regular expression goes into a pub with a friend, intending to help him find a girl. However, when the cockney barman finds this out, he says to it, "Ere! I'll have no pattern match-making in my pub!" % A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money. -- Imamu Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) % A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark % A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater. % A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage. -- Blake % 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 rolling disk gathers no MOS. % A rolling stone gathers momentum. % A rolling stone gathers no moss. -- Publilius Syrus % A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me. -- Plutarch % A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey. The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the monkey and its mother is thirty years. One half of the weight of the monkey, plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she was half as old as the monkey will be when it is as old as its mother will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana? % A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the BBC export "Upstairs, Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not true. I'm very good in beds as well." % A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space. -- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars % A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule. % A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid. -- Genesis, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" I don't know what it's about. I'm just the drummer. Ask Peter. -- Phil Collins in 1975, when asked about the message behind the previous year's Genesis release, "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". % A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper vocation?" The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds. Others must use their strong backs, legs and hands. This is the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual. "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the scholar sobbed. Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?" % A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. -- Max Planck % A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831 % A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in consciousness of this necessary reorganization of our lives. It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the ground. -- J. W. N. Sullivan % A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth committing. -- Samuel Butler % A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself. -- Don Marquis % A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 % A sharper perspective on this matter is particularly important to feminist thought today, because a major tendency in feminism has constructed the problem of domination as a drama of female vulnerability victimized by male aggression. Even the more sophisticated feminist thinkers frequently shy away from the analysis of submission, for fear that in admitting woman's participation in the relationship of domination, the onus of responsibility will appear to shift from men to women, and the moral victory from women to men. More generally, this has been a weakness of radical politics: to idealize the oppressed, as if their politics and culture were untouched by the system of domination, as if people did not participate in their own submission. To reduce domination to a simple relation of doer and done-to is to substitute moral outrage for analysis. -- Jessica Benjamin, "The Bonds of Love" % A sine curve goes off to infinity, or at least the end of the blackboard. -- Prof. Steiner % A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. -- Joseph Stalin % A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet-- One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; "My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose. -- Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose" % A sinking ship gathers no moss. -- Donald Kaul % A small town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two. % A Smith & Wesson beats four aces. % A snake lurks in the grass. -- Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil) % A social scientist, studying the culture and traditions of a small North African tribe, found a woman still practicing the ancient art of matchmaking. Locally, she was known as the Moor, the marrier. % A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society which is on its way out. -- L. Ron Hubbard % A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. -- Proverbs 15:1 % A soft drink turneth away company. % A song in time is worth a dime. % A Southern boy graduates from high school heads north to college, taking the family dog, Old Blue with him, for company. He's only been there a few weeks when he gets a call from his girlfriend; seems like they've got a problem, and she needs a thousand dollars to take care of it. The boy calls his folks: "How are you?" they ask. "Oh, I'm fine," he says. "And how," they ask, "is Old Blue?" "Well, he's kind of depressed. You see, there's this lady up here that teaches dogs to talk, and Ol' Blue is feelin' kind of left out 'cause he's the only dog that doesn't know how to talk. She charges a thousand dollars." The parents send the boy the thousand dollars, he forwards it to Mary Lou, and everything's fine until Christmas vacation. The boy leaves Ol' Blue at his dorm, 'cause he just can't figure out what to tell his parents. Sure enough, when he gets home, the first thing his father wants to know is "Where's Old Blue?" "Well, Pa," says the boy. "I was driving on home and Old Blue was talking away about this and that when we passed the Buford's farm. Old Blue, well, he said, `Say, what do you think your mother would do if I told her that your father's been comin' over here and seeing Mrs. Buford all these years?'" The father looks at his son -- "You shot that dog, didn't you, boy?" % A squeegee by any other name wouldn't sound as funny. % A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years. -- Harry S. Truman % A statistician, who refused to fly after reading of the alarmingly high probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane, realized that the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low. Now, whenever he flies, he carries a bomb with him. % A stitch in time saves nine. % A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O'Henry % A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster % A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick. % A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. % A stunning blonde, but probably all bean dip above the eyebrows. % A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson % A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of. -- Burt Bacharach % A system admin's life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions of their own innards! -- Michael O'Brien % A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) -- by Charles Dickens A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place. The Metamorphosis LITE(tm) -- by Franz Kafka A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed. Lord of the Rings LITE(tm) -- by J. R. R. Tolkien Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano. Hamlet LITE(tm) -- by Wm. Shakespeare A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age. % A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) -- by Charles Dickens A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean lady who knits. Crime and Punishment LITE(tm) -- by Fyodor Dostoevski A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later feels guilty and apologizes. The Odyssey LITE(tm) -- by Homer After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home. % A tall, dark stranger will have more fun than you. % A tautology is a thing which is tautological. % A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. -- Michael Winner, British film director % A Texan, impressing the hell out of a Bostonian with tales about the heroes of the Alamo, commented, "I'll bet you never had anyone that brave around *Boston*." "Ever hear of Paul Revere?", snarled the Bostonian. "Paul Revere?", pondered the Texan. "Isn't he the guy who ran for help?" % A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -- Oscar Wilde, "The Portrait of Mr. W.H." % A timely marriage: one made before your children start nagging you about it. -- Diane Duane % 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 traveling salesman was driving past a farm when he saw a pig with three wooden legs executing a magnificent series of backflips and cartwheels. Intrigued, he drove up to the farmhouse, where he found an old farmer sitting in the yard watching the pig. "That's quite a pig you have there, sir" said the salesman. "Sure is, son," the farmer replied. "Why, two years ago, my daughter was swimming in the lake and bumped her head and damned near drowned, but that pig swam out and dragged her back to shore." "Amazing!" the salesman exclaimed. "And that's not the only thing. Last fall I was cuttin' wood up on the north forty when a tree fell on me. Pinned me to the ground, it did. That pig run up and wiggled underneath that tree and lifted it off of me. Saved my life." "Fantastic! the salesman said. But tell me, how come the pig has three wooden legs?" The farmer stared at the newcomer in amazement. "Mister, when you got an amazin' pig like that, you don't eat him all at once." % A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. % A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. -- Shaw % A truly great man will neither trample on a worm nor sneak to an emperor. -- Ben Franklin % A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A truly wise woman never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent. -- William Blake % A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi % A University without students is like an ointment without a fly. -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin % A 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. -- Tennessee Williams % A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. -- Samuel Goldwyn % 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 violent man will die a violent death. -- Lao Tsu % A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. % A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. % A vivid and creative mind characterizes you. % A waist is a terrible thing to mind. -- Ziggy % A watched clock never boils. % A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. % A well-known friend is a treasure. % A well-used door needs no oil on its hinges. A swift-flowing steam does no grow stagnant. Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum. Software rots if not used. These are great mysteries. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" % A widow is more sought after than an old maid of the same age. -- Addison % A wise man can see more from a mountain top than a fool can from the bottom of a well. % A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top. % A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion. -- Chinese proverb % A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire % A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention. % A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times. -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII % A woman can look both moral and exciting -- if she also looks as if it were quite a struggle. -- Edna Ferber % A woman can never be too rich or too thin. % A woman did what a woman had to, the best way she knew how. To do more was impossible, to do less, unthinkable. -- Dirisha, "The Man Who Never Missed" % A woman employs sincerity only when every other form of deception has failed. -- Scott % A woman, especially if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. -- Jane Austen % A woman forgives the audacity of which her beauty has prompted us to be guilty. -- LeSage % A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life to be thankful for a good one. -- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings % A woman is like your shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows. -- Chamfort % A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. -- Nietzsche % A woman must be a cute, cuddly, naive little thing -- tender, sweet, and stupid. -- Adolf Hitler % A woman physician has made the statement that smoking is neither physically defective nor morally degrading, and that nicotine, even when indulged to in excess, is less harmful than excessive petting." -- Purdue Exponent, Jan 16, 1925 % A woman shouldn't have to buy her own perfume. -- Maurine Lewis % A woman went into a hospital one day to give birth. Afterwards, the doctor came to her and said, "I have some... odd news for you." "Is my baby all right?" the woman anxiously asked. "Yes, he is," the doctor replied, "but we don't know how. Your son (we assume) was born with no body. He only has a head." Well, the doctor was correct. The Head was alive and well, though no one knew how. The Head turned out to be fairly normal, ignoring his lack of a body, and lived for some time as typical a life as could be expected under the circumstances. One day, about twenty years after the fateful birth, the woman got a phone call from another doctor. The doctor said, "I have recently perfected an operation. Your son can live a normal life now: we can graft a body onto his head!" The woman, practically weeping with joy, thanked the doctor and hung up. She ran up the stairs saying, "Johnny, Johnny, I have a *wonderful* surprise for you!" "Oh no," cried The Head, "not another HAT!" % A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. -- Gloria Steinem % A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. Therefore, a man without a woman is like a bicycle without a fish. % A woman's best protection is a little money of her own. -- Clare Booth Luce, quoted in "The Wit of Women" % A woman's place is in the house... and in the Senate. % A word to the wise is enough. -- Miguel de Cervantes % A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed. % A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. -- William Faulkner % A yawn is a silent shout. -- G. K. Chesterton % A year spent in Artificial Intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. % A young girl once committed suicide because her mother refused her a new bonnet. Coroner's verdict: "Death from excessive spunk." -- Sacramento Daily Union, September 13, 1860 % A young man and his girlfriend were walking along Main Street when she spotted a beautiful diamond ring in a jewelry-store window. "Wow, I'd sure love to have that!" she gushed. "No problem," her companion replied, throwing a brick through the window and grabbing the ring. A few blocks later, the woman admired a full-length sable coat. "What I'd give to own that," she said, sighing. "No problem," he said, throwing a brick through the window and grabbing the coat. Finally, turning for home, they passed a car dealership. "Boy, I'd do anything for one of those Rolls-Royces," she said. "Jeez, baby," the guy moaned, "you think I'm made of bricks?" % A young man enters the New York branch of Tiffany's on a Friday evening and walks up to a display case full of pearl necklaces. He turns to a gorgeous woman, who is obviously window shopping, looks her straight in the eye and says, "I can tell by your eyes that you really want that necklace. If you'll allow me, I'd like to buy it for you." The woman looks him up and down; he's wearing a nice suit and some pretty nice jewelry, but she has trouble believing this story. "Look, this is some kind of put on, right?" "No, really. You see, I've got quite a lot of money -- so much that I could never spend it all. I'd really like for you to have it." The guys whips out his checkbook, writes a check for five figures, calls over a clerk and hands it to him. The clerk peers at the check, looks at the young man, looks at the check again. "Very good, sir. I'm afraid I can't release the necklace immediately, would Monday be all right?" "That'll be fine, she'll pick it up." the man replies, and walks out of the store with the woman following him in a daze. The next Monday the man comes back in and walks up to the counter. The same clerk hurries over to him and says, "Sir, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your check was returned for insufficient funds." "I know," the man replies. "I just wanted to thank you for a terrific weekend." % A young man wrote to Mozart and said: Q: "Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started?" A: "A symphony is a very complex musical form, perhaps you should begin with some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony." Q: "But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old." A: "But I never asked anybody how." % A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive. % AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! % Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. % Abbott's Admonitions: 1: If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. 2: If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. -- Charles Abbot, dean, University of Virginia % Aberdeen was so small that when the family with the car went on vacation, the gas station and drive-in theatre had to close. % Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, "What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord, Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay not so," Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then, Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. -- James Henry Leigh Hunt, "Abou Ben Adhem" % 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. % About the only thing we have left that actually discriminates in favor of the plain people is the stork. % About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -- Herbert Hoover % About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra % Above all else - sky. % Above all things, reverence yourself. % Abraham Lincoln didn't die in vain. He died in Washington, D.C. % Abscond, v: To be unexpectedly called away to the bedside of a dying relative and miss the return train. % Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans fires. -- La Rochefoucauld % Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it. -- Hannah More % Absence is to love what wind is to fire. It extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great. % Absence makes the heart forget. % Absence makes the heart go wander. % Absence makes the heart grow fonder. -- Sextus Aurelius % Absence makes the heart grow fonder -- of somebody else. % Absence makes the heart grow frantic. % 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" % Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.) -- Stafford Beer % Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Abstract: This study examined the incidence of neckwear tightness among a group of 94 white-collar working men and the effect of a tight business-shirt collar and tie on the visual performance of 22 male subjects. Of the white-collar men measured, 67% were found to be wearing neckwear that was tighter than their neck circumference. The visual discrimination of the 22 subjects was evaluated using a critical flicker frequency (CFF) test. Results of the CFF test indicated that tight neckwear significantly decreased the visual performance of the subjects and that visual performance did not improve immediately when tight neckwear was removed. -- Langan, L. M. and Watkins, S. M. "Pressure of Menswear on the Neck in Relation to Visual Performance." Human Factors 29, #1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 67-71. % Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. -- Wallace Sayre % Academicians care, that's who. % ACADEMY: A modern school where football is taught. INSTITUTE: An archaic school where football is not taught. % Accent on helpful side of your nature. Drain the moat. % Accept people for what they are -- completely unacceptable. % ACCEPTANCE TESTING: An unsuccessful attempt to find bugs. % Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion; rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. -- Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" % Accident: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. -- Foolish Dictionary % Accidentally Shot Colonel Gray, of Petaluma, came near losing his life a few days ago, in a singular manner. A gentleman with whom he was hunting attempted to bring down a dove, but instead of doing so put the load of shot through the Colonel's hat. One shot took effect in his forehead. -- Sacramento Daily Union, April 20, 1861 % Accidents cause History. If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly that they can not only meet but surpass the national average... except for Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have a sheepish grin. This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly sheepish grin" comes from. % According to all the latest reports, there was no truth in any of the earlier reports. % According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns." % According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold, and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms and a void. -- Democritus, 400 B.C. % According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo % According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. % According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies. % According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime. -- David Letterman % Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats. % Accuracy, n.: The vice of being right % Acid -- better living through chemistry. % Acid absorbs 47 times its own weight in excess Reality. % Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when the object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. % Acting is not very hard. The most important things are to be able to laugh and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. And if I have to laugh, well, I think of my sex life. -- Glenda Jackson % Actor Real Name Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt Cary Grant Archibald Leach Edward G. Robinson Emmanual Goldenburg Gene Wilder Gerald Silberman John Wayne Marion Morrison Kirk Douglas Issur Danielovitch Richard Burton Richard Jenkins Jr. Roy Rogers Leonard Slye Woody Allen Allen Stewart Konigsberg % Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!" % Actor: So what do you do for a living? Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" % Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families. % Actresses will happen in the best regulated families. -- Addison Mizner and Oliver Herford, "The Entirely New Cynic's Calendar", 1905 % Actually, my goal is to have a sandwich named after me. % Actually, the probability is 100% that the elevator will be going in the right direction. Proof by induction: N=1. Trivially true, since both you and the elevator only have one floor to go to. Assume true for N, prove for N+1: If you are on any of the first N floors, then it is true by the induction hypothesis. If you are on the N+1st floor, then both you and the elevator have only one choice, namely down. Therefore, it is true for all N+1 floors. QED. % Ad astra per aspera. (To the stars by aspiration.) % ADA: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness. -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984 % Adde parvum parvo manus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] -- Ovid % Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker. % Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. -- George Washington, 1732-1799 % Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo. -- actress Mary Pickford, 1925 % Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Adler's Distinction: Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, and from the bureaucrats. % 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. % Adults die young. % Advancement in position. % Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. -- Thomas Jefferson % Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. -- Sinclair Lewis % Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. -- George Orwell % Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. % Advertising Rule: In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, that it is curable. % Advice from an old carpenter: measure twice, saw once. % Advice is a dangerous gift; be cautious about giving and receiving it. % Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic, then at least be aseptic. % African violet: Such worth is rare Apple blossom: Preference Bachelor's button: Celibacy Bay leaf: I change but in death Camelia: Reflected loveliness Chrysanthemum, red: I love Chrysanthemum, white: Truth Chrysanthemum, other: Slighted love Clover: Be mine Crocus: Abuse not Daffodil: Innocence Forget-me-not: True love Fuchsia: Fast Gardenia: Secret, untold love Honeysuckle: Bonds of love Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage Jasmine: Amiability, transports of joy, sensuality Leaves (dead): Melancholy Lilac: Youthful innocence Lily: Purity, sweetness Lily of the valley: Return of happiness Magnolia: Dignity, perseverance * An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning. % After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited. -- Newton Minow, 1985, Speech to the Association of American Law Schools % After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more advanced than the lichen family. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" % After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. % After a while you learn the subtle difference Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, And you learn that love doesn't mean security, And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts And presents aren't promises And you begin to accept your defeats With your head up and your eyes open, With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child, And you learn to build all your roads On today because tomorrow's ground Is too uncertain. And futures have A way of falling down in midflight, After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting For someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure... That you really are strong, And you really do have worth And you learn and learn With every goodbye you learn. -- Veronic Shoffstall, "Comes the Dawn" % After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare % After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. % After all, it is only the mediocre who are always at their best. -- Jean Giraudoux % After all my erstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Just because it perished? -- Edna St. Vincent Millay % 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 any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you did before. % 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 his legs had been broken in an accident, Mr. Miller sued for damages, claiming that he was crippled and would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Although the insurance-company doctor testified that his bones had healed properly and that he was fully capable of walking, the judge decided for the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000. When he was wheeled into the insurance office to collect his check, Miller was confronted by several executives. "You're not getting away with this, Miller," one said. "We're going to watch you day and night. If you take a single step, you'll not only repay the damages but stand trial for perjury. Here's the money. What do you intend to do with it?" "My wife and I are going to travel," Miller replied. "We'll go to Stockholm, Berlin, Rome, Athens and, finally, to a place called Lourdes -- where, gentlemen, you'll see yourselves one hell of a miracle." % After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement. -- Norman Thomas % After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? % After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. Just in case. % ...[after the announcement of Vanguard] ... Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson (the same "Engine Charlie" who once told the Senate, "[F]or years I've thought that what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa," probably an accurate analysis) was asked whether the Russians might beat the Americans into orbit. "I wouldn't care if they did," he responded. (It was later claimed that Wilson favored the development of the automatic transmission so that he could drive with one foot in his mouth.) -- Smithsonian's Air&Space Magazine, "The Day the Rocket Died" % After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box. -- Italian proverb % After the ground war began, captured Iraqi soldiers said any of them caught by superiors wearing a white T-shirt would be executed because of the ease with which the shirts could be used as surrender flags. Some Iraqi soldiers carried bleach with them to make their dark shirts white. -- Chuck Shepherd, Funny Times, May 1991 % 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. % After this was written there appeared a remarkable posthumous memoir that throws some doubt on Millikan's leading role in these experiments. Harvey Fletcher (1884-1981), who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, at Millikan's suggestion worked on the measurement of electronic charge for his doctoral thesis, and co-authored some of the early papers on this subject with Millikan. Fletcher left a manuscript with a friend with instructions that it be published after his death; the manuscript was published in Physics Today, June 1982, page 43. In it, Fletcher claims that he was the first to do the experiment with oil drops, was the first to measure charges on single droplets, and may have been the first to suggest the use of oil. According to Fletcher, he had expected to be co-authored with Millikan on the crucial first article announcing the measurement of the electronic charge, but was talked out of this by Millikan. -- Steven Weinberg, "The Discovery of Subatomic Particles" Robert Millikan is generally credited with making the first really precise measurement of the charge on an electron and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923. % After two or three weeks of this madness, you begin to feel As One with the man who said, "No news is good news." In twenty-eight papers, only the rarest kind of luck will turn up more than two or three articles of any interest... but even then the interest items are usually buried deep around paragraph 16 on the jump (or "Cont. on ...") page... The Post will have a story about Muskie making a speech in Iowa. The Star will say the same thing, and the Journal will say nothing at all. But the Times might have enough room on the jump page to include a line or so that says something like: "When he finished his speech, Muskie burst into tears and seized his campaign manager by the side of the neck. They grappled briefly, but the struggle was kicked apart by an oriental woman who seemed to be in control." Now that's good journalism. Totally objective; very active and straight to the point. -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" % After years of research, scientists recently reported that there is, indeed, arroz in Spanish Harlem. % After your lover has gone you will still have PEANUT BUTTER! % Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. % Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. % Against Idleness and Mischief How doth the little busy bee How skillfully she builds her cell! Improve each shining hour, How neat she spreads the wax! And gather honey all the day And labours hard to store it well From every opening flower! With the sweet food she makes. In works of labour or of skill In books, or work, or healthful play, I would be busy too; Let my first years be passed, For Satan finds some mischief still That I may give for every day For idle hands to do. Some good account at last. -- Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 % Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich von Schiller, "The Maid of Orleans", III, 6 % Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. % Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. -- Dorothy Parker % Age is a tyrant who forbids, at the penalty of life, all the pleasures of youth. % Age, n.: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Agnes' Law: Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of. % Agree with them now, it will save so much time. % Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, Or what's a heaven for ? -- Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto" % Ah, but the choice of dreams to live, there's the rub. For all dreams are not equal, some exit to nightmare most end with the dreamer But at least one must be lived ... and died. % Ah, my friends, from the prison, they ask unto me, "How good, how good does it feel to be free?" And I answer them most mysteriously: "Are birds free from the chains of the sky-way?" -- Bob Dylan % Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball. % Ah, sweet Springtime, when a young man lightly turns his fancy over! % Ah, the Tsar's bazaar's bizarre beaux-arts! % "Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." -- An analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic % Ahead warp factor one, Mr. Sulu. % Ahhhhhh... the smell of cuprinol and mahogany. It excites me to... acts of passion... acts of... ineptitude. % Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star. -- W. Clement Stone % Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing. -- The Mad Dogtender % Ain't nothin' an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young man. -- Moms Mabley % Ain't that something what happened today. One of us got traded to Kansas City. -- Casey Stengel, informing outfielder Bob Cerv he'd been traded % Air Force Inertia Axiom: Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness. % Air is water with holes in it. % Air, n.: A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Air pollution is really making us pay through the nose. % Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre % Al didn't smile for forty years. You've got to admire a man like that. -- from "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" % Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra % Alas, how love can trifle with itself! -- William Shakespeare, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" % Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -- Oscar Wilde [as he sipped champagne on his deathbed] % ALASKA: A prelude to "No." % Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. -- Tom Robbins % 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." % ALBRECHT'S LAW: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being. % Alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine are weak dilutions. The surest poison is time. -- Emerson, "Society and Solitude" % Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. -- George Bernard Shaw % Alden's Laws: (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy. (2) Always be backlit. (3) Sit down whenever possible. % Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. % Alex Haley was adopted! % Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone. % Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing - and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. -- The Best of Will Rogers % Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. -- Philippe Schnoebelen % Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language yet developed. -- T. Cheatham % ALGORITHM: Trendy dance for hip programmers. % Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. % Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce % Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse. -- Arthur Baer % Alimony is the curse of the writing classes. -- Norman Mailer % Alimony is the high cost of leaving. % Aliquid melius quam pessimum optimum non est. % Alive without breath, As cold as death; Never thirsty, ever drinking, All in mail ever clinking. % All a man needs out of life is a place to sit 'n' spit in the fire. % All art is but imitation of nature. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca % All bad precedents began as justifiable measures. -- Gaius Julius Caesar, quoted in "The Conspiracy of Catiline", by Sallust % All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others. -- Alan Truscott % All business is based on the mutual trust of one of the parts. -- Poul Henningsen [1894-1967] % All constants are variables. % All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. -- Chou En Lai % All extremists should be taken out and shot. % All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking. % All flesh is grass. -- Isaiah Smoke a friend today. % All generalizations are false, including this one. -- Mark Twain % All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Metropolitan Life" % All Gods were immortal. -- Stanislaw J. Lem, "Unkempt Thoughts" % All great discoveries are made by mistake. -- Young % All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. % All heiresses are beautiful. -- John Dryden % All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky, to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing. -- Yoda % All hope abandon, ye who enter here! -- Dante Alighieri % All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. % All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. % All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. -- Kingfish % All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. -- Samuel Beckett % All I need to have a good time, Is a reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. With those three things I don't need no sunshine, A reefer, a woman and a bottle of wine. All I want is to never grow old, I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. I want 97 kilos already rolled, I want to wash in a bathtub of gold. I want to light my cigars with 10 dollar bills, I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. I want a bottle of Red Eye that's always filled, I like to have a cattle ranch in Beverly Hills. -- Country Joe and the Fish, "Zachariah" % All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % All intelligent species own cats. % All is fear in love and war. % All is well that ends well. -- John Heywood % All I've got left on the list of desirable vocations is heiress to the throne of any country in Western Europe and Laurie Anderson. "Be practical", was the choral reply from the dinner table. Well, Laurie Anderson is already Laurie Anderson, but I read an article in Harpers that said there were eleven countries, in the world this is I think, that have queens as sovereign rulers. That's probably my best shot. % All kings is mostly rapscallions. --Mark Twain % All laws are simulations of reality. -- John C. Lilly % All life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. -- Dawkins % All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates. -- Woody Allen % All men have the right to wait in line. % All men know the utility of useful things; but they do not know the utility of futility. -- Chuang-tzu % All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. -- John Quincy Adams % All most men really want in life is a wife, a house, two kids and a car, a cat, no maybe a dog. Ummm, scratch one of the kids and add a dog. Definitely a dog. % All most people ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of their own importance. % All most people want is a little more than they'll ever get. % All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane. % All my friends are getting married, Yes, they're all growing old, They're all staying home on the weekend, They're all doing what they're told. % All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. -- Jane Wagner % ALL NEW: Parts not interchangeable with previous model. % All newspaper editorial writers ever do is come down from the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded. % All of the animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. % All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store." -- Steven Wright % All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. % All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm." -- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You" % All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States. -- Vic Gold % All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 % All people are born alike -- except Republicans and Democrats. -- Groucho Marx % All phone calls are obscene. -- Karen Elizabeth Gordon % All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no. -- Susan Sontag % All power corrupts, but we need electricity. % All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug." -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" % All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. % All progress is based upon a universal innate desire of every organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks" % All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- Ernest Rutherford % All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin % All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands. -- Saint Patrick % All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. % All that glitters has a high refractive index. % All that glitters is not gold; all that wander are not lost. % All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. -- J. R. R. Tolkien % 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 evidence concerning the universe has not yet been collected, so there's still hope. % All the lines have been written There's been Sandburg, It's sad but it's true Keats, Poe and McKuen With all the words gone, They all had their day What's a young poet to do? And knew what they're doin' But of all the words written The bird is a strange one, And all the lines read, So small and so tender There's one I like most, Its breed still unknown, And by a bird it was said! Not to mention its gender. It reminds me of days of So what is this line Both gloom and of light. Whose author's unknown It still lifts my spirits And still makes me giggle And starts the day right. Even now that I'm grown? I've read all the greats Both starving and fat, But none was as great as "I tot I taw a puddy tat." -- Etta Stallings, "An Ode To Childhood" % All the men on my staff can type. -- Bella Abzug % ...all the modern inconveniences... -- Mark Twain % All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones. -- La Rochefoucauld % All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. -- Grant Wood % All the simple programs have been written. % 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 troubles you have will pass away very quickly. % All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately un-rehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey % All the world's a VAX, And all the coders merely butchers; They have their exits and their entrails; And one int in his time plays many widths, His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, And shining morning face, creeping like slug Unwillingly to school. -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 % All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists know it. -- Richard P. Feynman % All things are possible, except for skiing through a revolving door. % All things being equal, you are bound to lose. % All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed. -- Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice" % All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. Money's just the way we keep score. -- Henry Tyroon % All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. % All warranty and guarantee clauses become null and void upon payment of invoice. % All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born. -- Francois Fenelon % All we know is the phenomenon: we spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives." -- Lewis Thomas, "The Lives of a Cell" % All who joy would win Must share it -- Happiness was born a twin. -- Lord Byron % All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul. % All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken % Allen's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. % 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" % All's well that ends. % Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design would be accurate. -- K. E. Iverson % Alone, adj.: In bad company. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Also, the Scots are said to have invented golf. Then they had to invent Scotch whiskey to take away the pain and frustration. % alta, v: To change; make or become different; modify. ansa, v: A spoken or written reply, as to a question. baa, n: A place people meet to have a few drinks. Baaston, n: The capital of Massachusetts. baaba, n: One whose business is to cut or trim hair or beards. beea, n: An alcoholic beverage brewed from malt and hops, often found in baas. caaa, n: An automobile. centa, n: A point around which something revolves; axis. (Or someone involved with the Knicks.) chouda, n: A thick seafood soup, often in a milk base. dada, n: Information, esp. information organized for analysis or computation. -- Massachewsetts Unabridged Dictionary % Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. -- Dave Barry % Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. "I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 % Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away. % Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J.R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream", Nov., 1959 % Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. % Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain % Always draw your curves, then plot your reading. % Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out. % Always run from a knife and rush a gun. -- Jimmy Hoffa % Always store beer in a dark place. % Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. -- William Shakespeare, "As You Like It" % Always there remain portions of our heart into which no one is able to enter, invite them as we may. % Always think of something new; this helps you forget your last rotten idea. -- Seth Frankel % Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. % Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. % AMAZING BUT TRUE... If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. % AMAZING BUT TRUE... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. % Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % AMBIGUITY: Telling the truth when you don't mean to. % Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy % Ambition, n.: An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % America: born free and taxed to death. % America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. -- Oscar Wilde % America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? -- Allen Ginsberg % America is a melting pot. You know, where those on the bottom get burned, and the scum rises to the top. -- Utah Phillips % America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort. -- President John F. Kennedy The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so. -- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that from time to time threaten freedoms everywhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time. -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren % America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar, and use it up in two weeks. % 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" % America works less, when you say "Union Yes!" % 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" % American by birth; Texan by the grace of God. % American cars are made shoddily... Cars made overseas are far superior. -- Barry Goldwater % [Americans] are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging. -- Samuel Johnson America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair. -- Arnold Toynbee The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to everybody and still nobody likes him. -- Jim Samuels % Americans are people who insist on living in the present, tense. % Americans' greatest fear is that America will turn out to have been a phenomenon, not a civilization. -- Shirley Hazzard, "Transit of Venus" % America's best buy for a quarter is a telephone call to the right person. % Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. % AMOEBIT: Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time. % Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman. -- St. John Chrysostom, 304-407 % Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. % An acid is like a woman: a good one will eat through your pants. -- Mel Gibson, Saturday Night Live % An actor's a guy who if you ain't talkin' about him, ain't listening. -- Marlon Brando % An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says 'Beam me up, Scotty'. % An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms. % An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space" % An Aggie farmer was lifting his hogs, one by one, up to the branches of his apple trees to graze on the apples. A Texas student walked by and asked him, "Doesn't that take a lot of time?" Replied the Aggie, "What's time to a hog?" % An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do. -- Dylan Thomas % An algorithm must be seen to be believed. -- D. E. Knuth % An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie and intrigue for the benefit of his country. -- Sir Henry Wotton, 1568-1639 % An amendment to a motion may be amended, but an amendment to an amendment to a motion may not be amended. However, a substitute for an amendment to and amendment to a motion may be adopted and the substitute may be amended. -- The Montana legislature's contribution to the English language. % An American is a man with two arms and four wheels. -- A Chinese child % An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, "Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --" Bohr chuckled. "I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not." % An American tourist is visiting Russia, and he's talking with a Russian about the fact that not many people in Russia own cars. American: "I can't believe you don't have cars here! How do you get to work?" Russian: "We take the bus, or the subway. We have public transportation everywhere." A: "Well, how do you go on vacations?" R: "We take the train." A: "Well, what if you want to go abroad?" R: "We don't ever want go abroad." A: "Well, what if you really HAVE to go abroad?" R: "We take tanks." % An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the president but is always polite to traffic cops. % An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax. -- David Letterman % An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths. -- Karl Kraus % An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping that it will eat him last. -- Sir Winston Churchill, 1954 % An apple a day makes 365 apples a year. % An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. % An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. % An atheist is a man with no invisible means of support. % An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways. -- Isaac Asimov % An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato or a, not too French, french bean must excite your languid spleen. For, if you walk down Picadilly with a poppy or lily in your medieval hand, every one will say, as you walk your flowery way; "If this young man is content, with a vegetable love which would certainly not content me. Why, what a very pure young man this pure young man must be!" -- W. S. Gilbert, "Patience" [The subject of the humour is of course, Oscar Wilde] % An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." % An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know. % An avocado-tone refrigerator would look good on your resume. % An economist is a man who would marry Farrah Fawcett-Majors for her money. % An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff. -- Adlai Stevenson % An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. % An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in small as in great matters. -- Winston Churchill % An egghead is one who stands firmly on both feet, in mid-air, on both sides of an issue. -- Homer Ferguson % An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his usual pledge to the United Way Campaign. "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but I've already paid them half of it." "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!" % An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. % An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny. % An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN. % An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!" % An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert % An evil mind is a great comfort. % An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha." -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" % An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. % ...an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and quite often picturesque liar. -- Mark Twain % An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a very narrow field. -- Niels Bohr % An expert is a person who avoids the small errors as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. -- Benjamin Stolberg % An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely nothing about everything. % An eye in a blue face Saw an eye in a green face. "That eye is like this eye" Said the first eye, "But in low place, Not in high place." % An Hacker there was, one of the finest sort Who controlled the system; graphics was his sport. A manly man, to be a wizard able; Many a protected file he had sitting on his table. His console, when he typed, a man might hear Clicking and feeping wind as clear, Aye, and as loud as does the machine room bell Where my lord Hacker was Prior of the cell. The Rule of good St Savage or St Doeppnor As old and strict he tended to ignore; He let go by the things of yesterday And took the modern world's more spacious way. He did not rate that text as a plucked hen Which says that Hackers are not holy men. And that a hacker underworked is a mere Fish out of water, flapping on the pier. That is to say, a hacker out of his cloister. That was a text he held not worth an oyster. And I agreed and said his views were sound; Was he to study till his head wend round Poring over books in the cloisters? Must he toil As Andy bade and till the very soil? Was he to leave the world upon the shelf? Let Andy have his labor to himself! -- Chaucer [well, almost. Ed.] % An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought. -- Simon Cameron There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians. When bought they stay bought. -- Bill Moyers % An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" % An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as possible. -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann" % An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. % An idealist is one who helps the other fellow to make a profit. -- Henry Ford % An idle mind is worth two in the bush. % An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured. -- Konrad Adenauer % An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -- Albert Camus % An interpretation I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated by the corresponding row and column labels. -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial Intelligence" % An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. -- Benjamin Franklin % An old man is lying on his deathbed with all his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered around, teary-eyed at the approaching finale of a deeply loved family member. The old man is in a light coma, and the doctors have confirmed that the waiting will be over within the next twenty-four hours. Suddenly, the old man opens his eyes whispers: "I must be dreaming of heaven... I smell my daughter Lisle's strudel." "No, no, grandfather, you are not dreaming", he is reassured. "Grandmother is baking strudel right now." A faint smile crosses the old man's face. "Go and get me a sliver of strudel," he says, "she bakes the finest strudel in the world." One of the grandchildren is immediately dispatched to honor the old man's request, and, after what seems a long time, he returns empty-handed. "Did you bring me some of Lisle's strudel?", the old man quavers. "I'm... I'm very sorry, grandfather, but she says it's for the funeral." % An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience. -- Don Marquis % An optimist is a man who looks forward to marriage. A pessimist is a married optimist. % An ounce of clear truth is worth a pound of obfuscation. % An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition. -- Michael Korda % An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest. -- Spanish proverb % An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge. % Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. % And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless." Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess. That was long, long ago, and each day since that day, I've worried and worried and worried away. Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart, I've worried about it with all of my heart. "BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear! UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better - it's not. So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall. "It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all! "You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds. And truffula trees are what everyone needs. Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care. Give it clean water and feed it fresh air. Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack. Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!" -- Dr. Seuss, "The Lorax" % And as we stand on the edge of darkness Let our chant fill the void That others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC. % And did those feet, in ancient times, Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God In England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon these crowded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spears! O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire! I shall not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword rest in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land. -- William Blake, "Jerusalem" % And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel? % And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. -- Kahlil Gibran % And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower. "This," cried the Mayor, "is your town's darkest hour! The time for all Whos who have blood that is red to come to the aid of their country!" he said. "We've GOT to make noises in greater amounts! So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!" Thus he spoke as he climbed. When they got to the top, the lad cleared his throat and he shouted out, "YOPP!" And that Yopp... That one last small, extra Yopp put it over! Finally, at last! From the speck on that clover their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean. And they elephant smiled. "Do you see what I mean?" They've proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the smallest of All!" "How true! Yes, how true," said the big kangaroo. "And, from now on, you know what I'm planning to do? From now on, I'm going to protect them with you!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "ME TOO! From the sun in the summer. From rain when it's fall-ish, I'm going to protect them. No matter how small-ish!" -- Dr. Seuss, "Horton Hears a Who" % And here I wait so patiently Waiting to find out what price You have to pay to get out of Going thru all of these things twice -- Dylan, "Memphis Blues Again" % And I alone am returned to wag the tail. % And I heard Jeff exclaim, As they strolled out of sight, "Merry Christmas to all -- You take credit cards, right?" -- "Outsiders" comic % And I suppose the little things are harder to get used to than the big ones. The big ones you get used to, you make up your mind to them. The little things come along unexpectedly, when you aren't thinking about them, aren't braced against them. -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, "The Forbidden Tower" % And I will do all these good works, and I will do them for free! My only reward will be a tombstone that says "Here lies Gomez Addams -- he was good for nothing." -- Jack Sharkey, The Addams Family % And if California slides into the ocean, Like the mystics and statistics say it will. I predict this motel will be standing, Until I've paid my bill. -- Warren Zevon, "Desperados Under the Eaves" % And if sometime, somewhere, someone asketh thee, "Who kilt thee?", tell them it 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy! % And if you wonder, What I am doing, As I am heading for the sink. I am spitting out all the bitterness, Along with half of my last drink. % And in the heartbreak years that lie ahead, Be true to yourself and the Grateful Dead. -- Joan Baez % And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones % And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man. -- A. E. Housman % And miles to go before I sleep. % And now for something completely the same. % And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines, The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts, And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs. We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb, But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover, Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged- Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage And code in a queue Have been biding their time, Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs, We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme. Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead. We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed. Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab. You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean hand... % And on the eighth day, we bulldozed it. % And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. % And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own. -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words % ...and report cards I was always afraid to show Mama'd come to school and as I'd sit there softly cryin' Teacher'd say he's just not tryin' Got a good head if he'd apply it but you know yourself it's always somewhere else I'd build me a castle with dragons and kings and I'd ride off with them As I stood by my window and looked out on those Brooklyn roads -- Neil Diamond, "Brooklyn Roads" % And so it was, later, As the miller told his tale, That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale. -- Procol Harum % And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it looking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One approach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin is turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but then of course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insides gradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So this procedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whom youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" % And that's the way it is... -- Walter Cronkite % And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden silence, turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said. Wide-eyed, the Child raised his voice and said once again, "Why, the Emperor has no clothes! He is naked!" -- "The Emperor's New Clothes" % And the French medical anatomist Etienne Serres really did argue that black males are primitive because the distance between their navel and penis remains small (relative to body height) throughout life, while white children begin with a small separation but increase it during growth -- the rising belly button as a mark of progress. -- S. J. Gould, "Racism and Recapitulation" % And the silence came surging softly backwards When the plunging hooves were gone... -- Walter de La Mare, "The Listeners" % And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit. % And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" % And this is good old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, And the Cabots talk only to God. % And tomorrow will be like today, only more so. -- Isaiah 56:12, New Standard Version % And we heard him exclaim As he started to roam: "I'm a hologram, kids, please don't try this at home!'" -- Bob Violence % And what accomplished villains these old engineers were! What diabolical ways to sabotage they found! Nikolai Karlovich von Meck, of the People's Commissariat of Railroads ... would hold forth for hours on end about the economic problems involved in the construction of socialism, and he loved to give advice. One such pernicious piece of advice was to increase the size of freight trains and not worry about heavier than average loads. The GPU exposed van Meck, and he was shot: his objective had been to wear out rails and roadbeds, freight cars and locomotives, so as to leave the Republic without railroads in case of foreign military intervention! When, not long afterward, the new People's Commissar of Railroads ordered that average loads should be increased, and even doubled and tripled them, the malicious engineers who protested became known as limiters ... they were rightly shot for their lack of faith in the possibilities of socialist transport. -- Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago" % And... What in the world ever became of Sweet Jane? She's lost her sparkle, you see she isn't the same. Livin' on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine All a friend can say is "Ain't it a shame?" -- The Grateful Dead % And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet been man enough to know its value. -- Charles Dickens % And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have a sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks tragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meets tragedy face to face, we have politics. -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and Ground Cover" % And you can't get any Watney's Red Barrel, because the bars close every time you're thirsty... % "And, you know, I mustn't preach to you, but surely it wouldn't be right for you to take away people's pleasure of studying your attire, by just going and making yourself like everybody else. You feel that, don't you?" said he, earnestly. -- William Morris, "Notes from Nowhere" % Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes. Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _n_e_e_d_s heroes. -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo" % Andrea's Admonition: Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, it isn't and he can. % ANDROPHOBIA: Fear of men. % Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Lehrer % Anger is momentary madness. -- Horace % Anger kills as surely as the other vices. % Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself. -- Lazarus Long % Ankh if you love Isis. % Announcing the NEW VAX 11/782!! Be the envy of other major Communist Governments! Defend yourself against the entire ICBM force of the imperialist USA with just one of the processors, at the same time you're designing missile ICs, cracking secret NATO codes and editing propaganda for your own people all at the same time with the other! (Well, you really can't, but the Americans think you can, and that's the point, right?) % Anoint, v: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Another day, another dollar. -- Vincent J. Fuller, defense lawyer for John Hinckley, upon Hinckley's acquittal for shooting President Ronald Reagan. % Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Hocus Pocus" % Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. % Another megabytes the dust. % Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *_a_n_d* fresher breath. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" % Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone. -- Pyrrhus % Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. -- Proverbs, 26:5 % 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. % Antique fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood. Modern fairy tale: Oswald, acting alone, shot Kennedy. % Anti-trust laws should be approached with exactly that attitude. % Antonio Antonio Was tired of living alonio He thought he would woo Antonio Antonio Miss Lucamy Lu, Rode of on his polo ponio Miss Lucamy Lucy Molonio. And found the maid In a bowery shade, Sitting and knitting alonio. Antonio Antonio Said if you will be my ownio I'll love tou true Oh nonio Antonio And buy for you You're far too bleak and bonio An icery creamry conio. And all that I wish You singular fish Is that you will quickly begonio. Antonio Antonio Uttered a dismal moanio And went off and hid Or I'm told that he did In the Antartical Zonio. % Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. % Anxious after the delay, Gruber doesn't waste any time getting the Koenig [a modified Porsche] up to speed, and almost immediately we are blowing off Alfas, Fiats, and Lancias full of excited Italians. These people love fast cars. But they love sport too and no passing encounter goes unchallenged. Nothing serious, just two wheels into your lane as you're bearing down on them at 130-plus -- to see if you're paying attention. -- Road & Track article about driving two absurdly fast cars across Europe. % Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable, and three parts which are still under development. % Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe % Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die? -- Charles Lindbergh % Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. -- Richard Schickel % Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop % Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a whole week. % Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. % Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of sense to know how to lie well. -- Samuel Butler % Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid. -- Hedy Lamarr % Any given program, when running, is obsolete. % Any given program will expand to fill available memory. % Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. -- Solomon Short % Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible corner. % Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of season, under every discouragement, by the power of truth -- that requires a heroism which is transcendent. -- Henry Ward Beecher % Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad. -- Leo Rosten, on W.C. Fields % Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat. -- Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London % Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris % Any president should have the right to shoot at least two people a year without explanation. -- Herbert Hoover, discussing the press % Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent. -- Lazarus Long % Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of indirection. -- David Wheeler % Any program which runs right is obsolete. % Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. % Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain. -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune" % Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. % Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. -- Milt Barber % Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke % Any sufficiently simple directive can be obfuscated beyond reason given proper legal counsel. -- Alfred Perlstein % Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. % Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. % Anybody has a right to evade taxes if he can get away with it. No citizen has a moral obligation to assist in maintaining his government. -- J. P. Morgan % Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office. -- David Broder % 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 become angry -- that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way -- that is not easy. -- Aristotle % Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley % Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publilius Syrus % Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none. % Anyone can say "no." It is the first word a child learns and often the first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of thought on every occasion. -- Chuck Jones (Warner Bros. animation director.) % Anyone stupid enough to be caught by the police is probably guilty. % Anyone taking offence at fortune(s) is desperately lacking beer, in my extremely humble opinion. -- Philip Paeps % 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 considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- R. Heinlein % Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence. -- Tasnim Aslam, Spokesman for Pakistani Foreign Ministry % Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -- Samuel Goldwyn % Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. -- Elizabeth Zwicky % Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six more things than someone who hasn't. -- Mark Twain % Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries, knows nothing about grapes. -- Philippus Paracelsus % Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot. -- Groucho Marx % Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never tried taking candy from a baby. -- Robin Hood % Anything anybody can say about America is true. -- Emmett Grogan % Anything cut to length will be too short. % Anything free is worth what you pay for it. % Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. % Anything is possible on paper. -- Ron McAfee % Anything is possible, unless it's not. % 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 that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth. -- Max Beerbohm, "Mainly on the Air" % Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. % Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around -- nobody big, I mean -- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff -- I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. I know it; I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy. -- J. D. Salinger, "Catcher in the Rye" % Apathy Club meeting this Friday. If you want to come, you're not invited. % Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution. % APHASIA: Loss of speech in social scientists when asked at parties, "But of what use is your research?" % aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement. afterism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -- James Alexander Thom % APL hackers do it in the quad. % APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 % APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; ...and is best for educational purposes. -- A. Perlis % APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir % Appearances often are deceiving. -- Aesop % APPENDIX: A portion of a book, for which nobody yet has discovered any use. % Applause, n.: The echo of a platitude from the mouth of a fool. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % April is the cruelest month... -- Thomas Stearns Eliot % 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. % AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18) A friend will step forward and confide in you about your breath. Rely on your outgoing personality and winning smile to get you into a lot of trouble. Be relaxed, things will change. Look for a pink slip on payday. Stop wetting your bed. % AQUARIUS (Jan.20 - Feb.18) You are the type of person who never has enough money to do what you want. Don't expect things to get any better today, either. As a matter of fact they might get worse. Intensify your relationship with your bank and any friends you have who might be able to lend you a few bucks. % Aquavit is also considered useful for medicinal purposes, an essential ingredient in what I was once told is the Norwegian cure for the common cold. You get a bottle, a poster bed, and the brightest colored stocking cap you can find. You put the cap on the post at the foot of the bed, then get into bed and drink aquavit until you can't see the cap. I've never tried this, but it sounds as though it should work. -- Peter Nelson % Arbitrary systems, pl.n.: Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing general can be said." % ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE -- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE % Are we not men? % Are we running light with overbyte? % Are Women Human? In the year 584, in Lyon, France, 43 Catholic bishops and 20 men representing other bishops, after a lengthy debate, took a vote. The results were 32 yes, 31 no. Women were declared human by one vote. % Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Are you sure you're telling the truth? Think hard. Does it make you happy to know you're sending me to an early grave? If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump too? Do you feel bad? How do you think I feel? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Don't you know any better? How could you be so stupid? If that's the worst pain you'll ever feel, you should be thankful. You can't fool me. I know what you're thinking. If you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. % Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Do as I say, not as I do. Do me a favour and don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. What did you do *this* time? If it didn't taste bad, it wouldn't be good for you. When I was your age... I won't love you if you keep doing that. Think of all the starving children in India. If there's one thing I hate, it's a liar. I'm going to kill you. Way to go, clumsy. If you don't like it, you can lump it. % Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Go away. You bother me. Why? Because life is unfair. That's a nice drawing. What is it? Children should be seen and not heard. You'll be the death of me. You'll understand when you're older. Because. Wipe that smile off your face. I don't believe you. How many times have I told you to be careful? Just because. % Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... Good children always obey. Quit acting so childish. Boys don't cry. If you keep making faces, someday it'll freeze that way. Why do you have to know so much? This hurts me more than it hurts you. Why? Because I'm bigger than you. Well, you've ruined everything. Now are you happy? Oh, grow up. I'm only doing this because I love you. % Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... When are you going to grow up? I'm only doing this for your own good. Why are you crying? Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about. What's wrong with you? Someday you'll thank me for this. You'd lose your head if it weren't attached. Don't you have any sense at all? If you keep sucking your thumb, it'll fall off. Why? Because I said so. I hope you have a kid just like yourself. % Are you a parent? Do you sometimes find yourself unsure as to what to say in those awkward situations? Worry no more... You wouldn't understand. You ask too many questions. In order to be a man, you have to learn to follow orders. That's for me to know and you to find out. Don't let those bullies push you around. Go in there and stick up for yourself. You're acting too big for your britches. Well, you broke it. Now are you satisfied? Wait till your father gets home. Bored? If you're bored, I've got some chores for you. Shape up or ship out. % Are you a turtle? % Are you making all this up as you go along? % Are you sure the back door is locked? % Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. -- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul % Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion. -- Oscar Wilde % 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. % ARIES (Mar.21 - Apr.19) You are a wonderfully interesting, honest, hard-working person and you should make many new friends, but you won't because you've got a mean streak in you a mile wide. % ARITHMETIC: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries. % Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse % ARMADILLO: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle. % Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region, rioted over much needed spelling reform in the Soviet Union. -- P. J. O'Rourke % Armor's Axiom: Virtue is the failure to achieve vice. % Armstrong's Collection Law: If the check is truly in the mail, it is surely made out to someone else. % Arnold's Addendum: Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. % Arnold's Laws of Documentation: 1.) If it should exist, it doesn't. 2.) If it does exist, it's out of date. 3.) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. % Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % Around the turn of this century, a composer named Camille Saint-Saens wrote a satirical zoological-fantasy called "Le Carnaval des Animaux." Aside from one movement of this piece, "The Swan", Saint-Saens didn't allow this work to be published or even performed until a year had elapsed after his death. (He died in 1921.) Most of us know the "Swan" movement rather well, with its smooth, flowing cello melody against a calm background; but I've been having this fantasy... What if he had written this piece with lyrics, as a song to be sung? And, further, what if he had accompanied this song with a musical saw? (This instrument really does exist, often played by percussionists!) Then the piece would be better known as: SAINT-SAENS' SAW SONG "SWAN"! % Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here." -- Muad'dib, "Dune" % Art is a jealous mistress. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth. -- Picasso % Art is anything you can get away with. -- Marshall McLuhan % Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -- Paul Gauguin % Art is Nature speeded up and God slowed down. -- Chazal % "Art" is the ability to separate the significant from the insignificant. -- Poul Henningsen [1894-1967] % Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. % 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. % Article the Third: Where a crime of the kidneys has been committed, the accused should enjoy the right to a speedy diaper change. Public announcements and guided tours of the aforementioned are not necessary. Article the Fourth: The decision to eat strained lamb or not should be with the "feedee" and not the "feeder". Blowing the strained lamb into the feeder's face should be accepted as an opinion, not as a declaration of war. Article the Fifth: Babies should enjoy the freedom to vocalize, whether it be in church, a public meeting place, during a movie, or after hours when the lights are out. They have not yet learned that joy and laughter have to last a lifetime and must be conserved. -- Erma Bombeck, "A Baby's Bill of Rights" % Artificial intelligence has the same relation to intelligence as artificial flowers have to flowers. -- David Parnas % Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. % As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. % As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask, "that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ... -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" % As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls. -- Matt Cartmill % As an Englishman, an Aussie and a Scotsman are sitting in a pub, quaffing a few, three flies buzz down from the ceiling and lazily circle each drinker. Suddenly "buzzzzzzzzplooop", each fly does a kamakazi dive into a different glass. The Englishman take a disgusted look at his pint, dips the fly out with a spoon, flicks the fly over his shoulder, and drains the glass. The Aussie notices the fly as he puts the glass to his lips. With a quick puff he blows the bug out in a cloud of foam, and tosses the beer down in one gulp. Then, as they both look on, awestruck, the Scotsman gently grasps the fly by its wings, lifts it out of his brew and shakes it off. Then, in a firm voice he speaks to the fly: "There y'are now laddie, safe and sound. NOW SPIT IT OOOOT!" % As crazy as hauling timber into the woods. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) % As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off. -- Joseph Brodsky % 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 flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. -- Shakespeare, "King Lear" % As for the women, though we scorn and flout 'em, We may live with, but cannot live without 'em. -- Frederic Reynolds % As Gen. de Gaulle occasionally acknowledges America to be the daughter of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. -- John F. Kennedy % As goatherd learns his trade by goat, so writer learns his trade by wrote. % As he had feared, his orders had been forgotten and everyone had brought the potato salad. % As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are surprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. -- Steve Allen % As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very pleasurable - until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!! -- Jack Handey % As I thought, no better from this side. -- Eeyore % As I was going up Punch Card Hill, Feeling worse and worser, There I met a C.R.T. And it drop't me a cursor. C.R.T., C.R.T., Phosphors light on you! If I had fifty hours a day I'd spend them all at you. -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes % As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, How many losses at Project MAC? % As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day, I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay, The words were torn and tattered, From the storm the night before, The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes, Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer, Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear, Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar, And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star. Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigidaire, Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear, Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three, And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea. % As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name. -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie % As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies on the austerity of the word. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 % As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a real American talk like that. -- Frank Hague, 1896-1956 % As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? % As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later. % As 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, "Intentions" % As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly useful and interesting, I just had to share it. Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" 1. I salivate at the sight of mittens. 2. If I go into the street, I'm apt to be bitten by a horse. 3. Some people never look at me. 4. Spinach makes me feel alone. 5. My sex life is A-okay. 6. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. 7. I like to kill mosquitoes. 8. Cousins are not to be trusted. 9. It makes me embarrassed to fall down. 10. I get nauseous from too much roller skating. 11. I think most people would cry to gain a point. 12. I cannot read or write. 13. I am bored by thoughts of death. 14. I become homicidal when people try to reason with me. 15. I would enjoy the work of a chicken flicker. 16. I am never startled by a fish. 17. My mother's uncle was a good man. 18. I don't like it when somebody is rotten. 19. People who break the law are wise guys. 20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. % As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality. One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly useful and interesting, I just had to share it. Answer each of the following items "true" or "false" 1. I think beavers work too hard. 2. I use shoe polish to excess. 3. God is love. 4. I like mannish children. 5. I have always been disturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears. 6. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools. 7. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye. 8. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs. 9. I believe I smell as good as most people. 10. Frantic screams make me nervous. 11. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room full of mice. 12. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis. 13. A wide necktie is a sign of disease. 14. As a child I was deprived of licorice. 15. I would never shake hands with a gardener. 16. My eyes are always cold. 17. Cousins are not to be trusted. 18. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit. 19. I am never startled by a fish. 20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend. % As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape, The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape; It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field, An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel! Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie, Follow it through, me canny lad O; Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie, Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O! -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" % As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10. Please update your programs. % As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. Please update your programs. % As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. % As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of the valuable information the daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: how do I run C code received from sources Keywords: C sources Distribution: na I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that must be done? % As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging. -- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service conversion to a new computer system. % As some day it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list -- I've got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground And who never would be missed -- who never would be missed. -- Koko, "The Mikado" % As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 % As the 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 system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" % As to Jesus of Nazareth... I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. -- Benjamin Franklin % As well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. -- Miguel de Cervantes % 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 you grow older, you will still do foolish things, but you will do them with much more enthusiasm. -- The Cowboy % As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result, birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant. -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know" % As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the spider is suing you for damages. % As you will see, I told them, in no uncertain terms, to see Figure one. -- Dave "First Strike" Pare % As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." % Ascend to the high mountain pass, Cross the shallow side of the wide ocean. Do not give up to the great distance: It's by going that you will reach your aim. Be not discouraged by human frailty: You will overcome it if you try to. -- Chinggis (Genghis) Khan % ASCII: The control code for all beginning programmers and those who would become computer literate. Etymologically, the term has come down as a contraction of the often-repeated phrase "ascii and you shall receive." -- Robb Russon % ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer. % ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. % Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, If God won't have you, the devil must. % Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if one went to Harvard). -- Edgar R. Fiedler % Ask not for whom the Bell tolls, and you will pay only the station-to-station rate. -- Howard Kandel % Ask not for whom the tolls. % Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. % Ask not what's inside your head, but what your head's inside of. -- J. J. Gibson % Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. % Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. -- John Stuart Mill % Asked how she felt being the first woman to make a major-league team, she said, "Like a pig in mud," or words to that effect, and then turned and released a squirt of tobacco juice from the wad of rum soaked plug in her right cheek. She chewed a rare brand of plug called Stuff It, which she learned to chew when she was playing Nicaraguan summer ball. She told the writers, "They were so mean to me down there you couldn't write it in your newspaper. I took a gun everywhere I went, even to bed. *Especially* to bed. Guys were after me like you can't believe. That's when I started chewing tobacco -- because no matter how bad anybody treats you, it's not as bad as this. This is the worst chew in the world. After this, everything else is peaches and cream." The writers elected Gentleman Jim, the Sparrow's P.R. guy, to bite off a chunk and tell them how it tasted, and as he sat and chewed it tears ran down his old sunburnt cheeks and he couldn't talk for a while. Then he whispered, "You've been chewing this for two years? God, I had no idea it was so hard to be a woman." -- Garrison Keillor % Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs. -- Christopher Hampton % Ass, n.: The masculine of "lass". % Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity and understanding of how computers work that it provides. -- D. Gries % Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke. -- Stanley Walker % Astrology... just a bunch of Taurus. % Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems. -- D. Winker and F. Prosser % At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving a computer problem?" "Remember the twin paradox?" After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the computer here, and accelerate the earth!" The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. % At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow % At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my ignorance upon the shore. -- Kahlil Gibran % At first, I just did it on weekends. With a few friends, you know... We never wanted to hurt anyone. The girls loved it. We'd all sit around the computer and do a little UNIX. It was just a kick. At least that's what we thought. Then it got worse. It got so I'd have to do some UNIX during the weekdays. After a while, I couldn't even wake up in the morning without having that crave to go do UNIX. Then it started affecting my job. I would just have to do it during my break. Maybe a `grep' or two, maybe a little `more'. I eventually started doing UNIX just to get through the day. Of course, it screwed up my mind so much that I couldn't even function as a normal person. I'm lucky today, I've overcome my UNIX problem. It wasn't easy. If you're smart, just don't start. Remember, if any weirdo offers you some UNIX, Just Say No! % At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -- G. L. Glegg, "The Design of Design" % At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- "The Washington Post Magazine", June 9, 1985 % At last I've found the girl of my dreams. Last night she said to me, "Once more, Strange, and this time *I'll* be Donnie and *you* be Marie. -- Strange de Jim % At least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White % At least they're _E_X_P_E_R_I_E_N_C_E_D incompetents. % At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. -- Marshall Lumsden % At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously -- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. -- John Keats % At social gatherings, I would amuse everyone by standing uponst the coffee table and striking meself repeatedly upon the head with a brick. -- H. R. Gumby % At the end of your life there'll be a good rest, and no further activities are scheduled. % At the foot of the mountain, thunder: The image of Providing Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words And temperate in eating and drinking. % At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the field on track. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" % At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news to the patients. The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to die in six months. Go in and tell him." The intern boldly walks into the room, over to the man's bedside and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!" The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot. The doctor grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron? You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject. Now this man in 213 has about a week to live. Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me, gently!" The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!" "Wonderful day, no? Say... guess who's going to die soon!" % 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. % At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume. -- Peter G. Alaquon % At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool. -- Menander % At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying. % Atheism is a non-prophet organization. % ATLANTA: An entire city surrounded by an airport. % Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp. % Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. -- Winston Churchill % Attempting to stop MySQL by buying companies around it is like trying to kill a dolphin by drinking the ocean. -- Mårten Mickos % Attorney General Edwin Meese III explained why the Supreme Court's Miranda decision (holding that subjects have a right to remain silent and have a lawyer present during questioning) is unnecessary: "You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect." -- U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85 % AUCTION: A gyp off the old block. % Audacity, and again, audacity, and always audacity. -- G. J. Danton % audiophile, n: Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music. % Auribus teneo lupum. [I hold a wolf by the ears.] % AUTHENTIC: Indubitably true, in somebody's opinion. % Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb. -- Stanley Kaufman % Authors are easy to get on with -- if you're fond of children. -- Michael Joseph, "Observer" % Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. % Avec! % Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise, and balance. % Avoid cliches like the plague. They're a dime a dozen. % Avoid gunfire in the bathroom tonight. % Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" % Avoid reality at all costs. % Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you. -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student % Avoid strange women and temporary variables. % Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam in 1959. -- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. % Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % BACHELOR: A guy who is footloose and fiancee-free. % BACHELOR: A man who chases women and never Mrs. one. % Back in '80 or '81 the workers were rioting in Gdansk and there were fears that the Soviets would invade Poland to put down the demonstrations. Foreign correspondents were curious as to just what the Poles would do if they were invaded. They asked, "What will you do if the East Germans invade from the West and the Soviets invade from the East? Who will you fight first?" To which the Poles replied, "Why, we will fight the Germans first. Business before pleasure." % Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons. Some military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks. Since in those days, only Western Electric made "data sets" (modems) the problems of terminology were all Bell System. We used to struggle with written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people (most phones were rotary then.) Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote the "pound sign." Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out. It never really caught on. % Back when I was a boy, it was 40 miles to everywhere, uphill both ways and it was always snowing. % BACKWARD CONDITIONING: Putting saliva in a dog's mouth in an attempt to make a bell ring. % Bacon's not the only thing that's cured by hanging from a string. % BAD CRAZINESS, MAN!!! % Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live. -- Socrates % Bagbiter: 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING. % Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukulele. % Bahdges? We don't need no stinkin' bahdges! -- "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" % Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors. % BALLISTOPHOBIA: Fear of bullets; OTOPHOBIA: Fear of opening one's eyes. PECCATOPHOBIA: Fear of sinning. TAPHEPHOBIA: Fear of being buried alive. SITOPHOBIA: Fear of food. TRICHOPHOBIA: Fear of hair. VESTIPHOBIA: Fear of clothing. % BALTIMORE: A wharf-rat stealing Diogenes' lamp. % Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. % Banacek's Eighteenth Polish Proverb: The hippo has no sting, but the wise man would rather be sat upon by the bee. % Banectomy, n.: The removal of bruises on a banana. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. % Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. % Barbara's Rules of Bitter Experience: (1) When you empty a drawer for his clothes and a shelf for his toiletries, the relationship ends. (2) When you finally buy pretty stationary to continue the correspondence, he stops writing. % Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the floor -- especially in the dark. % Barker's Proof: Proofreading is more effective after publication. % 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. % Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers. -- Tom Lehrer % Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high taxes. -- Will Rogers % Basic Definitions of Science: If it's green or wiggles, it's biology. If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it doesn't work, it's physics. % Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. % BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of "Scientific Creationism." % BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing. -- Seymour Papert % Basic, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. % Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats. -- Woody Allen % Bathquake, n.: The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water faucet is turned on to a certain point. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Batteries not included. % Battle, n.: A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that will not yield to the tongue. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. % BE A LOOF! (There has been a recent population explosion of lerts.) % BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...) % Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" % Be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. -- Homer % Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. % Be careful! Is it classified? % Be careful! UGLY strikes 9 out of 10! % Be careful how you get yourself involved with persons or situations that can't bear inspection. % Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain % Be careful what you set your heart on -- for it will surely be yours. -- James Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name" % Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. % Be careful when you bite into your hamburger. -- Derek Bok % Be cautious in your daily affairs. % Be cheerful while you are alive. -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C. % Be circumspect in your liaisons with women. It is better to be seen at the opera with a man than at mass with